My Father’s Solution

My father’s solution to everything is a cold shower.

I remember the first time I got my period at the fledgling age of twelve. It happened during one of the long holidays before starting a new session in secondary school. I went to my father to report the discovery who expectedly clueless about the situation called his elder sister to ask what he could do. She took him through the needful but somehow forgot to mention the searing pain that often came with it. A few hours after he had provided me with sanitary towels and tried his very best to explain the joys of womanhood, feminine hygiene and the need for chastity as instructed by his sister, I returned with complaints of extreme pain in my lower abdomen and back and all he did was send me to take a long cold shower and assure me that I would be as right as rain afterwards. I was not. It was only after about five painful periods that I fully grasped my condition and was able to medicate myself. I had lost my mother two years before that you see, I am an only child and I had no other female living with us at the time to seek recourse to. He prescribed the same thing when I scraped my knee, failed an exam, fell off a stool and misplaced a textbook in school.

I’d been a bit of a recluse as a child. This I admitted to myself later on was attributed to my mother’s absence from our home due to her illness and eventual demise. I struggled to remember her as I grew older and I eventually stopped trying. In the wake of that tragedy, while I began living a solitary life filled with constant reading and daydreams, my father became distant, insensitive, wore a permanent scowl, adopted laconism and morphed into a chimney. Fatherhood for him revolved around putting a roof over our heads, putting food on the table and financial provisions. Nothing more, nothing less. The neglect forced a certain kind of discipline into my life. I was so sure that if I was able to relentlessly plan, order and control my activities I would circumvent any curveballs life deemed fit to throw my way or equip me well enough to attain triumph.

The scrupulously planned years went by. Secondary school, a university degree, a master’s degree, a car, a well paying job, an upscale apartment. An upscale apartment, a well paying job, ambitions, a car, 28, no friends in the real sense of the word, several naysayers, a terminally ill father, the perfect circadian rhythm and I met him. There wasn’t particularly a ‘him’ in the plan but I managed albeit grudgingly to make an adjustment.

Growing up, I never had a lot of encounters with the opposite sex. Puberty came with the right amount of estrogen to transform me into a woman with the raging hormones in tow but I never had the boys fawn over me the way they did the other girls. I was just as pretty and a lot smarter but they never came my way. My coping mechanism was to decide that they were afraid of me because I was superior and didn’t consider themselves worthy enough to approach me. I obtained my first kiss through a bribe. I had read about the warm and fuzzy feelings you were supposed to get from kissing a boy and I was determined to derive that experience. I selected a fair enough lad and propositioned him. I promised him, in exchange for a heated make out session behind the senior school block of classrooms, half of my lunch money for two weeks and completion of his assignments for a week. He was only too happy to oblige. I never understood what went wrong but the session fell miserably below my expectations. I decided it wasn’t worth it and told myself that I was better off without such interactions with the opposite sex.

My sexual awakening came towards the end of my days in the university. There was no stopping me. It was an interesting distraction. I allowed myself to experiment until I became tired of it all. I still indulged but it was infrequent.

No serious relationships, casual hookups and then I met him.

Our companies came together to work on a big project and I was in charge of the team from my company as was he from his. At the beginning, we were continually at loggerheads but one fateful night working overtime changed that. Our respective team members had gotten off work for the day leaving just him and I to go over the work done for the day with minor decisions to be made that would dictate the work to be done the following day. A self-deprecating joke from him and a response from me. Laughter. An offer to get coffee from him and an offer to accompany him. Workaholics bonding. A smile from me and a smirk from him. Copulation. Thus the romance begun.

It had been a year and seven months. A year and seven months of perfection. I kept making my plans and occasionally considered him, when I didn’t, I made sure I got my way. I had to get my way. My existence depended on it, my sanity depended on it. He seemed to understand that.

That night, I was confused. I did not like being confused, being confused meant that I had somehow lost control. It meant that my meticulously planned life was threatened. It meant that I was vulnerable. No.

I had never witnessed or experienced infidelity. I lost my mother early on life and while she lived I don’t believe my father was ever unfaithful, I did not have friends. My knowledge of infidelity and all that surrounded it was gotten from books and the internet. I did not make any accommodation for infidelity and how to handle it in my life, so that night, when I was sure, I was confused.

It was quite unfortunate that he had to leave for a month on a work trip. It was quite unfortunate that he met her. It was quite unfortunate that he played a very poor game. It was quite unfortunate that a colleague of mine happened to be in their midst during the work trip. It was quite unfortunate that he lied. It was quite unfortunate that he lied again. It was quite unfortunate that I became angry. It was quite unfortunate that I became confused. It was quite unfortunate that I had the keys to his house.

Later that night, after staring at a wall in my apartment with the sounds of crickets floating into my living room, I stood up, half naked, got into my car and drove to his home. I can’t say for sure if I acted consciously, I had a throbbing headache and all I could see was red. I do know that I left his home after 45 minutes. It’s a miracle that I drove home in one piece because my nerves were all over the place and the one thing I knew I needed when I let myself into my apartment was a cold shower. I gave myself up to a cold shower and buried myself in my bed.

I had a morning ritual of a 25 minute run, a warm shower, and breakfast while watching the morning news before heading out to work. On the news was a report that a house I realized belonged to my ex-boyfriend was set on fire the night before.

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