Chapter 5
937 Words
So it’s true.
“Mama, what is true?” she asked, her voice laced with confusion and suspicion.
Just then, Chijoke walked in. He looked straight at Mama and said, “You see what I’ve been telling you? I told you that since I refused her advances, she would find a way to accuse me. That’s what she always says whenever I resist her.” His tone was calm, his face the perfect mask of innocence, sadness, and disappointment.
She was stunned. “What did you just say?” she demanded, but Mama cut her off.
“You know,” she began, shaking her head, “when Chijoke complained to me that you were trying to sedúçe him, I shushed him up. In fact, I almost slapped him because I couldn’t believe him. Then he told me you were thréátening to lie against him if he didn’t dance to your tune. Still, I didn’t believe him—until now, when you’ve made good on your threáts.” Mama’s voice rose with every word, anger boiling over.
She was speechless. For a whole minute, her lips opened and closed without sound. She wanted to scream the truth, but no words came. And that silence sealed her fate—Mama mistook it for guilt.
“It shouldn’t surprise you that I know,” she pressed on. “After all, I’m his mother. Do you think he wouldn’t confide in me? Or that he’d protect your adulterous ways because of some little threat? Ah! Adaeze, I am so disappoînted in you. You of all people? Upon all the love my son showered on you? Upon all his suffering and hustling abroad, trying to build you a better life? And your payback is to lust after his elder brother—his own blood? Heiii!” She lamented, shaking her head.
That was when she finally found her voice.
“Mama!” she cried, “This is all lies. Yes, it’s true that one person is lusting after the other, but it is not me. I would never, ever go after my husband’s brother. Mama, it’s him! He is the one who keeps coming into my room at night to seduce me. Mama, please, you have to believe. "
Slap!
Silence.
“Mama?” She whispered in disbelief.
Slap!
“Mama?! You… slapped me?” she stammered.
She raised her hand again, her face blazing with rage. “That was not a slap—it was a warning. If you want to experience the real slap, repeat that nonsense you just said. There's nothing for you to prove because this is enough proof. Tufiakwa!”
Her eyes dared me to speak again. She turned toward Chijoke, and the look on his face broke her completely. He was smirking, smug and triumphant, as if to say, ''I warned you not to talk."
Mama spat on the floor. “I regret the day I accepted you as my daughter-in-law. I treated you as my own child, maybe that’s why you had the boldness to lie against my son. I gave you the love you never had from your late parents, but enough is enough. You don’t deserve my love, and you don’t deserve my son. Tueh!” She stormed out, her words piercing deeper than any slap.
An uncontrollable sob tore through her. How did things get to this point? Just how?!
She turned to Chijoke, not with anger this time, but with desperation and helplessness with tears streaming. “Why are you doing this? Why are you bending on destroying my life, my marriage? Before now, did we ever meet? Did I ever offend you? Please, if I wronged you in any way, forgive me. Just clear my name. Stop this...please Chijoke. Biko”
For a moment, he looked thoughtful. She almost believed he might relent. But then he said words that shattered her completely.
“You can solve this yourself, Adaeze. Just one round with me, and I’ll tell Mama you’re innocent. Just one róund. You won’t regret it—in fact, you’ll be the one begging me for more.”
Her knees weakened. “Please, Chijoke… I beg you in the name of God, in the name of my late parents, don’t do this. Don’t let the devil win over your conscience.”
He sighed. “Time is ticking, Adaeze. I’ve given you a sweet solution. Either one round with me, or forget about clearing your name. And stop trying to guilt-trip me with your late parents—I wasn’t the one who killed them.”
He walked to the door, then stopped and glanced back with a mocking wink.
“The earlier you decide, the better. Because soon, this bad news might get to your husband’s ears… and you know what that means.”
Then he left.
Her whole body trembled as she sank to the floor. Her heart was breaking into a thousand pieces.
“Oh God,” she whispered through sobs, “what have I gotten myself into?”
The sting of Mama’s slap still burned on her cheek, but what pained her more was the weight of her words. The woman who once called her her daughter now looked at her with disgust, as if she was a stranger. She felt stripped, betrayed, and abandoned all at once.
She sat on the floor, her sobs filling the empty room long after Mama and Chijoke stormed out. Her heart ached so much that she thought it would stop beating. How could Chijoke twist the truth so easily? How could Mama believe him without giving her a chance? How?
- Writer
