THE MIRACLE I NEED : Episode 71 – 80
EPISODE 79
The moment Eric got outside the salon he dialed his mother’s line. He had expected her to keep their conversation regarding Amaka to herself, and was more than a little pissed that she had gotten Wumi involved, and had not even bothered to tell him about it.
“I was just about to call you. Are you okay? Why is a video of you attacking a guy going viral on social media?” His mother asked immediately she took the call.
“That isn’t why I called. Did you tell Wumi about Amaka?” Eric asked impatiently.
“Yes I did. Why?”
“Why? How could you tell her? That was supposed to be between just the both of us for Christ sake!” Eric snapped at her angrily.
“You better lower your voice. Wumi is your sister, so I don’t see any reason to keep it from her. Why are you so upset about it, anyway?”
“Why am I so upset about it? Are you aware that she paid Amaka a visit at a public salon?” Eric asked angrily.
“Yes. I was the one who told her where the salon is, and Amaka’s appointment time. What about it?” His mother asked calmly.
“How could you do that? Don’t you understand that Wumi already approached Kimberly as a friend? What would she tell Kimberly is the reason she confronted her stepmother?” Eric asked, making his mother pause.
“Well, don’t worry your head about that. We will figure out something. The point was just to let that brat know that we won’t let it slide if she messes with you.” His mother said flippantly, as though she didn’t have a care in the world.
Eric took in a deep breath to calm himself. He didn’t like regretting things, but right now he regretted talking to his mother about Amaka when he should have found a way to handle her himself. He should have know that his mother was going to handle the situation more emotionally than logically, especially after the way she had sounded when he was telling her about it.
“Back to the viral video on the net, what happened? I hope you weren’t hurt?” His mother asked, changing the subject.
“I’m okay. He was harassing Kim so I had to step in. I’m sorry.” Eric said apologetically, knowing his parents were likely disappointed in him for doing that. Such drama wasn’t their family thing.
“Why are you sorry? You were protecting your wife, that’s all that matters. Do you want us to take care of the video?”
“No. Don’t worry about it.” Eric said with a sigh.
“Are you sure you don’t want us to take it down? With that video circulating on social media, someone who knows you is bound to say something soon, and before you know it Kim will find out who you are, and the private life you’ve always liked to live won’t be possible because everyone will know you, and everyone will be in your business.” His mother explained.
“How will I explain how it was taken down?” He couldn’t deny that the thought hadn’t crossed his mind when he saw the video earlier, but he didn’t want to start doing anything Kimberly might find suspicious.
“You could just say a friend helped you. Or Wumi could say she did it.” His mother suggested.
“I’m tired of lying to her already. Like I’ve never lied this much all my life.” Eric complained.
She was beginning to get tired of all the lies herself, “Are you sure you don’t want to just call this whole bet thing off and tell her the truth? I really think I should have put an end to this nonsense betting game.”
Eric heard a door open, and then his father’s voice in the background, “Is that Tunde?”
“Yeah.” His mother responded.
“Let me say hello to my boy.” He said, and a moment later Eric heard his voice, “How are you doing today? And how is that beautiful wife of yours?”
“Ekason sir (good afternoon sir). We are both okay.” Eric greeted politely, “I suppose you just returned from the tennis court, how was your game?” Eric asked curiously.
“I didn’t go today, it was raining earlier.” His father said, and then looked at his wife who was mouthing something to him and turned away from her.
“I have been thinking about our bet, and I feel maybe we should just end it.” He said, making his wife stand up from where she was seated to embrace him.
“But it’s not even up to a month yet.” Eric reminded his father.
“The purpose of the bet has been defeated. The idea was for you to live without money and have a taste of poverty, but you’re married to a politician’s daughter and you’re living under her roof. That doesn’t seem like a poor man’s life to me.” His father said making Eric raise a brow.
“So poor people can’t get married to rich people?” Eric asked his father dryly.
“Sure they can. But that defeats the purpose of our social experiment, so let’s just end it. I’m saying we should just call it off.”
“Just like that?” Eric asked with a frown.
“Yeah. Let’s just say I wanted you to rest for sometime since you were overworking yourself and refused to go on a leave. So I jumped on the idea of that silly bet as long as it would give you some time off work to rest.” His father added.
“Wait. What? You mean the bet wasn’t real?” Eric asked with a frown making his father chuckle.
