The Turbulence✔️ (#1 in the Our Side of The Dice series)

41: Understanding the Assignment

Yemisi

Albert arrived immediately after I asked him on the phone call to meet me at the basketball court. It was as though he had been close by all along.

After contemplating for a while, I decided that Albert's dormitory would be the appropriate place to keep Gaius momentarily. I didn't want to give him the comfort of staying somewhere that wasn't prison but at the same time, I didn't want him to suffer unnecessarily.

Albert's dorm was a perfect balance needed to fulfill that criterium. Keeping him there was the safest assurance from every imaginable insecurity.

I had to spend the night at Albert's as well because we had so much planning to do concerning the whole friction that came with Gaius' case and what to do with him in the next couple of days. Although we came up with feasible plans and schemed solutions for every problem that could arise, I was unable to sleep that night.

I kept thinking about Gifty, my husband, and everything. My life. How did it all crumble? And why?

Unrest in the state of mind was like an imaginary intertwined stairway. You don't know your way around. So you place your foot on any stairway with hopes that it leads you out of the jalopy but unfortunately, it's just another stairway. A frustrating one.

Just like the several, numerous others that plunge you deeper into the realms of restlessness. I found myself recalling the death of my first husband, Ken.

I was stepping out of the kitchen that fateful afternoon with a small napkin between my fingers. The potatoes were almost done and I was about to tell that to my children. I wanted them to have some appetite.

Gifty was a lot younger then. Easy to pacify with a plate of food, unlike an older teenager. I wanted them to feel a bit okay that afternoon even though it was tough and the wounds of grief were still fresh.

The knock at the door that came at the exact time I was about to talk seized the words from my lips. The knocking was very fierce and loud. One would think I was an irresponsible tenant owing a five-year rent from her landlord with the way the knocks sounded.

Quickly, I rushed to open the door and I met my in-laws, my husband's mother, and his two brothers. With terrible frowns on the creased lines of their faces. It was a form of anger that terrified me greatly as I stood and maintained eye contact with them. Shadow contact rather because suddenly, they looked so mighty that it made me cower.

"Umm...Good afternoon my dear in-laws. How may I be of help?"

I wasn't sure if those were the right words to say then but I didn't want to address my fears directly. Irrespective of my decent question, I got a slap on my cheek as the answer. Next thing, his brothers pushed me aside in the most aggressive manner.

My head would have collided harshly with the wall if I hadn't managed to hold on to the doorknob. Gifty and Zion ran to my side immediately out of fear as my brother-in-laws marched in like terrorists and policemen walked in right after.

How had I not seen them when I opened the door? What was going on? Tears nearly streamed down my eyes from the stinging effect of the slap but the sight before me was a lot more shocking.

I wanted to bump fists with my brother-in-law and the policemen for raiding my matrimonial home and throwing all of our luggage from upstairs, many of my children's clothes flying through the air but I held my children beneath my embrace, scared of letting them go. I was afraid that if I let them go for a second, the policemen or my brother-in-laws would harm or shoot them.

So I turned towards my mother-in-law and stared at her in unbelief. I couldn't believe she'd slapped me and was watching all of this happen.

"You are a stupid witch! You killed my son. You gave him high blood pressure you wicked woman! Get out of this house and don't even think of claiming any of the properties. I don't care if you are a lawyer. I will ruin you if you make any stupid move. Take those demons you call children away from this house. I never liked you anyway but I pretended to for the sake of my son but you've successfully killed him now. I hope you feel fulfilled!"