If you haven’t read the first part of this story, here’s the link. Kindly read it before starting this one.

It got moody in the house. My wife’s sister will see me and walk past me. My wife would see me and give me a cold shoulder. The only people I had in my corner were my kids. My wife would be in her sister’s room all evening talking about only God knows what. It was like me against them. When she needed something, she will text me during the day when I was at work so she wouldn’t have to talk to me about it. It even affected our sex life—our happiness and everything that once kept us gelled. As I indicated in the first story, I didn’t want to push things to the extent that there would be hatred between me and my wife’s family. I needed someone to see a reason. Someone to reason with me and say, “Yeah, you’re right. It’s time for her to go.” No one was doing that and it left me alone on the other side of things.

I closed from work one Friday evening and called my friend David for a hangout. I didn’t want to go home because there was nothing in the hour for me. Also, I wanted to see if she would call to enquire about my whereabouts. She did that often when she realized that I was late for home. I was with David until 10 pm and my wife didn’t call. I kept looking at my phone, maybe she had called and I didn’t hear. No call. David saw my disposition and felt there was something wrong with me. He said, “You want to go home?” I told him, “No I don’t have to. If you have time we can stay here all night.” He asked, “Your wife hasn’t called you?” I answered, “No, she hasn’t.” He said, “Eiii then your own good ooo. Come and see my phone. I have hundred missed calls from Mrs.”

I told him, “If everything was right between us, she would have called too. She is not calling because all is not well. David positioned his seat well. He said, “Bro what’s up? Are you guys fighting? You of all people, fighting?” 

So I took my time and narrated the whole story to him. I asked, “Bro, am I being petty?” He said, “But your wife should know better? let’s even put that one aside. What about her sister? Isn’t she capable of rational thoughts? Give me a space for a while and now you’re staying there forever and she has the audacity to get angry because you asked for what is rightfully yours?” Something is not right.” And then he asked me, “So, is that the reason why your wife doesn’t talk to you?” I nodded my head. He said, “Women always come around. They would be angry for a while but they would come around later if you give them space. But the most important thing now is to find ways and means to push her sister out. Your wife would be angry but later she would come around.”

I told him, “Those ways and means are what I’m looking for now. I don’t want to do things gidigidi. It would bruise the frail relationship we have. I’ve had the patience to see if she would make an attempt to leave but she’s still there. That means I will need more patience to put up with her.” Out of nowhere, David started laughing. I was looking at him and wondering if he was getting mad. He said, “Let me tell you something crazy. I don’t know if it would work but it worked for me even when I didn’t know I needed it.”

David’s wife came to the marriage with her junior sister. Her junior sister had completed the SHS and was waiting for her results. When the results came, David’s wife had the intention to make her sister live with them while going to school. He didn’t protest. In fact, they were alone so they needed her presence. He said one early morning, he was sitting at the hall with his wife when her junior sister walked by in a very skimpy dress that showed almost all her body. “You know my wife and the kind of flesh she has. It runs in the family. So when her sister passed by looking like that, I couldn’t take off my eyes. My wife caught me looking at her and made a weird face. A week later, her sister was gone. She didn’t even tell me she was sending her sister away. It’s been the two of us since. So if you like, start giving her senior sister attention. I swear she would be gone in seconds. You know wives and their jealousy.”

One day I knocked at her sister’s door and went inside. She was sitting on the bed reading so I sat next to her. I gave her my apology. I told her I’d acted based on the wrong assumption so she should forgive me. “Yeah, I should have known where I picked my wife from. If nothing at all, I should have considered that and given you the greatest respect. Forgive me. It won’t happen again.” Her eyes shone brighter than the bulb. She smiled subtly. She said, “That’s ok. It happens. I’m even on the market searching for a new place. Maybe I’ve overstayed too.”

I was inside with her when my wife entered. She didn’t knock. She saw me sitting next to her sister and she looked at me someway. I excused myself and left. I know they discussed the reason why I was there. I know her senior sister would speak about my apology and I know they will be surprised. The next Saturday, I met her sister in town and we sat somewhere. “It’s part of the making up process.” She laughed. “You don’t have to do all that. I understand.” 

I could go to her room at any time. sometimes deep in the night when my wife was sleeping. When I see her light on, I will knock and enter. When it’s Saturday, I will take her out and leave my wife and the kids home. When I came home and she wasn’t there I will wait for her in the hall until she comes. One night, she was wearing her nightie when she joined us at the hall. I said, “Eiish, you’re looking very sweet. All this just to sleep alone?” My wife looked at me some way. When we went to sleep, she warned me, “You don’t have to do that in my presence. You’re sending the wrong signals.” I said, “I only joked with her, nothing else. She screamed, “IT’s a joke so you must say all that to her?” I turned my face to the wall and pretended I was sleeping. I told myself, ‘It’s working.”

On December 31st when the church closed around 12 am, I didn’t go home straight. I joined some group of friends and sat outside for a while. My wife called to ask me where I was and I told her. She asked me, “Is my sister there with you? I said no. She said, “Why are you lying to me?” She didn’t believe anything I said. I hang up the call and called her sister.  She said she was also in town. I asked if my wife had called her and she said no.” Her sister wasn’t home and I was also not home so she thought we were out together. When I got home, she was sitting in the hall wearing a long face. I went straight to the bedroom. I don’t know the time her sister came back but I don’t think it would be far apart. 

That night we fought. For the first time, the fight was about her sister. She said, “I don’t blame you. Everything is my fault. I know what I will do.” I was in my corner the next day when I saw the two of them taking turns to listen to a call from my wife’s phone. Their expression wasn’t friendly. They were both angry. It could have been their mother talking to them, I didn’t care. Her elder sister started keeping to herself again, just like she did when I had issues with her. They would see each other and walk by. The only time I saw them talking was when they were taking turns to listen to a phone call. Her sister didn’t give me face again so I stayed back to watch the drama unfold. 

Early February, I was home when that big car came to park outside of our house. That was when she told me she was ready to leave. I was like, “Oh, and you didn’t tell me all this while that you will be leaving?” She said, “I got a new place just days ago. Everything happened impromptu. I’m sorry I couldn’t inform you.” Immediately the loading car moved, I gave a huge sigh of relief. At long last. Our trouble was leaving. I went inside. My wife was sleeping in the chair while the kids were running around. She didn’t even lift a hand to help her sister pack her things. I asked her, “Is everything alright? She nodded and then looked away. I said to myself, “Women always come around. They would be angry for a while but they would come around later if you give them space.”

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I gave her space. Slowly we warmed up together. Slowly we started talking about how to put the room together for our daughter. She suggested the color of the paint we should use to paint the room. I got it. One Saturday morning, she picked a paintbrush and started painting the room with me. “No, do it this way. Ok, that would do. The paint is too light, paint on it more than once, and let’s see.” She followed my instruction until the room was done. My kids live there now and our house feels like a whole new house, spacious and free. 

We are back to smiling again.

I called David, “Charley the thing worked!” He screamed, “Seriously? She picked the bait?”

“Yeah, she picked the bait.”

“I hope it didn’t turn the house upside down.”

“No, it didn’t. It rather restored it.”

“Women and their jealousy. Even if you’re overly nice to their own mother, they would come at you.”

“I’m glad she went for the right target.”

We burst out laughing.

But they are good. They talk once in a while—my wife and her sister. She had been to her place twice or so. But ever since she left, we’ve never exchanged a word. Mission accomplished. One day when she meets me somewhere, she can’t accuse me of being the brain behind her ejection. She’ll always blame her sister and that will take the tension off my head. A simple win but it feels as right as the biggest win I could ever have.            

–Cephas

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