“Don’t worry, you can still ask me for anything you want, all I have is yours anyways… As well as your mothers’ and sisters’ of course.” His father quickly added when his wife raised a brow.
Eric didn’t know how to feel about it, or what to think since somehow he had been counting on them both having a year to get to know each other better but somehow everything just seemed to be going fast all of a sudden.
“Are you there?” His father asked when he didn’t say anything.
“Yes sir. How much time do I have?” Eric asked as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. His once simple life was just so complicated now, and he had no idea where to start from in uncomplicating things.
“You’ve spent two weeks already, so you have an extra two weeks to complete your one month leave. So wrap up everything and get ready to return to work in two weeks.” His father added.
THE MIRACLE I NEED : Episode 71 – 80
__________
Pete couldn’t believe how much he had been laughing since they arrived at the restaurant. He wasn’t sure if Kathleen was deliberately doing it, or if she just naturally seemed to know the funniest of things to say, “What’s your blood genotype Kat?” Pete asked as they ate.
“AA. What about you?” She asked, lifting her head to look at him.
“I’m AA too.” Pete said as he kept eating.
It soon occured to Kathleen that she had been letting him do most of the questioning since they arrived, and she had only been asking “what about you?” Every time he questioned her. She tried to rack her brain for any good question she could ask him, but nothing serious was forthcoming.
“Are you born again?” Kathleen blurted out all of a sudden making Pete give her a weird look.
“I was, once. I was very committed in church and all of that… But after my wife died, I lost all interest in that. He could have saved her, but he didn’t. Despite all the tears and prayers, he allowed her die just like that.” Pete said with a shake of his head, as though he didn’t want to think about it.
“I’m sorry if my question brings up bad memories.” Kathleen said apologetically when he dropped his cutlery set, and leaned back from the table.
“It’s fine. I’m full anyway.” Pete said with a forced smile.
“She was a Christian though, wasn’t she?” Kathleen asked with a faint smile.
“Of course she was. We actually met at the church the first time I went to church immediately I moved over there. She was like the follow-up minister in church for first timers.” Pete explained with a crooked smile as he remembered his late wife.
“She must have been very nice.”
Pete chuckled as he thought about that, “You both are similar in a lot of ways. Only difference is she isn’t as judgemental as you, she is gentle, and doesn’t have your weird sense of humor or follow come crase.” Pete said with a sad smile.
She wasn’t jealous, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to remind him of his late wife, or be compared with her, “You haven’t gotten over her death?”
“I’m not sure you ever get over the death of a spouse. I shared my life with her for some time, and we have a child together, so there is no way I can ever get over her. Accepting it as a part of life and moving on, is one thing, but getting over her death? I’m not sure I would like for anyone I get married to, to ever get over my death when I die.” Pete said without taking his eyes off Kathleen.
Kathleen swallowed, and looked away from him. That was fair. If she was in his wife’s shoe, she wouldn’t have wanted him to get over her death so easily either, “What about Amanda? Does she remember her mother? How old was she when her mother died?” Kathleen asked, wanting to understand what she was getting into.
THE MIRACLE I NEED : Episode 71 – 80
Pete let out a ragged breath since he knew he was going to have to tell her everything if he truly wanted her in his life as he already knew he really did, “She died after giving birth to Amanda.” He could still vividly remember that night.
“…” Before Kathleen could think of what to say or ask him, he continued without looking at her.
“We had both gone out to see a new movie that night. We were both laughing at something funny Laura was saying as we left the film house… Laura, that was her name. And then I received a call from work as we were about to cross to the restaurant across the road, where we were to have dinner before going home. She was pregnant of course, so she was almost always eating.” Pete said with a sad smile.
“It wasn’t until I was done with my phone call that I realized she had not crossed with me because she had stopped to buy some chips from a roadside vendor. I can still picture her laughing at me for not realizing I had crossed without her as she waved the chips in the air and pointed at her abdomen in a gesture that said the baby wanted chips. She used to do that a lot whenever she was craving something.” Pete paused, and took in a deep breath.
“Then out of no where, came a car skidding down the road in her direction. I shouted at her to run, as I tried to run towards her to push her out of the way, but it was too late. I can still see the surprise on her face as she lifted her hands to cover her bulging abdomen in protective gesture as she turned around so the car hit her back instead of her abdomen.” A tear dropped from his eyes, and then another, but he didn’t stop.
