The Wife ESCAPED!

When Tracy had exhausted her tears and strength, Rebecca got her a roll of tissue with which the girl dried her face and blew her nose. Then she took her to the bathroom, washed her face and hair and then dried them.

“Oya come and apologize to your father.”

On hearing this, Tracy, who had been walking voluntarily, suddenly stopped. But Rebecca grabbed her hand and dragged her all the way to the sitting room. Placing her before her now relatively calm father, she left her alone and went to sit on a sofa.

After a few seconds of head scratching and feet shifting, Tracy abruptly went down on her knees in front of her father.

“I’m sorry, Papa… for everything… I said and… and… did.”

But Chief acted like it was the sound from a movie playing in another room. He went on flipping through the pages of the magazine he was reading. Rebecca, seeing the situation, went down on her knees too.

“Chief, I’ve dealt with her. She has realized her mistake. The child has been beaten with one hand, let us draw it to ourselves with the other hand, so it would not get lost. Please Chief, forgive her. She’s just a child. She did not know what she was doing.”

But Chief kept reading and flipping with no sign that he could hear them. To everyone’s surprise, Timmy also went down on his knees!

“Pop… um… Dad. What Trace did was real crazy and all, you know. But like Mom said, you gotta uh… uh… hit the kid with the one hand and pull it in with the other. I’m sure she’s learned her lesson, Pops. She’ll never try this again, right Trace?”

And Tracy quickly nodded in concurrence. “It’ll never happen again, Papa. Never.”

Chief still continued with his reading, but suddenly, he folded the magazine and sighed.

“It’s okay, It’s okay. You can get up.”

“Thank you, Papa,” Tracy said, about to return to her feet, but her mother held her down.

“Say you forgive her, Chief.”

He looked up at the ceiling for quite a while, then he sighed deeply.

“I forgive you,” he finally said. And they all scrambled to their feet with many thanks. “But you must continue without money for one more month.”

The smile vanished from Tracy’s face and she was about to say something, but her mother quickly clamped her hand over her mouth.

“No problem, Chief. She will endure.”

Chief nodded and it was their cue to leave. Timmy went back upstairs and Rebecca took her daughter in another direction. As soon as they were out of earshot of her father, the first thing she said to her mother was, “Who will pay all my debts? They’ll kill me if I don’t go back with that money o.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll give you the money.”

“How much do you think we are talking about here? It’s almost half a million o.”

“I said I will give you the money… on one condition.”

“Eh? Which condition?”

“That you remove and stop buying all these artificial eyelashes, artificial nails, artificial make-up and that useless hair that’s smelling like a corpse that has been abandoned in a mortuary where there’s no light.”

“Mama, I’m not Mary Amaka. I don’t want my friends to laugh at me,” she quickly countered, maintaining a defensive stance.

“Look here,” her mother said, grabbing her face which she had turned away in anger. “If you want my money, you must do as I say. Understand?”

She jerked her face away and stomped off, grumbling as she went: “I will now be looking like an old witch while others would be shining.”

*****

Timmy was in conference with his parents, a serious conference that Chief had called to strategize on a way forward for Timmy as a man.

“We have seen that the Lagos experiment has failed,” he said, addressing mother and son. “So the question is, what next? But the most important question is to you, Timothy. What do you want to do next?”

“I wanna go back there,” Timmy replied immediately.

“Go back where?”, his mother asked, even faster. “Look here, you are not going back anywhere o. You better stay here in Abuja. Even a blind man will not walk into fire two times.”

“Woman, let the young man speak for himself. He is old enough to make his own decisions.”

“Old kwa? When he’s on top of his wife, he can be old enough. But while he’s still under my roof and under my care, he cannot be old enough.”

“Okay,” Chief sighed, getting up to his feet. “Since you’re now the new head of the family, I wish you luck…”

“Ah Chief. No na. Don’t mind me. Please sit down,” she urged as she went down on her knees.

“Ehh it’s okay. Get up before you behave as if I’m an idol.”

“You are our idol na. Nigerian Idol!”

“Hmm,” he scoffed. “Women and their tricks.”

“But Chief, if women are tricky, then you should avoid eating their food na, abi?”

“You have saved the transport that will take you back to your father’s house, eh?”

“No o. It’s the transport that will bring my relatives to take over all your property, that’s the one I’ve saved.”

Chief simply responded with a hiss and mother and son burst into laughter.

“I did not call this meeting for comedy purpose.”

They both apologized and immediately put up a serious face. Chief cleared his throat and then continued.

“So young man, what were you saying again?”

“Um… I wanna head back to Lagos and strike it out on my own.”

“On your own?”, Rebecca asked in alarm.

Chief glared at her and she relapsed into silence. Then he signed for the boy to continue.

“I wanna delve into fashion and run my own label someday.”

“So all the money I spent to send you to school in America is all for nothing?”

“Not really, Pops. I really think I can make it big with fashion, you know. I’ve got a lot of passion for this stuff.”

Chief sighed and shook his head sadly.

“Rebecca, what do you think?”

“I don’t know o, Chief. I’m not the head of the house. But the only thing I know is that he should not go back to Lagos. Why can’t you do your fashion here in Abuja?”

“Come on, Mom. Lagos has got a huge market and by the way, there’s this guy who’s willing to take me on as a partner, show me the ropes and all, you know. Then…”

“So you’ve been planning this thing for a very long time?”, his mother asked in an accusatory tone.

“How much do you and this your partner need?”, Chief cut in.

“Just two hundred grand for starters.”

“Hmm mm. Not only starters, it’s enders. Two hundred thousand for what, eh?”

“Rebecca!”, Chief scolded.Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

“Chief, this is a clear case of 419. They have found out that he comes from a rich family and they want to scam him a…”

“Is it your money? I am the one giving out the money; let me decide for myself. So young man, do you trust this your partner? Are you sure he knows what he’s doing?”

“Dead sure, Pops,” Timmy nodded enthusiastically. “This dude’s got the experience. He’s been there, done that, knows the holes and the common flaws and all that shit. All he needs is a little something extra to start something average and take it forward. He’s already got something going, you know. Seen the place with my own eyes.”

“Hmm. After you give him the money, the place would be locked forever.”

“No, Mom. I got this one, believe me. We’re setting this up in a way that he don’t make a move without my knowledge. Everything’s gonna be j…”

“Hey, it’s okay,” his father interrupted. “You said you need two hundred to start with, abi?”

“Yeah. J…”

“Then how much do you need to continue with?”

“Uh… well, we haven’t gotten to that bridge yet, but…”

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

“Dead sure, Pops.”

“Okay o. I just want you to know that I’m not Father Christmas… and keep that useless name to yourself before I break your head with my walking stick. Rebecca, go and bring my checkbook.”

“Chief…”

“I said go and bring my checkbook, woman! Stop Chiefing me.”

“Okay o,” she sighed, rising to her feet. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you people o.”

And she went off to retrieve the checkbook from their bedroom. “You won’t regret this, Po… Dad,” Timmy smiled, rubbing his hands enthusiastically as they awaited the return of his mother.

“Me, regret? No o. You will be the one to regret if anything goes wrong, because you’ll get no other money from me. Not even a dime.”