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

I wasn’t picking his calls after I decided it was over between us. When his calls and messages of pleadings became too much for me to bear, I blocked his line. If I didn’t see his call, I won’t think about him. If I don’t think about him, I won’t get hurt about what he made me do. Days later, I heard a knock on my door. I stepped out and saw him looking miserable like he had lost everything he once owned. I was face to face with him. How was I supposed to run and hide? How was I supposed to say for him to leave my door? 

I went back inside. He followed and took a seat on the sofa he bought for me. For several minutes we didn’t say anything to each other. I kept flipping through Tv channels just to distract myself. He sat there looking straight into my face, waiting for me to catch his eyes and begin a conversation. He cleared his throat. “Don’t you think you’ve punished me enough? Yes, I lied to you. I deserve whatever you tell me and do to me but for how long do I have to suffer for a single mistake?” He talked casually about what he did to his wife as though he had every right to do what he did. He didn’t sound remorseful. He didn’t make me feel like he regrets what he did to his wife.

“You mean you don’t see anything wrong with what you did? You cheated on your wife right under her nose. You think a woman in her condition deserves more pain than she’s already going through?” He started narrating the story of their beginning; “Just six months after marriage, she suffered a stroke. I’ve been there for her. I’ve done everything to make her comfortable. Her own family doesn’t care. Her mother calls only once in a while to ask how her daughter is doing. The last time they visited was almost a year ago. I’m stuck to the promise of ‘for better for worse.’ What else do I have to do for my own life so I can smile again? For the past three years, I go to the market myself, buy foodstuff and cook my own food. I put on the TV and sit next to her but we can’t talk about anything. We can’t discuss future plans and we can’t talk about how her day went. The marriage only exists on paper.”

You see, it’s hard to look at a man who is going through trying times. They wear their emotions on their forehead. They talk about their problems with passion. Even when they are wrong with their choices, they feel right about it because they are men. Whoever gave that confidence to men, I’m looking for him. I need the same thing. While he was busy talking about his problems as a man with a sick wife, I was busy flipping his story, putting myself in his shoes but wearing it as a woman will wear a man’s shoe. I asked him, “It’s you lying there. You got paralyzed six months after marriage. Your wife comes home with another man and sleeps with him right under your nose. Give me your reaction?”

He said, “That’s where I went wrong. That’s exactly what I want to change going forward. I didn’t want you to feel insecure. I know women. You’ll start to question why I don’t take you home. You’ll ask why you haven’t met my friends. You’ll grow doubt as long as the tallest mountain. I love you too much to leave you with doubt, so I tried to make things right.” 

He was convincing me. There was a method to the way he spoke. He didn’t come to play. He was bent on having me back. I told him, “I understand your problem. You need happiness but your happiness shouldn’t be built on top of someone’s unhappiness. If you told me the truth right from the beginning, I may have seen your frustration and understood your situation but knowing what I know now, I don’t think I can go ahead and date you. People with my kind of conscience can’t live freely knowing they are committing an emotional crime.” 

He came around often. He sent me gifts when I didn’t need gifts. He sent beautiful texts and told me beautiful things but my heart was made up. I wasn’t going to go that line again. 

One day I visited his wife. She looked pale and emaciated. I asked the caregiver what the issue was. She said, “She hardly eats these days and I believe it has something to do with the way her husband treats her these days. He comes home and goes straight to the bedroom. He doesn’t greet her, he doesn’t check up on her. He had abandoned her completely.” 

When he called I told him to take care of his wife or send her to her family. He asked me, “What are you talking about?” I said, “I was in your house today, I went to see her. She’s in very bad shape but I learned you don’t take good care of her like you used to.” He asked, “Who told you that?” I didn’t answer. He went home and fired the caregiver. The new one was instructed not to allow me in.” I felt that was a button too red to press. I told him not to ever call my line again if that’s the direction he wants to go. His calls stopped coming but I didn’t stop wondering about him and his wife. I prayed for the woman. I asked for healing for her. I prayed so my own guilt would be washed away.

I blocked him wherever I needed to block him. I didn’t hear from him again until 2020 during the peak of the Covid. I was at the counter of a shop paying for my groceries when I felt a hand tapping me from behind. I turned and looked at the person. He was in a nose mask and wearing a long jalabiya so I couldn’t make him out. He told the lady at the counter, “Don’t worry, I will pay.” That was when made him out. “Elvis?” He answered, “You’ve missed me?” He paid and we went out. He removed his nose mask and I saw his full face. He was looking good. Even his stomach was slightly protruding. 

He asked how I was doing and I told him I was doing great. He said, “We may try to run. We do it often and yet, we end up right at the foot of the person we are running from. Here we are. Again. Eyeball to eyeball. After all that you did to me, I still see you today and realize I’m still in love with you. Nothing is changed.” I asked him, “How is your wife?” He said, “That’s not the discussion for today.” He said he’ll call me later. I said I will wait for his call.

That same day he called. He was all lovey-dovey but all I wanted to know was how his wife was doing. He said, “When you disappeared, her condition got worse each passing day. She spent many days at the hospital until her family came for her at some point. I visited her often. I continued providing for her until she died early this year.” I screamed “Awwwww!” He said, “Yeah I did my best. It had to end at some point and it did. She has suffered enough. She’ll find rest.”

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I started thinking about the last time I saw her. How pale and vulnerable she looked. I remember the words of the caregiver. I thought of how she got sacked and thought of the day I found out the truth. The scab of my wounds got peeled. I began bleeding from an old wound. What came into my head was, “He ended up killing her with heartbreak.” But who was I to judge? I said, “I hope she finds all the rest she needs. She has gone through a lot.” He asked me, “Now that I’m free from any attachment, do I deserve a comeback?” 

I said in my head, “Huh this guy is selfish. You gave me bad news like this and you won’t even give me a breathing space to catch my breath? Must the world come to an end because he wants what he wants?” I told him, “I’m sorry. There’s another man in my life right now. We are getting married when this Covid thing is over. I’m sorry.” He sighed heavily. He said, “It’s all good. God knows why I had to lose you the way I did. It’s all fine.”

He still calls me. He invites me out every now and then. I tell him my boyfriend wouldn’t be pleased to see me hanging around with another man. One day he told me to leave my boyfriend. The funny thing is, that boy I told him about also left me when I thought all was well but knowing what I know about Elvis, nothing will make me be in a relationship with him. The ghost of his wife won’t even forgive me. He knows I have a boyfriend so everything will remain as it is. I have a boyfriend until I get a real boyfriend.    

–Patience 

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