I am just a normal woman.
As in… I am young and married. I am a mother of two children. The boy is the older one. He is ten years old.
I have been married for nearly twelve years now. I know that this fact is not your business. But there is a reason for my tormenting you with details of my marital situation.
Today is ‘Val’s Day’. Yes, that Val’s day every fourteenth day of February.
The very Valentine’s day.
See eh… I am not a romantic person. Our relationship is just there. He does his part and I do mine. We work hard to make our marriage better. No stardust or rainbows.
It is a functional and a good marriage.
We have our own share of problems;
He thinks that he knows everything. When he communicates what he does know, the confidence with which he speaks borders on arrogance. He carries himself as ‘the strong, silent, African – whatever…’ but like most of his kind, he is a softie.
And bless God I try my best. I am not perfect. I am not a bad person. But my husband ‘too get wahala’. His issues are ‘legion’.
It is only God helping me to cope.
So… The reason I am writing this is because last week he told me ‘something’.
I can’t remember what we were talking about, but he proceeded to tell me a story about a car he sold seven years ago.
It was an SUV. ‘I was not in the country at the time’, he said. Or that, ‘I was in law school or something…’ (he said).
Anyways the buyer apparently paid millions for the vehicle. But the middleman did not call my husband until about 6pm.
‘The car was paid for in cash’. My husband said. Whilst stowing away the cash, the middleman begged my husband to go straight home and not ‘faff’ about with a large sum of cash in his car.
My husband assured him that he was going straight home. At some point on his way home, he said that he felt he was being followed. My husband then intentionally made three consecutive ‘right turns’.
The car (tailing him) of course duplicated the turns… And my husband (allegedly) ‘activated the full fury of his Mercedes AMG and left the bastard behind like a childhood crush’.
I know that this fact is not your business. But there is a reason for my tormenting you with details of my marital situation…
So… I was performing ‘school runs’ yesterday February 13. (He takes them to school and I bring them back). They had extra lessons yesterday and so I had to wait until four pm to pick up my brood.
It was the usual below-conscious activity. It is a function and route I have plied a thousand times. Answering banal questions… Threatening to pull over and physically abuse them… Promising them another trip to Disneyland (not that one. The one in France)… Yes we were going to eat catfish peppersoup for dinner… Yes Don Dada (their dad) is a superhero and is ‘awe-chum’ (awesome)… Promising to sell them off at a discount on #FoodBasket if they did not stop fighting…
You know…usual stuff that mums do all in in the course of discharging our maternal duties…. When I noticed a car behind me. It was a ‘Golf VW’. Grey color and a little rickety. As I squinted at the car through my rear view mirror, I made out four male occupants. In truth everything was wrong about the scenario in that moment in time.
The part of town we were in was affluent. And as I neared our neighborhood, it became even more affluent and so his rickety jalopy stood out like a third nipple.
The two men backseat were huddled together upright. They were so close that it looked like they were all seated in a straight line. Like the car was a 2- door with a single bench–like seat. Then they were all concentrating with intense focus at the car in front of them.
My car.
With my two angels and (of course) my MILF self.
My people make una no vex… Shey una know say e get as the country dey right now. Kidnappers full every where. No be me and my children church people go use do prayer point. I no be learner… Na only plenty money wey we get. Na my husband kukuma get the pepper… He just dey gree carry me along…
(In other words, I was terrified).
At the time of these epiphanies I was already along our street… And so as Mr. Paranoia taught me I began the first of the three right turns… By the third right turn, I was back on our street. Our house was approximately half a kilometer ahead and to the right. My husband is on speed dial and so I punched ‘1’ and quite uncharacteristically he picked up at once.
I remember babbling and tearing up… I remember becoming hysterical on the phone because I was now about two hundred meters from our gated mansion.
I was confused and scared. If I turned into the short driveway I was risking too much. The gates were automatic. They open and close too slowly…was my husband at home? Who was at home?
My meltdown spread to my kids, and they started wailing too.
In my terror and indecision I had somehow stepped on the brakes about a hundred meters from our home. And then something I saw petrified me… A sight so fearsome and deadly that I peed myself literally.
No it was not the fact that three of the men had opened their doors and were stepping out of the Golf VW…
No it was not the fact that one of them was holding a pistol…
No it was not the fact the my husband was by now running towards us with his younger brother right behind him…
No it was not the look of determination in both their eyes… Looks signifying their intent to protect us… Or die trying…
It was that my husband had a gun in his hands and he was shooting it at them as he was running towards us…!
It was like in a movie…
Gunshots and slow-mo’…
In seconds I was in the backseat on top of my children, shielding them… (Don’t ask me how I did it, my ankle is sprained somehow though)…
I had only braked, the car was still on ‘drive’ when I vacated the drivers seat and so it kept rolling uphill…
Surreal!
Then a crash as my car hit a kerb. A volley of gunshots. Me and the kids screaming. A man or two crying out painfully… Begging for mercy… Then…
A final gunshot.
Then neighbors and personal staff swarmed toward us and pulled us out into the safety of our homestead. As we were shepherded through our gates I glanced right to see three bloody bodies ‘grotesquely contorted’ on the street. I saw my husband standing with his rifle trained on the injured driver who was bawling and begging for his life. This one looked badly injured. My brother in law was beside him holding the same pistol that was in the hand of one of the (dead) men…
I have a few questions to ask my husband. Chief of which is where he had learned to shoot a gun. A gun! My people a gun!! My husband does not only have a gun, he knows how to shoot it!!!
Now all his safaris and expeditions start to make sense!
Aaah! Where was it kept in our home? Why was he at home? Why was Denzel over there with him? How did my husband know!?
Was he having me followed? One of his software or apps?
Anyways… The reason I am writing this story is because I am in a mall right now.
I need your help, what Valentine day present do I get for him? It is not our style, but I have to get him something…
Don’t I?
