The Tv was showing my favorite program so I sat in the hall and watched until it was late. He was already sleeping when I entered the bedroom. The fan was off and the radio was also off. I asked myself, “What is wrong with this man? It’s so unlike him to sleep with these two things off” I walked to the switch and turned the fan on. I put the radio on. Unfortunately, the volume of the radio was already up. I didn’t check. When I turned it on, the sound came out so loudly that he jolted out of his sleep. He screamed, “What was that for?” I thought it was funny so I laughed. I said, “Sorry I didn’t mean to…” Before I would finish making my statement, a slap landed from behind of me. 

I didn’t see it coming. I would have shielded my face with my hands so it doesn’t land the way it did. I buried my face in my palms. I said, “Joo, why would you do that? It was a mistake I did but why would you slap me?” He was so angry he started stuttering, “You stupidly turned the volume up to wake me up from sleep and the best thing you’ll do is laugh? That slap was for being stupid.  The one for the volume hasn’t come yet. Keep talking and it will land soon.”

Our marriage was only two months old when this happened. Two months marriage is usually a budding flower. It’s so new it dances to the wind and gets its hair wet in the rain, waiting for the dry season to come before its petals drop off and die. But not all flowers wilt in bad weather. I saw my marriage as that flower planted by the rivers. I hoped to stay evergreen no matter the weather. That was the prayer but it didn’t take so long for the cracks to show. When it showed, it manifested itself in a slap. From behind.

We argued it out. He threatened to throw me out of the room if I said a word. I kept talking. He buried his head under the pillows so his ears would be blocked from my noise. I sobbed while sleeping. In the morning he was the first to wake up. He tapped my hand and said, “Sorry for last night. I overreacted. I acted like a monster. I’ve thought about it. I’ve regretted everything. Please hold it not against me. It will never happen again.” I started crying again. I needed a hug badly and he saw it. He trapped me in his embrace and said, “Don’t cry. You’re making me sad. I was not myself last night. You know me and you know that was not me. Please forgive.”

I wiped my tears off, pulled off the curtains to allow some light in. When the sun came up, I looked at it and smiled, burying the events of the night. His apology worked because it looked sincere. I could tell from the wrinkles of the skin on his brow. We dated for three years before marriage. He never laid a hand on me. Yeah, he got angry sometimes but it didn’t look like he could attack out of anger. So when he said, “You know me…” I understood him. I knew him so well that you could cover him with a blanket in a dark room and I will still make him out.

His name was Jonathan but out of love and affection, I called him Joo. When we played and teased each other, I called him O’Joo. He loved it so much that he added O to my name too. He called me O’dee. My name is Dede so O’dee made a lot of sense. When we were in our playful element, it felt like nothing could stop us. The world may stop and the two of us would keep going. 

He had a job that made him very responsible. His mother once told me, “He wasn’t always like that but ever since he entered into the profession, he calmed down.” I don’t want to go too deep into what he did for a living. I don’t know who is reading. 

I was three months pregnant when he pushed me to the floor and started kicking me with his foot. I knew what I was carrying was delicate so I coiled into a fetal position to shield off my tummy from his leg kicks. He kept kicking until his leg hit a chair. It hurt him so he stopped. Again, he apologized the next morning, bringing the devil’s name into the equation. “I think my demons are getting wild. The devil wants to destroy us but we shouldn’t let him.” That day he carried me to the hospital for the doctor to check on me. He said, “The baby is fine. Just eat well and sleep well. Everything would be fine.

I gave birth and his mother came to live with us. He couldn’t maltreat me in front of his mother so he did it at night when we were sleeping. It could be about something very little—something small like, “Why did you take the money in the drawer when I’d already given you money for the week?” I have answers but when he was angry he didn’t care about my answers. All he cared about was kicking me to release his anger. I spoke to my mom about it. She didn’t know how severe it was so she told me, “As far as he apologizes, he knows he was wrong. He’ll stop. Don’t worry.” I told my dad I wanted to leave the marriage but he said, “How would you survive when you leave? You don’t work. You don’t have money. How would you survive?”

I lost my work a few months after marriage. I was going around looking for a job when he told me, “You don’t have to worry. I will take care of us.” I wasn’t convinced. I wanted to do petty trading but he objected. “My wife doing petty trading? How would my friends look at me when they get to know what my wife does? NO.” I suggested so many other options but he simply didn’t want me to work. He had a good job. His friends and family held him in high esteem so he didn’t want me to do anything menial. 

When my dad asked me that question I felt it. I started putting money away so I can start something on my own. I didn’t care if he accepted it or not. It was all about me. I started selling women things; braziers, panties, underwear, those little things I can keep and pretend they were for me. I sold to friends. They recommended me to their friends and their friends also recommended me to their friends. It got a little bigger. I started selling on credit to teachers and nurses. Those in government sectors. They loved to buy on credit and pay on payday.

