The Wall Between Us

Chapter 26 - Curiosity Killed The Cat

It would be better for us to have some doubts in an honest pursuit of truth, than it would be for us to be certain about something that was not true.

Daniel Wallace

NATHAN

With all the Wedding shenanigans, the days sped by so fast and I was counting less than twelve hours to my wedding. Friends and relatives from within and outside the country arrived non-stop and the Adakole's Mansion lost its usual quiet ambience.

Ivan had returned home after my mother's plea. She, Monic and my aunts had turned Ivan's room to a fashion house, with similar exquisite outfits and designer accessories littered everywhere. My incertitude towards the wedding was family knowledge but it wasn't going to stop them from showing up with a bang, especially with BellaNaija featuring the wedding on their website.

Loud chatters in Idoma by people who'd travelled from our village and children running about was the height of all the noise I could take. I exchanged quick greetings with the elderly women who were drinking beer in the lounge and headed for my car. I'd made sure to avoid my father all week, but he still got the last laugh as all traditional rites were performed in my absence.

I didn't know what the invitation card looked like and yet, I was shuffling between the family house and hotels, greeting family and friends who arrived by the hour.

Removing myself from the wedding chaos inside the house, I sat in my car, outside the gate staring at the email Mr. Yusuf sent.

He'd accessed my father's bank statement. There were unexplainable, random deposits to a certain account, from one year ago and as far back as many years. But what I couldn't wrap my head around was why Ms. Maria Ahmed, his secretary for fifteen years and mine for four the recipient of all those payments.

Was he helping her out with a medical bill? But he'd scolded her like every other staff on the last floor. He'd barely spared her glances and she feared him, even more than the rest of the staff did.

Surely there was another explanation to this.

But my heart knew. The only explanation for the Millions of Naira sent to her was if she was the other woman.

'The affair happened years ago and Williams assured me it stopped.'

My mother's words were floating carelessly around my brain, I punched the steering wheel and cursed.

Many years ago.

Was it before she started working for the family or after? Was it during the times she'd travelled across continents to visit me in school when my mother couldn't make it?

Was that why she remained unmarried even at fifty-two?

'Marriage isn't for me. Besides, I look thirty-five and can easily convince any of those young Lagos boys to marry me.' She'd joked, one time when she forced me to have her home-made lunch and I teased her about getting a her own man to pester.

And her child? How old was he or she now? She never mentioned having any child before.

Backstabber.