Her Second Act

Chapter Four

Yeah?”

The door eventually opened, its hinges made sounds like it was gonna fall off the frame in no time. The door had obviously seen better days and a frail looking woman with a dirty bathrobe and unkempt hair stretched out her neck through the small opening.

“What do you want?” She said, with a stick of cigarette hanging carelessly from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes darted up and down Enola who had been standing outside the house knocking for the umpteenth time.

Then she remembered and smiled mockingly, and the door was opened wide enough for Enola to go in. The interior of the house looked even worse than the exterior.

“Is this going to be the new place I'll be living in?” Enola thought to herself.

And in response to her question, she heard a deep voice from the corner of the living room coming through a cloud of cigarette smoke.

“So, you're Enola, my brother's daughter” Enola was still squinting to see clearly.

The woman who opened the door earlier strolled into the living room and sat on one of the rickety chairs.

“Did she come with any money, we need more beer” Eliza asked her husband, Edward Edmund who is Enola's uncle.

Enola stood confused in the middle of the sitting room. Her eyes darted back and forth at the duo who sat at opposite ends of the living room.

“Is this really the uncle and his wife I would be staying with? I really hope my father will be found in time so that I would not have to stay here too long. ” it was difficult to believe and not pleasant to think about.

She quietly walked into the room shown to her as her bedroom. There was just a bulb hanging from the ceiling. An ugly mattress without sheets on them.

She dropped her bags on the floor and went back to the living room.

“Please, where can I find the sheets for the bed?” Enola asked.

“It's somewhere in the laundry, I think. If you can find them”. Eliza replied, not turning to look at her but focused on the blaring T.V and the beer in her left hand. They never spoke again.

Enola found the sheet, and thankfully, it was clean. She laid it on her bed and laid on it. Her eyes were open, she found it very difficult to sleep. It was her first time sleeping in a house other than her own.

Two years later, Enola is seated in the same room, opposite her bed with her back to the wall, remembering everything like it was just yesterday when her father left home and is yet to return.

There had been no news of her father ever since. She cannot even recall who her mother is, not that she expected to hear from her, she just longed to be with her parents. Her own family.

“Enola, you have a visitor.” Her uncle's words jolted her back into the present. And it was as though she didn't hear those words clearly enough.

“A visitor? How? “ she thought to herself.

“Could it be that my wishes have been answered?? Could it be my father or any woman showing up as my mother?”

There were a lot of ‘could it be’ going on in her head as she got up from her sitting position.

On the other hand, she thought again:

“No one knows me and I am not expecting anyone” she pondered as she headed for the living room.

“Or wait, could it really be my father? Has he returned?” Her mind played tricks on her.

But she thought otherwise, “Uncle Edwrad will never refer to my father as a visitor to me”. She concluded and went to the living room.

A man was seated in the only good chair in the living room. He was obviously wealthy. He was well dressed in an expensive gray suit and tie. He had a well set jaw, wasn't entirely handsome but was well put together.

Enola stood fixed to the ground. She was obviously lost… she had no idea who this man was and why he was her visitor.

“Enola, this is Mark Match. My billionaire friend I told you about, this is the man you will be getting married to.

“Uncle please don't do this to me. Don't marry me off to your friend.” Enola stood in the tattered sitting room with puffy eyes and tears rolling down her cheeks.

She had been crying since her uncle told her about one of his friends coming to marry her.

Enola had never been able to accept that this man, Edward Edmund, is her uncle, her own father's brother.

Her father was an impeccably neat man, responsible and respectable even amongst his friends. But this man was a parody of all that was cheap and dirty and beaten. There is always this booze of beer around him, especially when he opens his mouth to talk.

“Aunt please, I promise to work harder than I've ever done. I'll get a job on the streets and give you all my earnings, I'll do anything. But please, don't send me off like that.” Enola turned to her uncle's wife Eliza, teary eyed and hopeful that she was gonna plead her case.

Her uncle's wife Eliza was already half drunk in the morning. One could say she was even as worse as her husband. You couldn't tell who was the worst drinker. They were both always more scared of running out of beer than running out of breath.

She just turned her face sideways like she wasn't the one Enola was talking to.

“I don't love him. I don't even know him.” Enola screamed amidst her sobs, her voice breaking, tired from crying.

“ha ha ha, what do you know about love? We are talking money, you are talking love.” Uncle Edmund laughed sarcastically.

“Enola, we need money. There is no better way to get money that would be enough for a long while. You do not have to worry, Mark is a billionaire. I've known him for a very long time. You will have more than enough being married to him.”

Edmund spoke again. It was obvious he had it all planned out.

Enola was downcasted, there was nothing else she could do. She went back to her dark room, sat on the floor with her back to the wall.

“Why is her life so muddled up? Why does it seem like she is alw

ays a second slower than everyone else in the whole world?” Enola thought to herself.