This story is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.


Copyright © 2022 by Grace Olukoya

Copyright © Nidy Publications

All rights reserved.

Joke literally bounced on her seat unable to hold the excitement that was bubbling inside her.

“Guess the latest,” she demanded of Felicia who was shocked by her friend’s sudden exuberance.

After Felicia’s several wrong answers, Joke spilled the beans.

“I’m getting married!” she screamed excitedly waving her left hand adorned with a sparkling engagement ring on her middle finger.

Five years, three breakups and makeups down the line, Joke would soon be a Mrs. Adewumi. Ade had proposed last evening during their outing to the Jabi resort lake.

They were sitting on the verandah of Joke’s flat to avoid the heat inside the house that came when the power was out. A cool, refreshing breeze spiced the cloudy evening, as the sun’s rays gradually dulled.

Slowly Felicia asked, “Are you sure he really loves you? I mean after all your fights together, quarrels and his supposed heavy toasting of Bidemi, do you think he is the one?” Felicia was cautious with her words, not desiring to offend her friend or suggest bold pessimism.

“Hmm! If he tries to mess around with me, I will show him pepper. In fact, hell on earth. I am no idiot like Aunty,” Joke boasted.

Felicia prayed silently and earnestly that family history would not repeat itself with the lady beside her.

“So, how are you and Wale doing? Is he now your bestie?” Joke asked with a mischievous smile creeping on her face.

The guy was ‘so’ into Felicia which amused her despite the cold shoulder she had been giving him since he first asked her out four months ago.

“Let me be. I don’t really like the guy, except as a casual friend,” Felicia said in a flat tone sipping her Chapman drink.

“Friend!” screamed Joke. “Honestly, you need a boyfriend at this your age, as I am looking at you!”

Felicia shrugged her shoulders. “Ehn, so what. Everyone has a preference.”

Joke ignored that, and handed her a pamphlet from her bag. Felicia read it quietly. A five-day power-packed crusade by Fruitful House Assembly church was holding next week Friday.

“If you go there for their special prayer session maybe some guy will marry you before this year ends,” Felicia heard her friend saying. Felicia sighed, dropping the paper beside her, and finished her drink.

Some years ago.

Faint streaks of the dawn of a new day appeared in the clear sky above Nyanya, rousing the Balogun household from sleep. At 5 a.m., Joke was up and already occupied with the daily chores. In the room which she shared with the family’s children there was an endless rush of activity, as they all began preparing for school. Suddenly, loud angry voices rent the air in the house.

“Give me my crayons!” wailed Dami. “I know you have them with you. You have them!”
She roughly grabbed Shola’s hands after rummaging through her sister’s neatly arranged things.

Shola pushed Dami back with irritation on her face. "I said that I don’t have them! Search properly where you placed them last night. And stop hitting me!”

She turned to her bed and hastily undressed to use the bathroom once her other sister, Simi, came out. Dami’s normal behavior was unbearable and suffocating, even to her other sisters, much less her tantrums when it was over irrelevant matters. Their mother’s deep voice blared through the bedroom walls.

“What is wrong with both of you?!” Silence. No one responded. Then there were sounds of feet shuffling and distinct steps across the floor.

“Behave yourselves this morning if you don’t want lashes of my cane on your bodies,” their mother warned the two disturbing parties. The woman who looked somewhat older than her middle-aged years was now standing by the door. Her eyes roved across the bedroom which was in disarray and her children were now struggling to tidy up with little enthusiasm.

Dami cried hysterically, hugging her mother for sympathy and telling her that Shola was hiding her box of crayons that she had used yesterday. Shola denied it and grumbled whilst her mother threatened punishment if she didn’t produce the said missing item.
Ten minutes later, after sobbing and sniffling and muttering insults under her breath in a solo search, Shola found the crayons that had been dumped carelessly under a pile of Dami’s old textbooks in one corner of the room.

“There, happy now,” she hissed at her sister after dumping the crayon box onto the floor.

