When Love Is War.

21

Zainab

" I'm not doing it", I say for the thousandth time but my mother just would not get. This new habit of hers coming to my house unannounced has to stop.
" What do you mean by you won't do it, we've invested too much. It's like you don't know what is at stake here, we will loose these elections" she says in an almost whisper like anyone would overhear us talking in my bedroom.
" The plan doesn't even make sense how will I get Timothy who is a lawyer to sign these questionable documents", I say.
" That is not a problem I got this charm once you use it he will do anything you say", she answers.
"Those things don't work and even if they did I would rather not use them mother," I say after having a hearty laugh.
" You're laughing at me right, how do you think you got Timothy Hassan who everyone knows is so devoted to that his wife to sleep with you and marry you?", She ask me.
" Timothy and I are married because of his blind ambition and my shamelessness", I answer.
"That is not all, I helped you this ungrateful child. What do you think the perfumes and jewelry I gave you were? They were kayan mata, charms. I simply didn't let you know because I know you act like one bature ( white person)", she rants.
" Like mother like daughter I guess you used the same means to get my father to marry you and have Baba wrapped around your fingers", I say getting a slap as a reply.
"Do not say a word and please leave my house, " I say whilst trying to rein in my rage and successfully cutting of her tirade.
To my surprise she leaves albeit angrily muttering something under her breath about yaran zamani(children of this generation) and disrespect.
"Good riddance," I think as I watch her retreating figure.
❤️❤️❤️❤️
20th February, 2022 ( Election Day )
Sarayu Hassan

Since the incident at Timothy and Zainab's house I have successfully avoided them because I suddenly do not know how to act around them. The heart is truly a very fickle thing, I thought I had overcome this heartbreak and come to a place of acceptance but then suddenly it seems like my heart is breaking all over again. The only way I feel like I can deal with my emotions is by shelving them away and that has been very hard because they seem to be everywhere on the news, all everyone seems to be talking about is this election and how Timothy represents a ray of hope in Nigeria's history plus the gossip blogs cannot seem to get enough of our story.
Today was election day and hopes were truly high, I was really happy for Timothy or I tried to convince myself I was. I just knew today was going to be hard because we would have to spend almost the entire day together. The plan was to be at the polling station at our estate gate by 8 am cast our votes as fast as possible, speak to the press, have lunch and then come back for vote counting by 4pm. The boys said they would like to sleep over at Timothy's other house aka Zainab's house so that they could monitor the collation of the results together.
The day started off on a bad note for me with baby Miriam deciding it was a good idea to wake up at 4am two hours ahead of when she usually woke up and not go back to sleep. At almost seven months she slept through out the night most times but today of all days I wondered why she decided it would be a good idea to wake up so early. Breakfast was a disaster, I burnt the eggs and toast, Benjamin spilled orange juice on my favorite table cloth and Miriam refused to swallow her food she decided to just chew and spit all the food out. Nothing totally out of ordinary happened but everything just seemed to get on my very last nerve.
After the trying morning I had we managed to roll out of the house looking as presentable as possible and a good thirty minutes late. Timothy and Zainab were waiting for us at the gate. We strolled to the estate gate in relative silence the only noise was gibberish coming from baby Miriam in her stroller. Once we got to the polling station at the gate we are bombarded by several reporters and cameras firing questions at Timothy.
" I am very optimistic about the election and I have great trust in the process", Timothy answers the last question as his protocol dismiss the press.
After settling Benjamin and baby Miriam under the canopy provided we moved to join the queue. People on the queue moved to make way for our party to pass but Timothy quickly turned them down and everyone seemed so impressed. It is really sad that our society has seen so much misbehavior that decent behavior seems so impressive.
We left the polling station around 1pm, lunch was catered by a company that operated within the estate as there was a restriction on movement due to the election. Lunch was surprisingly lovely, we had it in my backyard for some reason. The food was great and the weather was better. The company was not bad either, Laila and Sade joined along with their families. For just a moment we were free from all those political people.
We hung out at my house till it was time for the collation of results at our polling station.
Not surprisingly Timothy was leading at our Ward. The party headed to Zainab's house while baby Miriam and I headed back home to have dinner and call it a night. The results would probably be declared early hours of the morning or tomorrow and I was not about to wait around for that. The boys would probably stay up and follow the collation process at every level.