When my sister came from work that evening, she called me into her room and gave me a bag of clothes. She said, “Try them on and let me see.” She sat on her bed as I tried all the clothes on one after the other. After wearing each dress she’ll tell me, Turn around and let me see.” I would make a 360’ turn around and she would say something like, ‘Wow, you look beautiful in this one.” After trying all the clothes on she told me, “They are all for you. These are the clothes you are going to wear around here. Don’t let me see you wearing those old dresses you’ve been wearing around here. These look good on you. You’re a beautiful woman. You have to learn how to dress well.”
When I took the dresses in my room, I wore them one after the other and stood in the mirror and checked myself in them. Truly they fit. Truly they were beautiful but they were all shot dresses. If it didn’t expose a little bit of breast, it exposed a little bit of thighs. The mini-skirts were so mini, I thought they could fit a ten-year-old girl. I stood in the mirror and asked myself, “And she wants me to wear these in a house she lives in with her husband? What would the man think of me? That I’m a spoilt girl? No way. I won’t wear these skimpy clothes around here.”
For weeks, I didn’t wear any of them. She called to warn me. I told her the dresses didn’t fit. She told me to forget about the village attitude and see a new life. “You once lived in a village as a child. You’re here with us so you have to dress to blend. I don’t want people coming around and thinking you’re a housemaid. I bought them with money. Don’t let me waste my money.”
I started wearing them. The ones that looked a little bit decent. His husband started looking at me in a way I didn’t feel comfortable. I was very happy when one day he had a discussion on my new sense of fashion in front of my sister. He said, “Alice is dressing some kind of way around the house recently. Haven’t you noticed that?” She answered, “No I haven’t. Which way is she dressing?” Her husband was quiet for a while, “Hmmm, I don’t know but I’ve noticed a change in the way she dresses around here.” My sister said, “She’s growing into a woman. Change of dressing comes along with such changes in women.” She looked at me and asked me, “Anaa Alice, w’enya boy?” I only smiled and left the scene.
Later she came to my room to tell me, “You see even my husband has noticed the change in you? It’s a good thing. As you grow up, you have to dress to reflect the change in growth.”
I’m not a kid—yeah I’m only twenty years old but I sense it when someone is trying to use me as a pawn. My sister was on a mission. She was fighting a secret war and she thought she could use me as a catalyst to win that war. I call her sister but she’s actually not my sister. I mean we are not from the same parents. My mother and her mother are very good friends. We lived in the same compound house and grew up in the same house. She’s her mother’s firstborn and I am my mother’s last born. She left the house to live with her husband when they got married five years ago. Two years ago, I also completed SHS but my grades weren’t good so I had to better it. It was mainly for that reason that my mother allowed me to go and live with her when she requested. In my mother’s mind, I will get a better place to do my remedial classes and pass well.
Everything was peaceful until she started shopping for clothes for me. When her husband isn’t around, she’ll be on the phone for many hours, talking to someone she called George. When I’m around, she’ll take the call to her bedroom and continue there. She’ll come from work with her phone stuck to her ears and smiling. Sometimes, I will start counting the seconds before she mentions George. Usually, I will not get to ten seconds before she says something like, “You’re very funny George. You say you’ll never change.” Her business isn’t my business so I go around the house doing my chores and studying while wearing those skimpy clothes she kept buying for me.
One evening I heard them exchanging words from their room. What separates my room from theirs is a wall so when they speak on top of their voices, I hear them. That evening, they were shouting at each other. Her husband’s voice was louder and angry. I wasn’t counting the seconds but it didn’t take too long until I heard George. “You still talk to George? Why do you make this marriage too difficult.? My sister’s voice is tiny so I hardly could hear the answers she was giving. She was talking and sobbing. It’s hard to hear a tiny voice through the veil of sobs. But her husband’s voice was thunderous. I said in my head, “This George again.”
That evening, her husband slept in the hall. The next morning when he saw me, he looked at me in a way I wasn’t comfortable. His eyes tracked me as I walked. I went quickly into the kitchen and later went into my room to change the cloth I was wearing. It didn’t stop him from looking at me. The reason behind the look was hard to judge. He looked angry and pensive at the same time. That same day my sister asked me, “Has my husband ever looked at you or tried to touch you the way you think is inappropriate?” I said, “Hell no. I don’t see him looking at me and he had never touched me.” She told me, ”Open your eyes. When he tries anything on you, don’t waste time. Come and tell me.”
One weekend her husband traveled. Around 10pm I saw his call on my phone. When I picked he asked, “Is your sister there?” I said, “Yes, she’s in her room.” He said, “Go and give the phone to her so I can talk to her. Just when I got up and was going he said, “You don’t worry. I will keep trying her phone until she picks.” I went to their bedroom and knocked. I wanted to wake her up and tell her that her husband was calling. I knocked a thousand times and she didn’t answer. I got scared. I called her line and she picked. I said, “I’ve been knocking on your door but you were not responding. Your husband called me. He said he was trying to reach you.” She spoke lousily, “Really?” And then cut the call. It was around 1am when I heard the footsteps of someone entering the house. It was her. She didn’t sleep in the house that night. That means if her husband was a little bit patient when he called me, I would have innocently exposed her.
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The next morning she called me in; “You said my husband called you last night and he told you that he had been calling my phone?” I said, “Yes. He even asked me to bring the phone to you so he could talk to you.” She said, “I checked my phone and there was not a single call from him. Were you lying to me?” I showed her the call log. She wasn’t convinced, “Alice, tell me what my husband told you when he called because he didn’t call my line last night as you said.” She didn’t believe my explanation. She thought there was more to it than I was telling her. And then she dropped the bomb, “I suspect something is going on between you two. I’m the reason why you are here, remember that. I won’t judge you. I just want to know what that man is doing with you.”
Things were becoming so complicated around the house. I called my mother and told her I want to leave. She wanted to know why but I couldn’t give the full details. I pressed her for so long until she agreed to call my sister and tell her that she needed me to come back home.
I left them in July. In October my sister also came home with her bags. Her husband has driven her away from the house, accusing her of cheating on him. For some time, the families of her husband kept coming around. They’ll sit and discuss things we were not allowed to hear. Later my mother gave me the full gist. Apparently, her husband set a trap for her and caught her red-handed with George. According to her husband, some naked photos and videos were exchanged between my sister and George. According to the story, George was once with my sister before he traveled abroad. So they were in an old flame trying to rekindle sort of affair.
You’ll expect my sister to regret her action or even show some remorse but she doesn’t care. It looks like she is happy with the way things are going. They are now going through a divorce but something happened recently that confirmed my earlier suspicion. My sister was trying to trap her husband to make a move on me so she could have a reason to divorce him. That was the reason for those short clothes she bought for me. That was the reason she didn’t trust me when I said there was nothing going on between me and her husband. She wanted to hear something small so she could hang on to it and leave her husband. Her trap didn’t work. Her husband’s trap did work. Now she’s the one bearing the shame of a wife who cheated. But guess what. She comes around with George often on weekends. It looks like they have something planned—something big.
I only hope it doesn’t turn into tears. If it does, she would be the biggest loser on earth. Her husband was a good guy. I lived with him and never saw him go wrong or disrespect her but it looks like the heart wants to go where there’s drama. If not then I don’t understand why hearty decisions always come with drama. We live to see who gets the last laugh.
–Alice
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