I was so good at hiding it but somehow he got to know about it. One morning he asked angrily; “What is it that I’m hearing? You’re selling women’s panties and stuff on credit? Since when? Why don’t I know?” I said, “I started not long ago. I was…” Before I could complete my statement my cheek was already in my cupped palm, dazed by the slap. He pounced on me. He removed his belt and beat me like a father would beat his daughter. I was on the floor crying when he walked by with his bag in hand. When he got to the door, he said, “If you have any strength left, go out there and sell again. I will come and meet you.”

When he left, I started packing my things. I told my mother, “He beat me again.” I told my father, “I want to come home.” I parked a few things and sent them to my parents’ house. When school closed, I went for my child and we both went to my parents’ house. I knew he would call when he gets to the house and I wasn’t there. 6pm, no call. 7pm, no call. 8pm I saw his phone calling. When I picked I didn’t talk. I heard “Hello.” The voice wasn’t his voice. The hello came again and I responded, “The voice said, “There’s an accident patient here. We are yet to get his name because he can’t talk. You’re on his phone as “Wifee” so we decided to call to inform you.” I asked, “Accident patient? You mean my husband?” 

Hours later I was by his bedside. He had something covering his mouth. He had a needle through his veins. Some part of his body was in band-aids. He didn’t look any close to the man who beat me in the morning. He was lying on his back, soft and helpless like a vegetable. I spoke his name. His eyes opened but he couldn’t say a word. The pain was too much he started crying. I said, “Don’t worry. I’m here. Everything would be fine and we would walk home together.”

when I got home that day my mom asked me, “Now what?” I said, “I will go back home. I can’t leave him like this. He’s in a bad state. They would judge me. They’ll say I’m leaving a man when he had hit his lowest. They’ll curse me and call me names. I don’t really care so much about that but my spirit won’t be at ease if I leave him like that. He’ll get better and when he’s back on his feet again, I will walk away.”

He never came back to his feet again. We spent over three months at the hospital. His left side was completely paralyzed. You could set him ablaze from his left side and he wouldn’t feel a thing. Numb. His right side was good but unfortunately, he broke his right leg too. There was too much technical jargon the doctor used to describe his situation. The bottom line was that he wouldn’t walk again or be normal again. I brought him home to take care of him. There were herbal doctors who promised they could make him better. We spent a fortune looking to restore his health. None worked. 

We had nothing left. No money in the account. We moved from the house we lived in because we couldn’t afford the rent any longer. We moved into a single room self contain. Those there didn’t know our story. The called my husband cursed. When they saw me talking to a man, they drew conclusions that I was sleeping with him because my husband was debilitated. I didn’t talk a lot. I woke up each morning, cleaned his mess, and wiped his ass. I bathed him, change the bed, and put him to sleep. I sold some properties we had left just to be able to take care of him. I did that for three years until I had a call from his father one day. He said, “How’s our son?” I said, “Nothing new. Same old.” He said, “We’ll come for him. You married him but we gave birth to him. He’s ours more than he’s yours. You’ve suffered long enough. Rest.”

The day they came for him I sat on the floor and cried my heart out. I don’t know why I was crying but I cried anyway. My child was already living with my parents so I gathered what was left of me and went to live with my parents. I was thirty-nine and broke. I had nothing. I counted my panties and they were only three. The third one was torn at the bottom. I remember crying in my mother’s arms. She said, “It’s not too late. You’ll be fine.” 

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I started selling again. Things were slow. I didn’t have enough to even pay the fees for the kid. One day I met a friend. Someone I knew from school who had made it in life. I told him my story. He shook his head and asked, “Are you telling me the story of a movie you watched days ago?” I said, “Yeah, it’s a movie. The only difference is that I was the main character. I was the girl who suffered.” He linked me to a friend who also linked me to another friend who gave me a job. I felt too old I didn’t even know how to press a computer key. They were kind to me. They taught me. They encouraged me. They pushed me to be better. They became a family. One day I laughed and it felt weird. My lips had forgotten how to laugh.

Once in a while, I would pass by and check up on him. He would look at my face and still say no word. He will cry. I will cry too. His mother asked me not to come around often because anytime I came around and I left, his situation got worse. 

My life is getting better. My kid is in school and doing well but her father keeps getting worse. One day I told my story to a friend and she said, “Why didn’t you leave him at the hospital? If I were you, I would have given him the divorce papers on his hospital bed so he knows how it hurt.” I told her, “I thought of that too. It came to mind often but do you remember that call that came through to announce his accident? The voice said, “You’re wifee on his phone.” I was still his wife. I remembered the vow I made during our wedding. “In sickness and in good health.” I won’t call myself a dedicated Christian but I felt I needed to respect that vow. It was the only thing that kept us going.”

I didn’t leave him though we were not together. I could go for months without checking up on him but I always felt that my life was tied to someone else. I was attached to the cord of the vow until he slept one day and didn’t wake up again. The day I got the news I couldn’t even cry. I’ve cried enough already. I looked up and said, “At long last, you’ve given him rest. Thank you, God.” His accident happened in 2011. He died in 2019. How many years of suffering? Do the maths.

–Dede

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