If you haven’t read the first part of this story, here’s the link. Kindly read it before starting this one.
My wife’s phone rang one morning and she wasn’t by the phone. I checked and saw her mother calling. Immediately I picked the phone she said, “Wherever you are come to the house right now. There’s a fire burning on the mountain.” I said calmly, “In-law, she’s not the one you’re talking to. I think she’s somewhere around the house. Wait let me give her the phone” There was anxiety in her voice that made me worried. I thought someone was dead and she needed to convey the news to my wife. When I gave my wife the phone and they were talking, I looked at my wife to see if I could pick any signal from her. She realized I was looking at her so she walked slowly out of my sight.
She returned with a worried-looking face. I asked her, “Is your mother going through any problem? She sounded disturbed.” She forced a smile. She said, “She didn’t say what the problem is but I could sense it in her voice. I would go and see her tomorrow.” I was watching her. Her strides became dull. She was pensive for nothing. Tomorrow wasn’t far away so I left her to her thoughts. Early the next morning, she left the house to see her mother. She came back in the evening with the worse demeanor I’ve seen in her. I asked her, “What was the issue about?” She said, “It’s just some family issues. It’s not even as serious as she made it seem.”
I’m not a small boy. I’ve lived with her long enough to sense a change in her attitude. I pressed her. I gave her my word but she didn’t say more than “I’m fine.” The following day her mother called. She said, “I and some family members would like to come and see you. Are you available this weekend?”
The following weekend, I received her mother and two other men from her family. Her mother started, “I don’t even know where I’m supposed to start from. It’s hard so I will let the men talk while I listen.” Men would always be men. They don’t go about the bush and they don’t miss when they shoot. He went straight to the point, “So you came to the village with your wife when her aunt died. You met an old lady who gave you information she shouldn’t have given you. As a family, we would take our part of the blame. It shouldn’t have come from that old lady but that’s what happens when you try to keep a secrete that has other parties. We are here today because of that. First of all, accept our apology. Traditionally, there is a lot we have to do. That would come later. Accept our apology first.”
I was worried about how they got to know that the woman spoke to me. It became the first question I asked. “How did you know a woman spoke to me about that?” Right there, my wife fell on the ground and started apologizing in tears, “I was scared. I was really scared but I won’t use that as an excuse to cover up my sins. Please forgive me. It’s my past. I’ve been running away from it all my life. I didn’t know it will catch up with me the way it did. I”m deeply sorry. I don’t deserve to be your wife. You can divorce me today and no one will fault you but all I can ask for right at this moment is forgiveness.”
But to me, forgiveness happened long ago when I heard the story. It was the reason I didn’t act on it. It was the reason I kept quiet on it, waiting for the day she herself would feel alright to tell me. I told her, “I forgave you long ago. Surprisingly, it was easier to forgive because I understood your story and understood the reason why you didn’t tell me. Somehow, I’m happy you didn’t tell me right from the start because if you did, we wouldn’t have been here by this time. It’s forgiven. What’s left is to forgive yourself and apologize to Bernice for how long you’ve kept her in the dark.”
The man sitting right in front of me turned his face and wiped a tear with his cloth. Her mother had been crying throughout. My wife needed an extra hanky to keep her face dry. It felt like a grand funeral. A funeral for the death of a secret that lived between us. At some point, composure had to be regained. Her mother said, “You’ve shamed me. You’ve made all the things I planned to say stuck up in my head. Why did you make it this easy? Now my rehearsed lines would go unused. You should have punished us with a little bit of stubbornness. You should have made us work for your forgiveness. Thank you so much, my in-law. May God extend your territories.”
My wife’s face was against the wall, crying to the wall like Peter did when the cock crowed on his lies.
They left after everything was settled. But they left me a huge job I didn’t know how to deal with—how to lift my wife out of her depression and make her laugh again. I knew it wasn’t going to be easier. I lazed my boot for the hard days ahead. In the night, she came to me. She said, “Do you want to hear about it? Why and how I didn’t tell you? I’m ready if you want us to talk about how it happened.” I said, “Sure. Let’s talk.”