“I watched helplessly as the car hit her and threw her over. And I prayed with all my might for God to keep her and our baby alive. The driver quickly drove off without stopping, and even in that moment as I rushed to her side, her bruised arms were still wrapped around her abdomen tightly. She was taken to the hospital immediately but the doctors said they could only save our baby, since Laura was already having cerebral hemorrhage.” Pete said with a sigh.
“‘You would make a better parent than me, anyway’ That was what she said as I held on to her hand tightly while she was being rushed to the accident and emergency room. I can remember the sad smile on her face and the tears that dropped from her eyes as she struggled to say those words. I can only guess how much it must have hurt her to know she wouldn’t get to see the life they had created grow.”
He didn’t notice the tears that kept dropping from his eyes as he remembered the days, the weeks, the months and years that followed. The pain, the struggle to accept that God had let her die just like that. How could he forget the nightmares? He had tried his best to take care of Amanda with the help of his wife’s family, and he had also buried himself in work whenever Amanda was spending time with them. The pain had faded into a dull ache in his chest, and yes he no longer missed her as badly as he did back then. But how could he ever get over her death?
THE MIRACLE I NEED : Episode 71 – 80
Pete raised his eyes to look at her when he was done telling her the story, “Do you think if you were in my shoes you could get over her death?” He asked softly, but the pain in his eyes didn’t go unnoticed to Kathleen who was shedding tears of her own.
“I’m sorry.” Kathleen said with a sniffle, “Please excuse me.” She quickly added as she stood up to go use the ladies’ room. She had no doubt that she had ruined the make up on her face, judging by the stains on the handkerchief she had used in wiping her eyes, but more than that she needed to compose herself.
Pete gave her a single nod before reaching into his pocket to take out his handkerchief. He wiped his tears as he watched her leave, before gulping down the content of his glass.
************
Amaka sat on her bed with her back resting on the headrest of the bed while she silently fumed. She had lied to her husband that she was sick and had locked herself up in her own bedroom immediately she returned from the salon the previous day. Thankfully it was weekend, so she could sleep in, trusting her house girls to take care of her son.
Her ‘Friends’ had kept asking her what had transpired between herself and Wumi, but she had simply told them it was a business transaction gone wrong.
So his family didn’t want her in his life? That was okay by her. But if that was truly the case, why then had they allowed him approach her using her step daughter? The only way she was going to stay away from him as they wanted her to, was if he stayed away from Kimberly. How did they expect her to not want him every time she sees him with Kimberly? How was she supposed to stand seeing her first love being married to her step daughter? How could they ask her to stay away from him when he was going to keep coming to her home and doing those public display of affections in front of her every chance he got? There was no way she was going to stay away from him if he remained with Kimberly.
It probably seemed like she was giving up on him too easily, but the truth was that although she loved Eric, but she respected her husband and loved her position as the wife of a senator, and a potential governor even more. Her position would always come first before love, since she loved the respect a nobody from her impoverished background got from these rich people because of her husband. So for peace to reign, she was going to have to separate Eric from Kimberly, and after that she would deal with his stupid and very disrespectful kid sister for embarrassing her that way publicly.
Having come to that conclusion she decided it was time to plan her move. She glanced at her phone which had been ringing incessantly all morning, and picked it up as she stood up from the bed and walked over to the seat in front of her dressing mirror and sat down.
She raised a brow when she noticed that all six missed calls was from her best friend Chika. She couldn’t help wondering why Chika had called her so many times, so she decided to check her WhatsApp messages first, to see if Chika had left a message there. Immediately she opened it, she saw that she had three unread messages from Chika, and opened the message to see that Chika had forwarded a video clip to her.
Message one read, “Isn’t that your Eric with your husband’s daughter? Or is this someone else?” With a surprise emoji.
Message two read, “Why are you not taking your calls nau?” With an angry emoji attached.
THE MIRACLE I NEED : Episode 71 – 80
Amaka quickly downloaded the video clip, and watched it with interest. The corners of her lips pulled up in an evil smile as she pushed her phone away, “Eric Tunde Obasan… How many men can you fight because of her?” Amaka asked out loud.
He had left her because she had cheated on him, right? Then it should be easy to make him leave Kimberly too. In fact, it would be too easy since Kimberly was naturally promiscuous. All she needed was to arrange for it to be done without anyone knowing about her involvement. She also had to be discreet about it so that it wouldn’t affect her husband’s political aspirations.
THE MIRACLE I NEED : Episode 71 – 80
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