Felicia, who is your new neighbor?” Joke asked as they were walking out of her friend’s flat at No. 26 Clement Ajayi street.
Felicia raised her eyebrows questioningly at her. Outside the house, the sun was bright and fierce so the girls shielded their eyes with their hands from the sunlight.
“The last flat with a red car parked outside,” Joke pointed.
She had earlier noticed the pairs of slippers, buckets and a broom strewn on the verandah. Then something struck her. Wait, wasn’t that Uncle’s Peugeot car?
“Oh, that one! It’s one pregnant lady like that, maybe with her mother or aunty. Probably even her mother-in-law,” Felicia replied in low tones as she dropped the house key into her purse slung across her shoulder.
“I think she’s a baby mama for one big guy. You need to see that lady’s outfits, hmm, they all are designer wear!”
They both glanced at the flat, and at that moment a woman with a fairly big pregnancy bump came out with laundry to hang outside.
She was fairly tall with a slightly discoloured light-complexioned skin, probably caused by mixing more than ten different lightening creams and soap. Her loose hair braids, were packed into a night cap. She saw the girls and exchanged greetings with them before they headed out to the market. Aunty’s list of items that had to be bought was very long, so two ladies together would make the shopping a lot easier. But Joke couldn’t stop wondering about the red Peugeot car she had seen.

“Baba Tara, are you not attending church service today?” his wife queried looking at her husband seated on the bed through the mirror.

The children were already dressed and set to go. Mama Tara was patting her dark-green gele on her head, smoothing the folds of her off-white lace wrapper and blouse around her waist whilst turning around in front of the mirror to search for faults in her outfit or praise it. She reached for the moisturizing cream to rub on her hands.

He replied no, looking down at his phone in one hand and thumbing a notebook in the other. There was some work to be done with a colleague and then he will meet friends for some other business he informed her.

Mama Tara turned around sharply upon hearing him. This was the first time since they gotten married that her husband wouldn’t go to church.
Standing still, she pondered whether or not to probe her husband further. After all it may not be a good thing to entertain suspicious thoughts of one’s spouse on a holy day. He didn’t even cast a glance as she came to stand beside him or notice her steadfast gaze on him.

“Ok, then. Bye, bye,” she quietly said at last as though he wasn’t supposed to hear her reply nor observe her leaving the room.

Mama Tara and the children returned home from church at 2 p.m. only to meet Baba Tara’s absence. By sunset he still hadn’t come back to the house and his number was switched off each time she tried to call.

She frantically made calls to friends asking if they had heard from him that day. No, and they hadn’t seen him either they all told her.

Worry ruthlessly conquered her mind, streaking furrowed lines on her forehead, and in her nervousness she bit her teeth on her dry brown-colored lips creating deep pink patches on them.

“Mama Tara, don’t worry, eh. Maybe, he wasn’t able to charge the phone if it went down. Wait a bit, even till tomorrow. By God’s grace, my friend will come back safe and sound,” Baba Laide’s voice called over the phone.
His wife had been trying her best to calm Mama Tara, that hopefully all was well with her husband.

“Joke! Joke!” Mama Tara was calling the girl like her life depended on it. “Where is this stupid girl?!” Joke heard her shout again.
She sighed. Why does this woman like to call someone a hundred times in a day she asked herself. Did she take one cough medicine with the side effect of a restless mouth. The poor girl slowly entered the living room where her Aunty was glaring at her like an abomination.

“Come here! Tell me what is this you have dished for Dami?!”
Her eyes were narrowed and her lips wide in a sinister smile. She shoved a small plate of eba with vegetables stew in the girl’s face, close to her nose.
She shouted, “Never make my daughter eat food that she doesn’t like! You will make egg stew and yam for her now. Do you understand me?!”
Joke mumbled her apologies – but Aunty apparently didn’t notice or it will have set off another missile of insults - and set to work contemplating her fate and fortune in this house of new madness.
Her eyes stung, then released tears as she chopped the onions; the light-coloured eggs poured out thick slimy contents after a deft stroke of a fork, neatly torn packets of seasoning and Indomie to be used were packed on a tray.
The spoilt child, Dami, was by the entrance noisily crunching on something, while giggling and smirking at the frustrated Joke.
Joke looked at the girl’s hand which held a full packet of cream cracker biscuits, and on her lips was a mess of crumbs and saliva and streaks of orange fruit drink. Her irritation was beyond measure with the child’s presence. The other children had eaten that same lunch without any unreasonable complaints. Why then must she be an exception to general treatment?