She started from where she met those men. I was following the story with my imagination. I saw two men. One taller than the other. They were in black. Black because that’s what people wear to mourn the dead. I could imagine my wife standing around the speakers nodding her head as the music plays. One of the guys went to her and said, “My brother wants to have a word with you. My wife followed him to his brother who wanted to talk to her. She was wearing a skirt she inherited from an older relative. A cousin or an aunt. She had overgrown the skirt but it’s all she had. She had to even keep it well until someone behind her also comes to inherit it.
The guy who was waiting for her on the other side told her, “The music is too loud here, can we go a little bit further so I tell you something? It’s very important that you follow me.” My innocent future wife was trained to be obedient especially to strangers so she followed the men until they got to that secluded place where the uncompleted building was located. They got her surrounded, lifted her up, and blocked her mouth so she couldn’t scream. One of the men, the short one stayed behind. He said, “I’m watching your back. Finish quickly and come and take over so I can do mine.” I could imagine the short guy getting impatient because his brother was keeping long. He kept shouting, “Yaw, (This is your editor speaking. I chose Yaw because that’s the only name that comes to mind as I edit this.) hurry up. This is not the time to play romance.”
When he finished and came out, he also rushed in only to see my future wife’s eyes sinking. He screamed, “You’ve killed her? Come and see she’s not moving….”
I realized my imagination had stopped. “What’s happening? Why can’t I see the images in my mind again?” I turned to look at my wife and she had stopped narrating the story and sobbing. She said, “That’s all I remember. The rest is all about the pain I went through. “I said, “It’s ok. It’s all in the past now. You lived. You grew up. You found me. We are doing well. We’ll live the rest of our lives covering the tracks of your past so you don’t remember. We got this.”
I could be quiet because of something going on in my head. My wife would run to me and ask, “What are you thinking of? Are you planning to leave me?” Shadows from the past can be very disturbing. Because of that, I couldn’t stay quiet in the house. I had to always stay cheerful just to cheer her up. Bernice already knew that she is the daughter of my wife. She was only playing along to the tunes. How tough could that be for a girl at her age? Pretending not to be the daughter of the woman who gave birth to you. Playing along just fine so you leave no loose ends. That’s though, right?
They became a mental case I had to treat. Patients I have to administer drugs to. The hurt was deep. We needed each other to heal from it. She asked who in my family knew about the secret. I said my parents are aware. She asked, “They didn’t say anything?” I said, “They were hurt for you. The thing is, it’s not your fault at all so rest easy.”
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I didn’t want Bernice to feel different from my own kid. So I asked my wife if she would agree for her to take my surname. She said, “Yeah, she has to carry your name.” So Bernice got a new name. A name carved from mine. When I look at her and see the woman she’s growing into, all I feel is pity for that man who did that to my wife. He has a wonderful child but he’ll never know until he goes to the grave. I pray he doesn’t die lonely.
We are now one great family. A family without a barrier. A family that has nothing to hide. Beneficiaries of forgiveness. But there’s one question that hasn’t been answered in this story. How did they know what the old woman told me?
So my in-law visited the village and met the woman. The woman is actually my in-law’s aunt. She was alive when my in-law was born. She was an old woman before my wife was born. she knows secrets because people in the village consult her on issues. She knew I didn’t know about my wife’s child because she was told. She was part of the people who met and agreed not to tell me until later. So she met my in-law and asked her, “How did he take it after knowing the truth?” My in-law asked, ”Who and what truth?” She said, “I told him the secret long ago. He hasn’t reacted?” “But why would you do that? Who sent you? How did you decide to be cancer in my daughter’s marriage?” She answered, “The truth has to be told so we set everyone free. That’s what I did. They have to heal now that they are young. Wounds keep long to heal when we are older.
So she did it to set us free according to her own narration.
Indeed we are free. Thanks be to her.
–Peter
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