Remember.

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash.

Forget everything they told you about me.

Every. Single. Thing.

They told you different tales spiced with truthful lies and called me names I can’t accept.

Can you still hear the truth?

On Monday, I left work a bit late, that part is true. I remember seeing Meredith crying at her desk from where I sat.

She’s my Secretary, of course, I left my office to ask what was wrong. She told me of a sick mother, and a dead father.

I was left speechless by it all, so I hugged her, that’s when Tope walked in.

I knew your loud-mouthed friend will twist it all. I remember getting home just in time to stop you from picking her call.

I wanted to explain it all first. Can you remember? I walked in, my cologne almost all gone, hair slightly disheveled and a spring in my steps.

“Welcome back,” you said in that tone I told you bewitches me. I tried shaking my head a bit to break the spell, it might have worked… but you kissed me and all thoughts of explaining what happened was lost somewhere in the night.

On Tuesday I should have known something was wrong when I saw Tope and a couple of your friends leaving as I was coming in.

You didn’t seem upset when I walked in, so I shrugged whatever curiosity I felt about their visit, away.

On Wednesday, I told you Meredith kissed me. I didn’t tell you she was crying again and this time, her tears really flowed out.

She apologized immediately and swore it won’t happen again - I told you that.

On Thursday morning, HR put out a vacant spot for the Managing Director’s Secretary.

On Wednesday night, you said you won’t speak to me again till I fired her.

Something broke in me that night. I dreamed of Meredith’s mother dying somewhere on a hospital bed because the hospital stopped the treatment.

Meredith told me of her deal with the hospital: they treat her mom; she gives them seventy percent of her salary for two months.

I shivered at how they would react once they caught wind of her unemployment. I cried for the first time in twenty years that night.

I knew you’d never speak to me again if I gave her the money.

Meredith posted on Facebook yesterday… her mother died after wheezing in pain for hours in her arms.

On Thursday morning I tried kissing you goodbye but I ended up pecking the air.

You asked in a serious tone as you stood there, draped in your brown nightgown, “Did you sleep with that whore on Monday? Tope saw you fondling.”

Anger and pain rose within me as my nightmare returned with full force. I wanted to say, “She’s not a whore and no!” but I chose you, my wife, in that moment. “No,” I said instead and walked out, pain reminding me of that broken spot.

Tears welled in my eyes as I pulled out of the driveway. I let them flow in trickles, not minding the blurry vision.

Friday came with a sad twist as Fate stabbed me once again in my broken spot. My eyes were red with unshed tears by 5:30p.m. Few minutes before, I’d watched Meredith kneel before me, groveling at my feet. Begging for what I had but could not give: her job.

Understand, Meredith was a lady of culture and class; beauty and a hint of pride. If it was anyone else, Meredith would have told them to go to hell.

She begged because it was me… her understanding boss and new found friend. My Meredith. Yet, I turned her down; because I didn’t want to upset you.

I begged her to leave and watched the security men escort her out of the building a bit forcefully.

I fired them both by 5:29p.m. that day and made sure they would never be accepted by any security agency in Ibadan ever again.

On Saturday I met up with Meredith in an hotel and offered her a job if she’d let me have her, the way a wife lets her husband ‘have’ her.

I spent the whole day and a large chunk of the night ‘having’ her. I enjoyed every second of it. Isn’t that what they told you? Don’t act surprised, and no I didn’t read your chats.

I overheard you and Aminat - another loud friend - discussing my ‘lucid affair’ with Meredith.

Well, I did go to an hotel that day but it was to speak with a client… a MALE client. Don’t do that. Don’t even dare try asking if I’m gay or bisexual. You know the answer to that, so don’t ask out of spite.

My meeting with the client extended a bit later than planned and for once I didn’t mind. I preferred doing basically anything that could distract me a bit from that broken side of me.

You aren’t writing this down? Don’t act confused. As a freelance Journalist you are always looking for the next big story.

Sometimes I wonder if you got so bored with peace that you accepted to join your friends’ in making a story where there was none. Even if it meant risking your home.

To make this all worse, I begged you. I knelt and reduced myself to tears in front of you every morning before I left for work and every evening, once I returned.

You hissed at me and always walked away. I broke some more as each day passed because you… you know the man you married.

You know how I hate feeling powerless, you know how I promised to never cheat on you, you know how large my ego can get, you… you know all this. Yet you didn’t budge when I deflated my ego for you.

Yesterday (Sunday) I couldn’t go to Church. I was as broken as a smashed thug’s bottle on the cold rural streets of Nigeria.

I knew I’d be fixed up in Church but - for some reason - I wanted to remain broken.

I shattered to a million different pieces when you returned from Church, marched up the stairs to our bedroom and slapped me hard.

Look at my face, how do you feel knowing my left eye is shut because of you? I bought you a gold ring to perhaps boast to your loud mouthed friends, not to blind me.

Besides, what was my offence - not that anything excuses what you did?

Tope - of course! - said I invited Meredith over and she heard our moans all the way from her house.

What our Neighbour heard and mistook for moans was me sobbing into our pillow. The lady she mistook for Meredith was the pizza dispatch rider. You know pizza is my comfort food.

You stormed off and didn’t give me a chance to explain anything after you slapped me. I gathered my shattered frame and was on my way downstairs when my phone beeped. The notification read: ‘FACEBOOK:

Meredith Fowowe is feeling sad with Jessica Fowowe and two others.’ I fainted when I tapped on it to read how a woman who’d been my Secretary for five years lost her mother because of me.

Last night, I dreamed of three people: Auntie ‘Jezebel&’, Tunde and Meredith’s mom. Each dream connected to the next. Each dream ended in death.

Auntie ‘Jezebel’ died in prison after I finally told my parents of the rapes. I heard her screams pierced the skies as the wardens beat out her last breath.

Tope’s brother died because of a dare I gave, decades back. I heard the crack as he fell.

Now, Meredith’s mom. I felt Meredith’s tears on my arms. I ki... killed them all.

I woke up this morning on the floor, with one thought on my mind.

Understand, I know you would never listen to me, that’s why I’m telling you this in your sleep, my phone recording everything. I promised myself I’d stroke your raven black hair, kiss your soft cheek and follow my thought.

Before I do that, understand, I had a rough childhood. My Therapist warned me to steer clear of social situations that could stress me but how am I supposed to stay away from my wife?

The thought that crossed my mind is the same thought that crossed it about thirty years ago, every single - painful - time ‘Auntie’ Jezebel ‘had’ me.

Now I’m staring at your perfect frame, all dressed in a brown nightgown I always told you was pretty.

I’ve stroked your raven black hair and sniffed the milky scent your flawless body emanates.

I’m kissing your cheek and remembering how they had flushed a bright red the first time I did that.

I’m shattered, beyond broken, beyond repair, beyond tears.

It’s time.

You can pause the video now.

Father in Heaven… please accept me.