The Jenifa’s diary sitcom was showing on TV, the whole family present in the living room.
Dami, Simi, Shola, Folake and Tara were engrossed in watching the program.
Joke was looking blankly at the screen. She was still upset over the morning incident of Aunty flinging a slipper at her all because she hadn’t washed Dami’s pee-soiled sheets on time to get dry enough.
Every now and then Aunty would quip on a scene in the drama.

Uncle was browsing on his laptop, with some typing and clicking sounds. Maybe he was reading, but he obviously was uninterested in what everyone else’s eyes were occupied with. A while later, his phone rang on the center table close to Aunty. She reached out and passed it to him.

“Maami,” he softly answered the call.

At the mention of her grandma, Dami turned her head and briefly looked at her parents before returning her gaze to the TV. Clearing what was before him, Baba Tara stood up and left to the bedroom.
Thirty minutes later he came back to the living room.
“Daddy, is Grandma going to come for my birthday next month?” Dami asked in a whiny voice.
Her sisters turned and looked at their father as if in conspiracy and support of the one who had asked the question.
“Emm, yes, yes. She will definitely come and bring something nice for you from the village,” he replied absentmindedly..
His wife supposedly should have asked, Dear, why hasn’t Mama come to visit us in a while? like a good and proper daughter-in-law would. But no she was at a silent war with her mother-in-law. A thick cloud of animosity always hung in the air when Baba Tara’s mother was mentioned.

“Pastor, help me! My husband is no longer close to me, I think he’s seeing another woman,” Mama Tara’s voice quavered as she wiped her eyes continuously with a bright red and yellow handkerchief.
She complained to the Man of God’s wide listening ears that her spouse was keeping out often, sometimes returning home with a reek of alcohol about him, and lately making secret expensive purchases which she found out while going through his phone.

Pastor Ade was her only option for a ‘solution’ she thought. She was a loyal church member of Goodness and Mercy Church ministries for five years or more. Therefore, Pastor Ade must render her help from the Lord.

A bead necklace for her sessions of prayers and confessions, morning, afternoon and night along with a brown booklet with fairly worn pages were handed to her.

“Also, sprinkle this holy water,” Mama Tara’s pastor instructed – pointing to a plastic bottle filled with discolored water – “around your bedroom every morning and night to fight the evil spirits and demons in your home.”

Aunty couldn’t wrap her thoughts on how her family was slowly disintegrating. The children were fighting each other increasingly, while she was becoming more irritable by the day and the precious harmony that once existed between she and her husband was progressively wearing down.
Her husband’s new habit of staying out was becoming a frequent occurrence.

Yesterday, Saturday, he left the house quickly after a rather too simple and brief birthday celebration for Dami. His excuse was that the Peugeot car needed a fix. Grandma had failed to show up or visit, her son making up pathetic excuses for her absence. That would the third time in two years she had stayed away from attending one of the children’s birthdays.

Monday evening he came back with a new change of clothes. Mama Tara hid a look of surprise and asked him several questions about his activities over the weekend to which he gave impatient and vague answers.
He pulled off his crisp striped black and white shirt, placed it on the bed where his wife sat and headed quickly to the bathroom for a shower in his blue jeans trousers. Baba Tara hardly wore jeans of any kind.

Aunty was sniffing the shirt in her hands with a perplexed facial expression, her distant eyes looking out the window that faced the dusty road at the back of the house as she mumbled some words from the old religious pamphlet. She stared at Joke, who had come in with a tumbler and a bottle of chilled water that Uncle had asked for that she now placed on a stool.
Joke knew best not to say anything like Aunty, are you ok, or Aunty, hope there’s no problem? She just turned and left her Aunty alone in her thoughts and bedroom with blue-painted walls that gave off a sad feeling.

The Sunday morning was dull and dreary. Tara woke up complaining to her mother of a headache and fever while Joke felt overly tired and drained, almost sickly. Her period cramps didn’t help matters at all, and if not for them Joke would have thought she was down with malaria fever too. The mother soothed her daughter and gave her the various drugs she had sent Joke to buy from the chemist across the road.

