Our Husband II
ICYMI: Read Part I HERE
“Ehn ehn. I saw you on e-dailys page. E na wuzi kwa oku — you’re on fire. You and your husband.”
“I can’t even keep track of those appearances anymore. Who knew there were so many places to be?” I respond to Nneka as I rub my bump. I was 6 months gone.
We were 6 months gone was what Emeka preferred to say when we met with his friends. Friends who came around often enough now, me wondering what he must have told them to keep them off all this while. I said I because alas, was I not the only one dealing with a burgeoning nose and a stomach that walked ahead of me?
As Nneka talks about who else she’s seen on e-dailys page, I check my new Instagram page, surprised again that so many people had begun to follow me that I had to put my page on private to stop it. My last post is one of Emeka and I grinning into the camera at yet another dinner, simply captioned, happy birthday my husband. 2 weeks ago. We didn’t have less dressy pictures. We were not a couple that goofed around and took pictures and selfies with our tongues sticking out.
“Ehn ehn, so how’s everything been? How’s Emeka?”
“He’s so attentive now and so affectionate. Always looking for what to do to make everything easier. If I didn’t know better, I would have fallen in love with him.”
“Would have kwa? Why would have?”
“He has another wife, Nneka. You cannot love a man whose desire for women is constantly growing.”
“Have there been other women? Asides our gbaza queen — Jewel?”
“None that I know of. And to be honest, I don’t want to find out.” I lie to myself.
I am still mulling over Nneka’s ask on other women when Emeka envelopes me in a hug from behind while I stir porridge.
“That’s smells amazing.”
I chuckled.
“You’ve eaten this with me for the past 3 days. How can it still smell amazing?”
“As long as you made it, it is.”
I temporarily forget about the other women that might exist until he calls me as we eat
“Mmeso, I have something to tell you. Jewel is pregnant.”
I reach for water and swallow.
Since the night I’d asked for a child, her name has not come up in our home. He’d even taken further care to not come back to me smelling like her, opting to never bring a bag back from his weekend trips lest it remind me that I was sharing a husband with another woman.
The yam I’m chewing loses its flavour and I drink another glass of water to assuage the rage I had promised not to feel at having a co-wife.
“Say something, Mmeso.” He reaches for my hand.
I pull my hand from his.
“Have you bought our child’s gift? I want to name him Kachi so you can go ahead and buy it now and not wait till he’s born.”
“That’s the only thing you can think about? Do you really think I would abandon you and our child because Jewel is pregnant?”
Her name, twice in 1 minute. She would be a constant present now.
When I don’t respond, he leaves me at the table with our half-eaten plates of porridge.
I have just finished stalking Jewel’s Instagram again when Emeka comes back into our bedroom. I feign sleep, but he senses that I am awake.
The mattress dips when he comes closer, spooning me, kissing my back, my neck, his fingers travelling down my thighs.
“I’m sorry for lashing out. I would never abandon you and Kachi. Never. In fact, I’ve already chosen a land and once I get back from my trip tomorrow, I will take you to see it. And then your own gift.”
There is a trip tomorrow and I know immediately that it is Jewel who is causing this middle-of-the-week trip, already stealing my time with him.
When he leaves for the airport the next morning, I send him the first picture ever in our chat history and caption it — I can’t wait for you to be back.
Jewel’s baby comes the day Kachi turns 6 months.
I am with Nneka and Emeka’s mother in the living room when he breezes in and declares
“Jewel just had a girl.”
Nneka heaves a sigh on my behalf, not bothering to hide her happiness that it is a girl, not a boy like my Kachi.
“Congratulations.” I respond. His mother says nothing, keeping to her word that I am the only daughter-in-law she recognizes and stands behind.
For the first time in our marriage, Emeka is away for 1 entire month, watching Kachi grow via WhatsApp video call.
When he arrives on the Wednesday of a new week, my heart leaps a little as I watch him swagger out of his car.
That night, I do not wait for him to initiate intimacy. I turn to him, kissing him hard as if to say to Jewel, he’s back to me. He’ll always come back to me.
It is our maid who calls my husband when I faint in our kitchen.
As the nurse beside me reels my vitals, I hear Nneka updating him on what’s happening.
When next I open my eyes, Emeka is sitting over me, trailing shapes on my arm.
“You’re awake. Thank you, Jesus.”
I had never really viewed Emeka as religious so to see him make the sign of the cross and mutter Thank you Jesus while holding my hand, I don’t know when the words fall out
“I love you.”
He kisses my hand and gazes at me. In the moment, embarrassment washes over me and I welcome the slipping away into unconsciousness until I hear him whisper back, I love you. I clench his hand.
Kamharida my second is 3 months when Jewel calls me for the first time since she came to my office to announce her co-wifeship.
She doesn’t bother with pleasantries even though I want to play nice and ask her how Blue is. It surprised me that Emeka allowed her name their child Blue. Nneka had sneered when I told her
“What kind of onye-ocha name is that? Hian!”
But then again, I’d chosen our children’s names and Emeka had not countered.
“Did you know Emeka was planning to take another wife?”
I stop punching the calculator on my office desk. I stare at the family portrait on my desk taken at Rida’s dedication, willing Jewel to be joking.
“You don’t want to say anything, bah?” Jewel accuses me.
I hang up on her.
I text Emeka immediately.
‘Is it true?’
I blink rapidly to fight back tears. The last time I was bamboozled with a new wife, I did not love Emeka. But to love him and have him tell me he loved me too, to have seen him cancel sometimes with Jewel because he wanted to be present for my 2nd store opening, for a party that Kachi’s school throws, I am hurt. How much more could his desire grow?
Emeka calls and I pick up.
“I wasn’t planning to marry her but she’s pregnant. I was going to tell you.”
“The same way you were going to tell me about Jewel, right? How many more women should I expect, Emeka Anyaele?”
“Mmeso don’t be this way please.”
“Go to hell.” I swear at him.
I text the real estate agent Nneka introduced me to.
A simple sentence.
“I want to pay for the house.”
