Second chances

Chapter Forty : Second Chances

The past two weeks were blurry for me. Mother and Christian had begun to make preparations for father's burial while I was allowed to recuperate. A number of visitors had showed up and I was happy when I saw Onyi. She had come with her little daughter and thankfully didn't stick her hand in her butt to remove her underpants even though she had the urge to.

"if you're not comfortable with those smaller ones, you can get bigger underpants to save you from embarrassment"

"see ị need it to look sexy, can't you see I've lost enough weight, especially now that Maduka and I have fixed our problems" Onyi replied when I reprimanded her of her usual hand to butt movement.

I was surprised when she mentioned her husband because I had thought they broke things off.

"stop looking at me like that now, I thought a lot about it and I figured that I had to find a way to save my marriage, if not for my sake, but for the sake of these beautiful children. Do you know that children from broken homes tend to be emotionally unhealthy?. My husband messed up badly and I was hurt and angry but after I tabled the divorce matter to him, I think he realized that he was wrong for treating me badly and breaking our marriage vows " she said

" how are you going to cope with the memory, you know the pain. Besides do you still love him after all those things he did. The body shaming and all. What makes you think he won't make the same mistake again? " I asked afraid that my friend had made the wrong decision

" You never hear say marriage na better course for university. So because I failed a course or madu failed a course so we shouldn't work hard to graduate. To be honest, I wasn't giving my husband attention and because I saw myself as a married woman, I paid no attention to my appearance. We both made mistakes you know, we should have encouraged ourselves, opened up more. We've been going for this marriage counseling program and it has been helpful. Every marriage has it's rocks what we build of it, is all that matters. "

" you sound really different, but how will you deal with that uncertainty as to whether he'll cheat again or not. Do you trust him after all the two chances you've given him and he messed up still. Trust is like an egg once broken, it can't really be gotten back. Though Mr Ajayi would disagree and talk of scouring powders and manure" it almost made me laugh when I remembered all those sessions.

"You know one thing I've learnt is that when love is involved there is no limit to the chances you give. Maduka is not violent, the only issue here was infidelity and it's not like tons of men don't do it. I'm not trying to justify his actions, but I've seen the bigger picture and I don't want to end my marriage. He's accepted his mistakes and I see how he's really giving his best to make things work. He goes to the gym with me now, encourages me and we talk more now. We didn't do all these before. I love my husband and if another chance is what we need to make things work, I'll keep on giving him second chances. " she paused then added." who is this Mr Ajayi? "

I didn't know what to qualify him as, having found out his true profession.
" he's my friend "

She moved to her daughter and removed the folded piece of paper the girl had stuck into her mouth mimicking the act of smoking.

The little girl's display made me smile because it reminded me of Christian and I as kids and how father had dealt with us when he caught us smoking lit papers. Even Charles was involved in our little experiments as children. I had really known my husband all my life.

"she picks these things up from movies, I need to put up parental guidance on my decoder. Where's Charles? Haven't seen him since I came here. Considering how una love dey carry him, I was expecting him to be tied to your bed. Who knows how he feels, a man who almost lost his wife twice. What are they saying about Grace Maduka? Have they found her yet? I hope the other fool rots in jail. She was even lucky they didn't kill her. "

Charles, is umm he's around. They didn't find Grace but they've been looking for her. For now they're taking precautionary measures, that's why some people are watching me." I thought of telling her about my plans of divorcing Charles but decided otherwise. I'll do that when we're over with everything.

" Death could not even keep you people apart. It's romantic to think you cheated death to be with your one true love" onyi was laughing at this point. I gave her a weak smile before she gave me a card by our colleagues. Which was unexpected because I thought they all wanted me to die.

Onyi left much later with her daughter while I decided to rest a bit. It was almost time for my medication and chatting with onyi had worn me out.

My eyes closed for an instant before a knock on the door made my eyes flutter open. I was very surprised to see him in my room and pleased because it showed he did care about the welfare of his workers. Though mine must have been a complicated case.

Jude, what are you doing here? "

"i came to check on you, how are you feeling?" he asked reaching out to hold my hand.

I let him hold my hand while he sat beside me, my mind wandered to when he said he visited me while I was in coma.

"much better, didn't expect you to visit after everything"

. "I was really wrong about the things I said. But if you had accepted the job offer all this could have been averted. You wouldn't have even lost your baby. But all is well,i just came to check on you."

The mention of my lost baby broke my heart all over again, it was something I had to get used to. But I didn't recall telling Jude about it and considering how distant he was to my family I didn't think they told him either. Maybe onyi told him on her way out, which didn't seem like what she'd do.

Jude held my hand while I was still lost in thoughts. When the message  about the intertwining of our hands and his closeness to me finally set in, Charles had already barged in.

The position Jude and I were in, sent a message of intimacy. His hand laced in mine and his other hand on my face reminded me of how I withdrew from Charles. I hadn't seen him after I mentioned the divorce and the look he gave me after seeing Jude made me realize one other thing I could easily see in his eyes apart from telling if he lied or not , "pain".

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