Battered Wife

8

I stared out at the large and bustling city around me without any focus on the cars driving past, the pedestrians trekking or the roadside vendors peddling their wares.

My mind was still locked in thought due to what happened during the weekend and I was still contemplating fighting a divorce battle for custody of my daughter or staying with a serial cheater of an husband and hoping that he changes one day.

After my conversation with my mother, I'd laid in my car thinking until well past 7:00am which was the end of the break time Aunty Joy had given me.

Occasionally, I contemplated rushing off to bathe, get dressed in the clothes Folake had given me and returning to the camp of women working on the meals to be served at the burial party. However, anger at the fact that I was treated like nothing at such an important event while my husband's mistress frolicked around like a special guest, even daring to have an affair with him in such a public setting, made me lay on my back and refuse to get up. It was only around 9:00am that my family upbringing and sense of responsibility had pushed me to return to work with Aunty Joy and the caterers after receiving a good scolding from Aunty Joy.

Of course before that, I just lay in my car stewing over the state of my marriage. I was filled with outrage at the fact that my mother-in-law didn't like me, didn't respect me and didn't think I was important enough to warrant her son being faithful to me because I didn't have a male child.

It made me sick to my stomach thinking about how I would spend my entire day working as an errand girl at a funeral that had nothing to do with me while my husband took the opportunity to show his mistress around his hometown, holding hands with her and making me a laughingstock.

It also made me stick to my stomach that I might have to find a way to reconcile with Remi and sleep with him again just to try to have a male child to 'further his lineage'. And then after suffering through 9 months of a difficult pregnancy and birth, that male child would essentially belong to his family like my daughter and taking him out of the family would be so difficult.

I also couldn't help thinking other things too. What if I couldn't have a male child? What if God's will was for me to keep having daughters over and over? Was I going to degrade my life value to whether I could have a son or not for a man I no longer loved and a man whose actions and disregard over the past few years had chilled my heart?

What if I became like Mama Arike, one of Auntie Joy's daughter-in-laws, who had been thrown out of the family by Auntie Joy's third son and replaced with a new younger wife despite giving birth to a son?

Was my fate now to be determined by the probability of having a son to satisfy Remi's mother and hoping that Remi would quickly have his fill after cheating to his heart's content.

"Miss? A penny for your thoughts?" A voice interrupted.

"Ah!" I had been so deep in my thought that the strange voice sent my heart skittling far on a race as if it was going to beat out of my heart.

Startled by the stranger, I stepped away from the rails on the company's building's rooftops and moved away from it, looking down at the distance of ten floors I would have been thrown down if I'd been startled too badly.

"Are you trying to commit murder? Did my enermies send you to me?!" I yelled, glaring furiously at the man who had come knocking on my car door.

All the good feelings accumulated from feeling bad about my rude response to his questions when we met dissipating immediately.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to startle you." He apologized, taking a few steps away from. Me as if i was some kind of man-eating monster.

I turned away from him, looking down to the ground and trying to get hold of my anger. "Why are you here?" I asked sullenly without looking at him.