THE CHAT ROOM SEASON 2 : PART 1 – THE END

THE CHAT ROOM SEASON 2 : PART 1 – THE END

By Temi Akintade

PART 1

14 YEARS LATER

“I love you but I don’t want baggage.”

I slid my hand out of Adams’s hand immediately, losing his touch but grateful that he had noticed my reaction to his upsetting statement. What did he mean by baggage?

“I don’t understand. I’m not sick so what is the extra baggage now?” I licked my cracked lips.

It didn’t matter if I had spent minutes painting my lips red and curling my hair with a hot curling iron just to sit with Adams for a lunch date since his arrival from the United States.

Adams was the dream of every woman. He wasn’t a single father neither has he been married before. He was just a 40-year-old doctor who simply got tired of living a bachelor’s life.

We met at an event in Maitama when I was contracted to deliver a cake and some small chops for the event two years ago. And since then, we’ve been together.

“No baby, look.” He said mildly.

I choked on my laughter. “Could you please stop babying me for now. I need to know what baggage you are talking about?” I folded my arms.

He sighed and rubbed his oblong face, grinding his teeth, he shifted his gaze away as if to relieve himself of tension.

He was currently looking at some love birds idling about at the corner, the boy had a bottle of water in front of him while the girl had a meat pie on her plate and a bottle of juice.

A smile reached my lips when I noticed that the girl couldn’t look at the boy in the eyes when he spoke.

I wished that I could smack her head and talk to her senses that that, the boy would sleep with her and dump her.

I wish that I could tell her that teenage love was nonsense. I wish that I could tell her that the formular was God first, not boyfriend first…

“Your daughter.” He said.

I dragged my gaze back to Adams. I didn’t understand what he meant by my daughter. “what about Hadassah?”

“She is the baggage I’m talking about. Perhaps if you could keep her with mama Judith for a while, maybe we would be happy in our marriage.” He concluded, licking his rubbery lips nervously.

“I still don’t understand. Why is my sixteen-year-old daughter a baggage? Last I checked, she is a teenager not a child so why would she-” I paused. I understood what he meant by baggage. He simply doesn’t want me.

I picked my purse, and rose to my feet. “Adams, it was nice been friends with you and dating a selfish person like you for two years.” I scoffed.

“I should have listened to the Holy Spirit when he warned me about you.” My voice shook. I was on the verge of tears but I turned and sashayed out of the eatery.

I walked towards the car park and slid into my Toyota Corrolla. It was my first birthday gift to myself in 2016 when I got a huge baking contract that reeked millions.

I turned on the ignition and was about to pull out of the car park when my phone rang. It was Ejiro.

She was my neighbour in my newly built house in Ushafa. She was a housewife who sews children’s dresses at home in her sitting room.

I remembered that Hadassah had begged me to enroll her into her sewing school so that she could be learning how to sew during weekends and when she returns from school every day.

“Mummy Hadassah. Something has happened o! Don’t you teach your daughter any morals at all? Look you need to get here pretty fast!” her tone was hard and dismissive. The call ended abruptly.

A frown slid into my face. Hadassah wasn’t a stubborn girl. I had trained her in the way of the Lord. In fact just a year ago, I taught her about sx education. My daughter was not an unruly child.

I wanted to dial her number again to warn her not to speak ill of my child when I got a prompting in my heart not to call her.

‘Go to a boutique, get Hadassah a beautiful white dress.’

I sighed. I was ready to argue with the Holy Spirit. Hadassah has more dresses than me.

In fact, I recently got her a jean dress shipped from America and some shoes too. Why would the Holy Spirit want me to spoil my daughter.

“Holy Spirit is this you? Abi is it the d’vil?” I sighed when I heard no feedback. I was certain that it was the Holy Spirit who spoke to me.

Over the years, The Holy Spirit has been helping me grow in him, in the study of the word and in prayer.

