The Wife ESCAPED!

“If you did not send him to that Lagos, all this would not have happened o,” Rebecca grumbled as she sat forlonly on the sofa adjacent to the one her husband was occupying. Only 24 hours after Timmy was declared missing, she was already looking twice her age.

“Who brought the idea that we should send him there?”, her husband retorted with a hiss.

“But you are the man of the house na. Is it not you that makes all the decisions?”

“Woman, just shut up and stop talking like a child. The boy will be found. The police are working round the clock.”

“I don’t care what they are working round. If they like they can work round the chandelier, they should just find my son for me. Only God knows if it’s not tha… that your friend Dona that is behind all this,” she murmured.

Chief turned sharply to her. “What do you mean by that?”

“Chief, can’t you see? You sent your son to him and after some time, he calls you and says ‘Ehh… he’s missing’. He should be arrested. I’m sure he knows what happened to Timmy and where they are keeping him. I can feel it with my mother’s instinct.”

“Eheh? Okay. So where was that your mother’s instinct when you advised me to send Timothy to him? Back then, it was not working, abi? Or you just bought it recently?”

She turned her face away and said nothing in reply. Chief eyed her up and down and gave a long hiss.

“The food is ready, I’ve served it,” Tracy said as she walked into the sitting room.

“I’ll eat later,” Chief replied. So she turned to her mother.

“I’m not hungry,” was the sour response from that area.

Tracy shrugged and retraced her steps back to the dining room.

Dora, who had just returned from seeing her husband off (he had come to console her parents and offer his unlimited support), found her sister having breakfast in a semi-festive mood: earphones on and feet tapping to the rhythm of whatever she was listening to. She stopped and regarded her with a disgusted expression on her face. Tracy saw her and pulled off the earphones.

“What?”, she demanded.

“You are a bad person, Tracy. Your own parents are there, feeling anxious over the situation of your missing brother, your own biological brother and you are here eating and dancing.”Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

“They say they don’t want to eat na. Will I force them? Timmy is missing, so what will I do? Was I the one that made him disappear?”

“Just listen to yourself. Hear how stupid you sound. Your own immediate younger brother, you don’t even care about him. If you were me, I’m sure you’ll not even bother to call Mama and Papa to say sorry, not to talk of leaving your husband’s house to come here.”

“So now that you have left your husband’s house to come here, have they found Timmy? Look Dora, you don’t have sense. Look at the way they want to die just because Timmy is missing. If it was me or you, do you think they will care? You are the most senior and yet you are the most stupid. Can’t you see that because we are not men, we are worth nothing in their eyes?”

Dora shook her head sadly and exhaled deeply. “Now I can see how childish, selfish and wicked you are. So…”

“Hey hey hey, stop calling me names o. What’s the difference between our ages that you think you can talk to me the way you like? You better warn yourself o. Don’t try that nonsense with me again.”

“Eh?! Tracy! Are you talking to me like that?”, Dora shouted in disbelief.

“Turkey and meat. Who are you that I can’t talk to like that? Are you God?”

“I am your elder sister, you this insolent child! Do I look like you mate?”

“Metele by Omawumi. It is you that is a child. Because you went and married one broke-manage man, you now see yourself as an old… ah! Dora!”

“Yes. And I will slap you again anytime you don’t control your stupid tongue. Idiot.”

With a hiss, she sashayed past her sister who was still staring at her in disbelief.

As she watched her go, Tracy’s jaw slowly tightened in fury and then, she snapped. Picking up the water-filled jug from the table, she hurled it full force at her older sister’s back just as she was about to step into the sitting room.

“Jesus!”, Dora squealed as the force of the jug hitting her shoulder knocked her to the ground.

“Jehovah! Ah! What happened?”, her mother exclaimed, rushing over to her. “Are you alright? Hope you did not injure yourself? Wh…”

But her daughter was not interested in being petted or consoled. Pushing off her mother’s hands, she jumped to her feet and marched back to the dining room.

Tracy was standing in front of the table, looking very ready for the inevitable fight. Thwap! Thwap! Dora delivered two new slaps on both sides of her sister’s face. In swift response, Tracy headbutted her on the abdomen, knocking her to the ground. But as she moved to launch another attack, Dora pulled her leg. She fell flat on her back, giving Dora the perfect chance to pounce on her.

“Will you people stop this nonsense!”, Rebecca scolded. But the combatants were not ready to listen. “I said, stop this now!”

She went over to the battleground to try to pull them apart, but she was knocked down unintentionally. She had no choice but to call for backup.

“Chief! Chief!”, she called as she ran back to the sitting room.

“Who’s making all those noises there?”

“Chief,” she panted, “you are sitting down here and your children are killing theirselves in the dining room!”

“Eh? Where are they?”, he shouted, picking up his walking stick and rushing over to the dining room, his wife following closely behind.

