Battered Wife

6

It was early in the morning the next day, around 5:00 am before I finally had the opportunity to go back to my room to take a bath, change clothes and return back to continue working with catering service company group.

I'd prepared to work at the funeral party because as a responsible daughter-in-law who married Aderemi, it would make absolutely no sense if I didn't. However, I'd hoped to avoid working with the Catering service group and in order to strengthen my argument against such, in case my mother-in-law decided to be a bitter cruel woman, was that, I didn't have enough clothes prepared. However, in the face of my domineering mother-in-law and a large group of my husband's molebi, or relatives in english, I didn't use that weak argument.

As such, I had only prepared two extra clothings for the funneral: One aso-ebi clothing, artfully styled, for the funeral party and one clothing for the inevitable errands I'd expected to run before my mother-in-law threw me under the bus and sent me off to do the hardest job she could find for me.

The next morning, after spending all night working in the open backyard of Aderemi's maternal family home cooking with large double gas cookers, running around doing all kinds of chores and helping the cooks, I was exhausted but I couldn't rest.

The only favor I could get out of Aunty Joy was two hours to freshen up and I took it very seriously.

Thankfully, while I was wondering how I would find clothes to change into for the errands I would have to run right until the funeral party started, Folake came to my rescue, supplying me with some of her casual clothes — a shirt and a skirt that was my size but was about two sizes smaller.

"God bless you Folake. Ose gan. I'm so grateful." I thanked her again as she led me to the room Remi and I had been assigned after getting me a change of clothes.

"We thank God. No need to thank me again now, I didn't do anything."

I wanted to respond with more thanks because even though she tried to downplay it, she was doing me a huge favor not treating me like a second-class citizen just because my husband was openly cheating on me and his mother obviously disregarded me.

However, she stopped at that time and pointed at the far distance at the only guest house and motel in Remi's hometown. "This is the hotel Remi insisted on staying at. As you can see, it's just a few minutes trek from their family house. You'll have to call Remi to come get you though because I don't know what room he took."

"Oh, okay. Thank you so much Folake. Modupe gan." I thanked her again.

She chuckled, "Ha ha, this one you're thanking me over and over again, mummy Adesewa. I said don't worry. I'm going back now. It's already 5:20 am. Hurry up and go and freshen up so that we'll go and find something to eat by 6:30 before we have to go and work with the Olopos again."

"Alright, thank you." I said, waving back at her and watching her disappear into the darkness with the flashlight in her hands as her only source of light.

It was also then that I realized that other than the faint light from the guest house's security lights, there was no light in my path.

I was swiping my phone open to turn on the flashlight when I heard a woman's light airy laugh, followed by a very familiar man's chuckle that sounded so much like my husband's.

A sinking feeling filled my chest as an idea of why my husband would be outside at this time of the morning laughing with a woman in front of a motel teased my mind.

Like a thief trying to investigate the home he wanted to steal from, I walked to the side of the guest house's walls, stuck to the shadowed parts where the night lights couldn't light up and tried to find the location of the whispering voices.

As soon as I turned the bend, I saw two shadows standing in front of one of the motel rooms, hands clasped together, as my husband closed the door of his room and led Busayo to another room not too far away from his, after she had obviously spent the night with him.

I watched them from that shadowed area as my husband whispered to her and she looked up at him sweetly, cupping his face with her beautifully-manicured nails.

Then I watched her drop a peck on his cheeks only for him to insist on a deep french kiss before the two love birds separated. My husband stood at the door and waited for Busayo to walk into her room before moving back to his room whistling happily.

After his door was shut behind, I stood there for several minutes, not quite knowing what to do now that I had confirmed that, just as I had suspected, Remi was cheating on me.

At that moments, there were several thoughts running through my mind, I wanted to confront him. However, I knew he would make excuses. After being married to him for several years, I could almost predict his response.

"Lola, I don't like how distrustful you are o. Busayo was just consoling me just now. She saw how sad I was and knew I didn't want to be alone so she stayed behind and watched some movies with me."

Then I would say, infuriated. "So after watching the movies, you walked her to her room and kissed her on the lips?"

And then, he would find an excuse for that too.

It was how he'd weathered the storm when I caught him cheating on me with his secretary around the time Adesewa turned two.

Another thought wanted me to confront Busayo to ask her if she was blind to the fact that Remi was married. But I cringed so hard at the possibility of making more of a fool of myself by confronting the woman my husband was cheating on me with and arguing with her about staying away from him so he could, hopefully, keep the sanctity of the vows he made to me when we got married.

Since I didn't want to see Remi or Busayo, I went straight to my car, walking like a wounded animal to the only thing that belonged to me in Remi's maternal hometown.

I slid into the backseat and then took out my anger on my innocent car seats, banging my clenched fists on them to try and sate some of my anger.

After a while, I was tired of banging my hands on the car seats and crying as I curled up in my car's backseat, my mind once again wandering toward the idea of divorcing Remi.

For several years since we got married, he had already done several things that me unhappy, over and over again. The only reason I continued to tolerate him was the perseverance that had been drummed into me from childhood and my mother's advice.

But I wasn't sure I wanted to remain in a relationship with a serial cheater anymore. This was the third woman and unlike the first two cases where he'd wisely tried to hide his wrongdoing, he was publicly displaying this woman, bringing her to a family meeting and making me look like a fool and feel so much less than I was.

It was true that I grew up in a village in a relatively poor household but I was just as educated as Remi was. I went to the same university as him and using my salary, I'd built a home for my family and moved them from the village to Ibadan city. So why did Remi and his mother seem to think that I was less than him in some way.

Why couldn't they treat me with some respect?

I felt worse and worse, the more I stewed on how Remi and his mother had treated me over and over since I married him and finally decided to call someone.

I would have called my best friend regardless of the time but she was on a business trip out of the country and I didn't want to disturb her so I called my mother instead.