Mama Tara wasn’t fussy that morning as she usually was when it was time to attend church. Alarms ringing at 5 a.m, hustling five children through their bathing, getting them dressed, sitting in hour-long morning devotions and Dami occasionally half sleeping and Aunty’s instructions flying at Joke were all Sunday features.
'Don’t put sugar in my cereal,' or 'Use Maggi beef seasoning and not the classic for the stew' were common commands shouted through the morning preparations for church. One child wasn’t feeling well, and she badly needed to monitor her husband’s movement on a holy day.

Joke set about cutting the yam for breakfast with fried eggs and plantain, and multiple times the very sharp knife slipped through her grip and almost cut her in the process.

“Ah, ah! Be careful now. Joke concentrate on your work. What is disturbing you early this morning!” Mama Tara hissed at her.
She closely looked at the girl for awhile before asking, Are you sick also?
The latter shook her head and mumbled no.

Aunty sighed heavily before returning her attention to the eight different coloured cups on the kitchen table into which she was scooping spoons of milk, chocolate powder and sugar. Opposite her, the kettle was boiling, sending steam right through into the already humid air.

Twenty minutes later, Baba Tara came out of the room dressed in a casual red shirt and black jean trousers. He stopped by the kitchen, drank his tea in minutes whilst fiddling with his phone and smiling rather happily to himself. Sometime later, two fat slices of dodo, slightly sizzling with oil out of the frying pan found their way into his mouth.

“I am going out now and I don’t know when I will come back. So, don’t bother making dinner for me,” he said.

He passed the seat where his wife sat watching TV, his mouth chewing the oily and sugary morsel loudly. He adjusted the gold chain watch on his wrist and ignored paying attention to Aunty’s dismayed gaze as he approached the door.

Suddenly, his wife stood up determinedly with her hands akimbo and placed herself in her husband’s path. She complained bitterly how unacceptable it was that he had missed church service for more than six Sundays, sometimes in a row and about his frequent sleep overs outside his home. Now, when his daughter is sick and needs care he decides to leave the house at will. He cast her a disdainful look.

“Mama Tara, I don’t want a fight with you to spoil my day. So, please carry your trouble away from me.” And hastily he stepped around her. But she was too late to block his way effectively. In a flash, he was out of the compound and inside a passing tricycle going to his destination.

Dami and Simi ignored the cold stares between their mother and father when he came back on Tuesday night, as they jumped around him begging for hugs which he didn’t want to give and treats which he forgot to bring. The older children, particularly Tara, looked on at the drama with indifference before returning their attention to activities rudely interrupted by his arrival. He didn’t clearly answer any of the clamouring children’s questions pertaining to his absence for three consecutive days. Suddenly, in a fit of frustration, he scolded them.

“I’m tired, leave me alone. I didn’t bring anything for you people, so if you want anything go and ask your mother. See, she’s sitting there.”
His wife was actually lying down on the sofa, pretending to read something on her phone. Twice she looked over it at him with a frown of disgust.

Convinced that she wasn’t interested in him, he rushed to the bedroom with long strides. Bang! The bedroom door shut. Aunty turned her head in that direction, probably contemplating whether to go there and confront him. The youngsters felt the action with shame and pain and moved away soberly. It was as if they finally agreed to the silent and wise thoughts and actions of their elder sisters. Joke came in from the kitchen and placed a fruit drink beside her Aunty.

“Ask Baba Tara if he wants to eat food,” she said without emotion nor looking at the girl who visibly trembled about such an errand.

‘No’ was conveyed back to her. She looked at the messenger fiercely, her eyes flashing with fury and rose up from the sofa and hurriedly walked into the bedroom
It was quiet inside for a long while then a moment later rapid voices could be heard faintly. In the bedroom husband and wife always argued in fierce harsh tones. The door opened and out came, with a smile plastered on his face, Baba Tara, obviously pleased with himself. Shortly after, the sounds of glass crashing noisily on the bedroom were heard.

“The new neighbour has put to bed,” Felicia informed Joke as they sat in the shop outside of Felicia’s compound. Her mother was away for a women’s club meeting, so she and Joke were manning it whilst studying together for JAMB, the university entrance exam.