It was when Hadassah turned ten years old that the Holy Spirit impressed it in my heart to start a prayer group for teen moms to meet every week and pray, intercede for their teenagers, and teach them as well but when I told my pastor’s wife about what the Lord had said, she told me that I was a single mother and that the Lord cannot tell me to do that.

Even though mama Judith had persuaded me to follow what God told me, I was bent on withdrawing into my shell of fear.

Maybe my pastor’s wife was right.

Finally I pulled out of the eatery’s driveway after I was sure that Adam had left. I drove down the smooth tarred road until I got to Wuse market.

There was a boutique on the other side of the road so I drove towards the boutique and parked in the driveway.

I entered into the mini-mall designed with various colours of light, and portraits.

“Where is the children’s section please?” I asked one of the attendees who was dressed in a customized blue shirt with the name of the boutique on it.

I made a mental note to get something like that for my workers in my eatery in Ushafa. The attendant with the customized shirt took me further into the boutique where I saw a variety of dresses.

Finally, my eyes caught a white-styled low-cut dress perfect for my Hadassah.

“That one! Let me have it!” I pointed my perfectly manicured finger towards the dress hanging on a female mannequin.

“That dress is fifty thousand naira ma.” She said.

I paused and slid out my card. What the h’ll? Why should I buy a fifty thousand naira dress for Hadassah?

I still felt the nudge to get the dress so I did with paid, and tossed the cloth wrapped in beautiful leather, to the backseat of my car.

I was almost at Ushafa bridge, enjoying the cool air that blasted through the air conditioner and Nathaniel Bassey’s Onise Iyanu when the Holy Spirit asked me to stop by the market and get a new pair of scissors and a bottle of red oil.

“Holy Spirit, what do I want to use these things for?” I sighed.

Again, I obeyed. I bought these things and drove home. On getting home, I drove into my house and I parked in front of my beautifully built three-bedroom apartment.

I walked to Ejiro’s house where I saw Hadassah weeping on the cushion.

The alarm in my head went off instantly. “What is the meaning of this? Why is Hadassah crying?” I cast my gaze on Ejiro who glared at me.

Her first son Titus an eighteen-year-old boy who was still looking for admission into the university stood tall by his mother. His gaze never leaving his feet. I wondered what was happening.

“Maybe if you had taught your child how to close her loose legs then she wouldn’t have been here weeping like a saint! Train your child well to stop spoiling innocent boys like mine.” She yelled and clapped.

In our few years of knowing each other, I have never come to know Ejiro as a shouting woman.

I was flabbergasted and embarrassed. After all the sx education? What in God’s name was wrong with this kid?

‘don’t yell at your daughter. Calmly tell mama Ejiro to counsel her son.’

The Holy Spirit told me. I wanted to ignore him because I was livid and I felt like spanking Hadassah.

Was this the sewing I sent her to learn? I turned to Ejiro and told her what the Holy Spirit told me to tell her. she busted into laughter instead.

“Please leave my house! Do you think I haven’t heard your story? Like mother like daughter! The Holy Spirit lives in me too” she yelled.

Fury blinded my eyes. “Don’t let me lay a curse on you Ejiro!” I wagged a finger at her and turned to Hadassah who was still crying. “Get up let’s go home!”

I turned immediately to leave because Ejiro was throwing insults at me while her son stood mopping at his legs.

By the time I got into my house, I went into my room to get a cable. I would teach Hadassah a lesson that she would never forget in a hurry.

‘Not every crime works with punishment. Show her the dress you bought for her instead and speak calmly to her.’

I heard again. This time it was my turn to release a burst of beserk laughter. “my daughter almost ruined her life! She almost had sx with that dirty boy Holy Spirit! And you want me to be nice to her? Impossible!”

The next question he asked me threw me off balance.

‘At her age, were you not pregnant?’

My hand grew limp.

THE CHAT ROOM SEASON 2 : PART 1 – THE END

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