𝟑𝟎 𝐃𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐥

~~ 73. ~~

"Is that how rude you always are?" Mrs. Jolaoluwa asked with a small frown on her face.

Bertha just looked away without answering her.

"You can't understand. If only you experience what I or your mother did, you won't be here talking to me in that rude tone."

"That doesn't mean you should hurt him. Can't you see that he is in pain? Don't you have a heart?" The lady spat.

"Ber.. tha." The father called and he moved his hand slowly, touching her.

But the girl wasn't looking in her father's direction. She was still glaring at Mrs. Jolaoluwa.

She had heard about how Mrs. Jolaoluwa was nothing but just a maid to her mother some years ago. And her mother had told her that she had once tried to take her place. She wanted to be her father's wife and she was pushing her bastard child to her father claiming he was his father's.

And she had hated her even before she met her. Her mother's enemy was her enemy. And she had hoped that she never meet them.

But not until three years ago that things started turning upside down. First was her accident, then her mother losing three of her shipments of goods, her younger brother's expulsion, her grandmother's sudden death, the false accusation on her dad that he took a huge bribe while he was the chief judge and so many other calamities before his sickness.

And it wasn't any better when they learned that their present calamity was because of what her parents had done in the past to a certain someone. And they need to receive wholehearted forgiveness and prayers from them for everything to be back to normal.

Aside from her uncle and her elder brother who was really sorry and wanted to do anything to have her there, no one else was. And she was included. She wondered why they need to ask for forgiveness from the woman who was just a maid and a husband snatcher and whose son had miraculously topped the millionaire chart.

If not because of their present predicament, she doesn't think they were anything compared to her family. Her father was wealthy and influential too. But everything had to be turned upside down because of them.

And she thinks that Mrs. Jolaoluwa was there just to hurt and mock them. And also oppress her mother because she had come dressed in an expensive lace cord, necklace, and earrings which cost more than all their wardrobe at the moment.

"I don't know what they told you... But listen, young lady. He isn't in any pain. He is not feeling pain right now. The worst pain is here and here." She pointed to her head and her chest simultaneously. "It is deeper than the one on the outside. Do you know how it feels to be destroyed emotionally, mentally, and physically? Do you know what it feels like to be hurt emotionally repeatedly? Do you know the physical pain I went through at the hand of the woman that is your mother? I don't pray you experience it. No, I don't pray that for you. For you to be lied to, for you to be brought low, for you to be stepped upon or to fall for the wrong man. It is not something I pray for my enemy. That pain in your heart seeing the man who gave you so much hope, so many beautiful promises end up with someone else and realizing you were just a game of pawns and you are nothing more than a rag doll with no importance. Just a toy of amusement. But you are so blindly in love that all you can do is endure, hope and hope and hope."

"Then you should have learned your lesson and walked away. You don't have to have made things harder for everyone." Bertha scowled.

The woman shook her head in pity.

"You don't know anything. You haven't experienced anything in this life. You were brought up in wealth. You have everything. You have all the good things in this life. But a child didn't. Someone didn't. Let me ask you a question. What would you have felt if you and your mother is thrown out after being accused of stealing or the fact you have a father who knows about your existence but he choose to ignore you and your mother and you grew up not able to eat two meals a day, have to work and struggle all your life despite you know you have a wealthy father somewhere that can change your life forever? How would you feel? Just think about it. No money, no car, no father's love, no good house, no good school, no good meal. You have to work fourteen to sixteen hours a day just to eat something. Tell me how you would have felt knowing you have a father with children your age enjoying all these things you are working so hard to get."