“Eh, really!” Joke put down the math textbook she was reading. “Have you seen the baby?” she asked.

“No.”

As they gossiped about the new neighbour, a thought crossed Joke’s mind about Uncle’s car.
“Yes, that’s man the man who comes to visit the woman. Sometimes he even stays for days,” Felicia said when her friend showed her Baba Tara’s picture.

“Good morning sir,” the Balogun couple greeted Pastor Abiodun who had come to see them. He returned the pleasantries and shook hands with the couple before taking his seat. The couple had been referred to him by Mrs. Ojo, a colleague of Mrs. Balogun.

She had realized that Pastor Ade wasn’t genuine despite his assurances that the prayers and materials would work on her problem. Her generous cash gifts to him flew away without any tangible improvement in the situation. It was only the three of them in the house. Luckily, a friend’s mother and Joke had taken out the children for a while.

The issue of infidelity was raised by the wife. She reported that her husband had a child with a lady who was living at No. 26 Clement Ajayi street. At that, the husband burst into a fit of rage and laughter calling her a mad woman fond of making wild accusations.
Transgressions, dislikes and faults were rapidly counted off the fingers many times by both parties. Mr. Balogun shouted at her, claiming that she was loud and pestering, and a bad home maker who always relied on maids and house helps for any little thing domestically related. Worse still, she was an unfortunate terrible mother of only girls, with a weak spot for spoiling them, especially the youngest. Her insecurity made her not only develop jealous eyes but lose her wifely appeal.

The guest, after calming the tension, asked the woman if she had evidence against the man. She did. Most important of all were text messages from his phone she had forwarded to hers, his clothes that had stayed unwashed in the laundry basket with red, glossy sticky smears of lipstick and some of his secret calls she had eavesdropped on, in and outside of the house.

“That is not concrete, she is making assumptions,” her spouse challenged addressing the elderly man who questioned him with his eyes. Rage and surprise were in his eyes. Mama Tara couldn’t possibly have seen through him and unearthed his secrets.
“Really! Like really! She screamed. So, what is this?!” On her phone in her raised hand were pictures. One, of a young light-complexioned lady cuddling a baby boy and him wearing his brown and white native lace outfit. Another, an older version of his mistress wearing bum shorts and a spaghetti top with the baby in a car seat, his mistress in the selfie foreground. She slid through the pictures like how traders flipped through large wads of naira notes in the market. The twentieth and last image showed his accomplices: his sister, mother and a gang of his friends, Aunty personally knew, all in matching lilac coloured lace outfits. Among them were Baba Laide and his wife.

“What do you have to say to this, Mr. Balogun?” queried the Pastor who looked tired. He had seen one too many of such couple troubles. The husband glanced at his accuser with raging anger and fury etched on his face before looking away from the Pastor’s steady gaze.

“All I want to ask him, pastor, is this: Bayo, why did you marry me in the first place?”

She rose from her seat, walked over to where he was and looked him in the eye. “Answer my question! Why did you marry me back then and now under my nose marry another woman? She waited for a response.

A pause. He looked at her. “Because, I don’t love you anymore! And it’s mutual, otherwise you wouldn’t have broken pictures of our engagement and wedding,” he quietly said.

Pastor And heard it but didn’t express any surprise. Instead he looked at the woman. “Is it true, Mrs. Balogun?” She didn’t answer him.

“Tell Pastor the truth, you useless and worthless woman. Confess what you said to me weeks ago, if you have no shame,” he shot back at her. The elderly guest cautioned the husband on his language.
“Is it because I only gave birth to girls that you now went outside to get a younger woman to give you a son,” she spat out with venomous indignation.

But before wife or pastor could say anything, the furious husband stood up quickly and went into the bedroom, leaving the other two in the room to face their shock and stare at his exiting form. He picked up his phone and made a call. Tomorrow, she will receive her last gift from him as his wife.

“Bayo,” his mother’s voice came loud and clear on the other end. He could hear his baby crying in the background mixed with the soothing voice of his mistress.

“Maami, the cat’s out of the bag. Mama Tara must hear from our family,” he said sinisterly.