Aeipathy ➳ Normani ✓

twenty-four

C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - F O U R
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Keith came rushing back into the room after half an hour right after his dad.

"Where is your mother?" he asked.

"In Matilda's room," Keith replied, "she's praying."

Mr Ikande only nodded and checked the time on his watch. He'd left the room forty-five minutes ago along with Keith, while Normani and Joseph stayed in the waiting room with Ayoola. He'd been back for a short ten minutes and the room had been held in an oppressive silence.

The other couple Normani had seen when she'd first arrived had left after they'd received the unfortunate news of their loved one passing on.

Matilda's friend and her parents had been encouraged to go home long before the big drama of the paternity test so it was just them in that waiting room.

"Papa, no matter what happens after today, please, don't abandon Matilda," Keith said worriedly.

Normani though that he was brave for voicing the concerns everyone else had been too afraid to.

"You must think me a man of no honour," Mr Ikande said with narrowed eyes, "what kind of man do you think I am that I would involve Matilda in this mess? I am the only father she has ever known and it will remain that way. Get out of my face if all you want to talk is foolishness."

Keith visibly shrank away from his father and moved a seat away from him. He took out his phone and fiddled with it, a dark look shadowed his features.

He looked burdened and Normani felt for him, she truly did. For a moment, she wanted to pass Ayoola's fatigued body over to Joseph so she could go to the man she still so deeply loved and hold him like she used to.

But she knew better than that.

"Master," Ayoola said. She was laying against Normani's side. Her voice was meek from fear of Mr Ikande because as much as she was curious for answers, she still revered him with a god-like awe. The man terrified her in every sense even though she hadn't had much interaction with him.

Mr Ikande looked at her pitiful form and waited for her to finish her sentence.

"Abeg, will you tell me?"

Mr Ikande nodded and while Normani kept a tight hold over the space under her ribs, Mr Ikande told the story of how he, Angela and Sonia's lives had first interconnected a summer twenty-seven years ago.

According to Mr Ikande, he'd gone to visit an uncle that lived in a village 100KM East of Abuja and it was where Angelina and Sonia lived.

He'd been romantically involved with Angelina and planned to marry her in the following six months, they'd consummated their relationship once. One night he'd had too much to drink and had slept with Sonia, too.

Sonia's family demanded he marry her for taking her innocence and once Angelina had caught word of this, she refused to see him. He and Sonia were married within the next six months and by then, Angelina had moved on to Chiko and was pregnant. The rest was history.

When Mr Ikande asked Ayoola how it had truly come about that she came to work for them because he no longer believed Sonia's version.

Ayoola had told them all that a year after her mother and the man she knew to be her father, Chiko, had passed away in a motor accident, Mrs Ikande had arrived at their homestead to speak to their aunt.

Although Ayoola was too young to remember what those days had been like, she knew things hadn't been completely alright. There were nights she and her aunt could afford only to eat garri and drink the municipal water that only came out of the taps sometimes.