Luxury In Adversity

CHAPTER 4

Darling, how was work today” Lydia tried to make small talks during dinner as everyone was so quiet.
Chris hummed in reply while chewing his plantain.
Lydia had made white rice and stew with goat meat and since her family loves fried plantain, she added a considerable number of it on the side. She recently learnt how to make fruit juice from a site online and has since always made different flavoured fruit juice to suit each person like and stored them in the freezer so she served them the juice as well.
“Mummy, I won ayoya won” Emilia pouted
“You want what?” Sam giggled making Emilia pout more
“Stop making fun of my angel” Chris playfully scolded his last son “Here, have mine” he smiled at his daughter who was now chewing on her new fried plantain gotten from her dad. She looked adorable with her full cheeks, slow chewing movement and slightly closed eyes making everyone on the table smile.
“Daddy, John hasn’t paid his lesson fee yet” Sam told his dad casually
“So why are you the one telling me? Are you his mouthpiece?” Chris watched John. Knowing his dad wanted him to say something, he opened his mouth to say it but was interrupted
“Mummy, I won to pee” Emilia wiggled on her seat
Just then, Lydia finished her meal so she wiped her mouth with a towel and took Emilia to her toilet which was in her room. Her room was every young girl’s dream room. All pinkish with Barbie’s theme on the walls, bedsheet and curtains. Her bed was placed at the center of the room with its foot facing the doors to her closet and toilet that beside each other.
While Emilia was doing her business, John was contemplating on the lightest way to tell his dad he used his lesson fees to bet on which latest car product would be the fastest, and obviously.
“Daddy, I lost it” he finally said while acting all remorseful and anxiously waiting for his dad’s reply
“Lost it? How?” Chris was surprised that he dropped his cutlery and scrutinised his son. Everyone knew that in his family, his third son has the most money drive followed by his last son, so for him to suddenly lose money was beyond him.
Feeling intimidated by his dad’s gaze, he decided to be resolute in his decision. “I think it was stolen from my bag” feeling his dad wasn’t convinced he continued “Since it wasn’t my money but for school, I left it in my bag to pay during lessons period but it was gone before then”.
Sighing, Chris finished his food as well as the boys except John who was confused by his dad’s nonchalant attitude. He wasn’t sure if he was successful in convincing him. After Chris was done with his meal, he got up, took out his wallet from his pocket and refunded his son’s lost money then left to rest in his room. All the boys sighed in relief that no scolding was involved cos they would have spent a whole lot of time listening to it and none of them would be allowed to leave even though the scolding was for one person. They all finished their meal and headed to their room.

The next day, everyone did their routine. They hired a daily maid when Emilia was born and she wasn’t yet dismissed. So every morning, she’ll go to the house, clean the whole house including doing the dishes while Lydia prepared breakfast. She would have hired a chef for that but she has always loved cooking so instead had some online classes on how to prepare certain dishes.
Chris would wake up, make one or two calls then enter the bathroom to do his business for the day. Same with the boys except they alternated days to attend to Emilia. They all loved her so never got tired of attending to her.
Today was Sam’s turn so after doing his own business early, he went to her room to find her sleeping with her mouth partly open and dried spittle on her cheek. He got on her bed and gently shook her
“Hmmmm” she stubbornly covered the blanket with her eyes tightly shut
“If sleeping beauty doesn’t get up, I’m afraid I’m not strong enough to save her from the hands of the red-eyed terrifying, frightening and petrifying Grinch” he said with a deep dramatic voice
“That’s a lie” she sat up and glared at her brother who dared to fake a story for her. “Grinch isn’t a bad guy, plus he doesn’t have red eyes”
“Did I say red eyes?” he scratched his head while thinking. Mr Grinch’s name plus his appearance was always disturbing to him. How can one individual in a village of humans be have a green appearance and live alone on the mountain top. It wasn’t even fair that he even had an adorable puppy when him, a normal human couldn’t because Lydia was allergic to anything with hair or fur. ‘I can swear that Mr Grinch has red eyes after all he was a villain in the cartoon.
“You did. His eyes are white” she clarified
“hmmm, my sister is smart” he smiled while carrying her to the bathroom to do her business
“Sam, what is petrifire?” she asked with a cute scowl
“petri what?” he was confused “where did you hear it from?” he asked
“You. You said it just this morning”
“I did? At what time?”
“The time you told me the fake story” she frowned
“I didn’t fake any story. I swear I’ve watched a Grinch series where he had red eyes”
“That’s a lie. I made you watch Grinch with me so you haven’t seen any else”
“That’s a wrong English Emmy plus I might have seen it at the cinema” he countered
“you don’t like cartoons. Why will you pay to watch one?” she ran towards her bath tub
“Be careful. Maybe someone paid for me or I watched it at a friend’s place...”
Both of continued to bicker until they were done. At 7:00am, everyone would assemble at the dinning for breakfast before heading off to either school or work while the maid goes home. The boys take the school bus to school while Chris drops off Emilia and Lydia at work as she’s teaching in the same school and then drives off to his office.