“Fighting in my house?”, Chief exclaimed as he saw his daughters punching, scratching and pounding at each other. “My friend, will you people stop this nonsense! I’m here and you’re still fighting?”

But the battle went on like the lives of the combatants depended on it.

“Chief, these children will kill themselves o. Let’s call…”

“No, no. No need. I’m coming.”

Holding his walking stick by the smaller end, he walked over to the fighters.

“Chief, be careful o,” his wife admonished from behind.

He raised the stick and brought it down expertly on the head and shoulders of Tracy who was the one on top. She jumped off her sister immediately, clutching the side of her head and Chief had to repeat the action on the older sister before she could take advantage of his first victim.

As they stood apart, eyeing each other angrily with swollen, bleeding faces and rapidly heaving chests, Chief tried to put more space between them by pushing them further apart. But Tracy immediately returned to her old position. In response, her father applied the walking stick on her shoulder.

“Ah ah! What is it na?”, she shouted.

“Are you mad? Who are you talking to like that?”, Chief demanded, brandishing his walking stick.

“Don’t touch me with that thing again o, Papa,” Tracy grumbled in response.

“And if I touch you, what will you do?”, he asked, landing another hard blow on her shoulder.

“Ah! Papa, I’ve warned you o! If you hit me again, I’ll change it for you o.”

“Eh? You want to change it? Oya, change it!”

Throwing off his glasses and his shoes, he grabbed his walking stick and went for his daughter. But Tracy, seeing how serious he was, took to her heels and he followed her without hesitation, walking stick in hand.

“Ah! Just look at your life, Dora,” Rebecca scolded after the new set of combatants had run out of the house through the back door. “Fighting like a child with your younger sister a…”

“Di… di… didn’t you see when she threw a jug at me?”

“Are you not the older one? Can’t you be mature and come and report to me?”

“Report to you? What will you do? If it’s Timothy now, you… you… you’ll kill anybody that touches him. When we were small and I pushed Timothy for tearing my book and he fell and injured his knee, have you forgotten how you almost beat me to death? It’s only Timothy that is a human being in this family. Because me and Tracy are not boys now, we have no value. Anything can happen to us and you will not care…”

Then she burst into the tears she had been holding back.

“Oh dear. But it’s not true na,” Rebecca said as she went over to console her. “I love you all equally. You are all my children.”

“It’s a lie, it’s a lie!”, Dora wailed, crying bitterly. “You hate us! You and Papa… both of you have always hated us.”

“Maybe we have shown a little favouritsm towards your brother because he’s the last born a… a… and because we had always been praying for a boy before he was born. But it was not deliberate, eh. I’m sorry… we’re sorry for… if… if we made you feel bad or inferior. Sorry, my dear.”

She held her oldest daughter in her arms allowing her to cry on her shoulder, various memories of her wrongs flashing through her mind. She was so deep in thought that she didn’t hear her husband’s phone ringing, until the third ring.

“Ah! Your father’s phone. Please dear, I’m coming.”

She pulled out a chair and sat her daughter on it before running to the sitting room. She picked up the ringing phone and stared at the screen. It was certainly an important call. Without thinking of answering it on his behalf, she ran with it in search of her husband.

“I’m coming o, Dora,” she said as she passed her daughter in the dining room. “It’s a very important call for your father.”

Dora nodded in understanding as she dried her face and rearranged her clothes and hair.

Rebecca ran all the way to the back door, but before she could step outside, she noticed her husband coming towards the house with a broken walking stick in his hand.

“Where’s Tracy?”, she asked in alarm.

“She’s coming. Pack her things. She’s going back to school now,” he said in reply as he walked in, taking his phone from her.

“What do you mean, she’s going back to school?”

“Ask her when you see her,” he shot back as he returned the missed call. “Ehen. Hello. Commissioner, yes, I just saw your missed call. Any update on my son?”

Abandoning the Tracy matter, Rebecca went closer to her husband, eager to hear everything.

“Are you sure?”, he suddenly shouted into the phone. “Where, where? O… o… okay. No problem. Thank you very much, Commissioner. God bless you.”

“Chief, what happened?”, Rebecca anxiously demanded as he pocketed the phone.

“Timothy has been found.”

“Ah! Thank God! God has answered my prayers. Ojo! Ojo!”, she shouted, rushing outside. Her husband watched in surprise as she ran to Ojo who was also running out to meet her.

“Fast, fast, fast,” she ordered just as they narrowly avoided bumping into each other. “Go and get the car ready. We are going out right now!”

“Okay, ma. Yes, ma.”

And Ojo rushed off to get the car ready.

“Where do you think you are going?”, Chief called out to her.

“The station. We have to bring Timmy home na.”

“Bring him from where? They found him in Ogun state…”

“Eh? Ogun?”

“He has been taken to Lagos now. Don’t worry, they’ll bring him tomorrow.”

“But…”

“No but. Just calm down and relax. Everything is under control.”