Second chances

Chapter Twenty One: Guilty

I stepped closer to the Okpara family after I had bid farewell to my daughter and Charles. For some reason he was becoming more comfortable talking with not just Christy but the driver and I too. Whereas my own Charles was not comfortable to spend the night at home after he had sleep walked into my ex/present friends house.

I pushed thoughts of my husband aside, there was a butterfly that needed to fly in front of me. The young lady looked at me with surprise and excitement as I closed the distance between us, while Jude could barely look me in the face. Grace was only amused by God knows what and she gave me a huge smile.

My eyes wandered to the young woman and I could see the similarities between her and Jude. She had a straight face, a dimple on her left cheek and a small pointed nose. She stood very close to Grace, not knowing how to react to me.

"Amara greet your aunt properly, she may not recognize you but your brain cells can vividly recall her, don't they?"

The girl walked to me and hugged me briefly, said "good morning" and walked to her mother's side.i didn't even like the way grace talked to her

"Your daughter looks very beautiful Grace, she's a grown woman. It's just quite unfortunate that I remember so little about her, please bring her to the house. I think Christy would also love to catch up with her"

I turned to Jude and greeted him, he mumbled a response.

My eyes moved to the young lady, then to Jude, back to the young lady. When our eyes met, he understood why I was staring.

He made an attempt to say something before he was cut off by Grace.

"I told you she's like her father in so many ways, the only thing she claimed from me is my other X chromosome and my blood group, Jude's genes were not fair to mine"

I tried as much as possible to look surprised while Grace was even more amused.
The only thing that bothered me about his deceit was the fact that he had always brought me in to help him out with issues that the young girl in front of me could very much handle.

She was almost eighteen, so she definitely knew what brand of sanitary pads to use.

Grace was very much amused by judges discomfort but I couldn't let her have the upper hand.

"well Jude is a wonderful man, I think your daughter would be a wonderful person, don't forget to stop by oh and thank you again for helping me with Charles"

I left the three of them and headed to the office. Onyi was absent and I wondered why she didn't tell me. There wasn't much work to do, but I felt very lonely as my other colleagues barely spoke a word to me.

The empty notebook on Onyi's then appealed to me then I figured I should start scribbling just like Mr Ajayi. Before writing I found it amusing to mimick his serious face and the voice in my head sounded just like his.

On the first page of the book, I wrote past - present then turned over to the next one.

My name is Victoria Patricia Chinedu, my parents couldn't decide on which name to stick to, so they named me after the queen Victoria and added Patricia of course. I am married to a lovely husband and we both have a beautiful daughter

That was all I could write before I was summoned by Jude. As usual the name callers fished out new gossip and names for me.

"husband snatcher" was the one on board, but like always I didn't care.

I got to his office and when the door creaked open he was facing the city again, just like the first day I saw him.

"please come in Victoria, we have a lot to discuss"