Lost In-between

CHAPTER3

After Emilia obliged his request, they both walked towards his car, him leading the way. He opened his passenger’s car door for her to enter, once inside and properly seated, Divine gently closed the door before walking towards the driver’s side of the car, opened the door, sat in and closed it.

At first, he decided to simply give her a lift, as she happened not to have come with her car, but on a clearer thought, he decided to go along with her and explain everything to her mother in person. Divine dropped Emilia at her mother’s house, where he met Mrs. Emmanuel on her Butterfly sewing machine, sewing a supposed gown for an occasion she was to attend later in the coming week.

Her childhood friend, Mrs. Susan would be hosting a celebratory party at her home, in celebration of her military husband who came back from the war front in one piece. Mrs. Susan had invited Emilia’s mother, and so she decided to sew a fancy gown for herself, now that she still can.

Divine greeted her cheerfully as he used to, back in the days. He told her that he won’t be staying for long but before he leaves he gave her advice on how to go about handling Helen, while he will try to set things straight from his end.

He smilingly told her to trust him as she once used to, after which he dropped some bundle of money on top of her sewing, and smiled at her, again before he took his leave.

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It is a beautiful morning as Emilia opened her eyes to the bright light illuminating the room from her open window. She stirred on her bed, as she turned to her side, looking at the time from her bedside clock, it reads 8am in the morning. Emilia yawned and sat up, wondering what the day holds in store for her.

The weekend looks and feels quite calm to Emilia, and being one in the mid-summer, she had a good feeling that today might be just good after all. Emilia stood up from her bed and headed to the bathroom, she knew her body needed more than just the regular scrub, as she decided to stay a lot longer in the bathroom. She turned on the shower and felt the water caress her skin in a soothing way, a way that drifted her into a state of ecstasy…

The ringing tone of her phone from the bedroom brought her back to the present, as Emilia wrapped up her moment at the bathroom and headed towards her bedroom. The call came in again, and this time she picked up, Divine’s voice came from the other end, as he told her to meet him at his apartment, “It’s quite urgent” he added.

In haste, Emilia wore her clothes and off she goes to Divine’s apartment, wondering what must have gone wrong.

When she got there, his indoor help came and opened the door for her.

Emilia noticed this wasn’t the help they once had when she was still with him as his wife. This she noticed but said nothing. After being directed into the sitting room, she walked in and met Divine seated, with his long legs across each other, holding a fashion magazine.

He looked above the magazine in his hand when he noticed a footstep approaching and gave her a half smile when he noticed she was the one, before calmly tapping on the seat beside him for her to sit down.

She obediently walked towards him and sat down. Once seated, Divine asked if she would like him to offer her anything, “Soda will do”, said Emilia.

He pressed on a button on top of the stool beside him and an help came almost immediately. Divine turned towards the help when she came in, and told her to get Soda for his guest. In not more than ten seconds, the help was back with a bottle of soda on a tray accompanied with a glass cup. It was carefully placed on the stool close to Emilia by the help, before taking her leave. “Thank you” Emilia said to the help giver before she left.

At this moment, Divine turned towards Emilia and narrated all that transpired between him and Henry, his younger brother.

Hear Divine speak, “After what you told me, I called Henry over to my place and told him all I heard, asking him in return if those were true. Can you believe Henry looked at me, smiled and gently replied that he truly loves Helen, and would divorce Loveth so he can marry her, just as he promised your sister”.

“I was dumbfounded at first, but almost immediately I instructed him to kill that idea, persuading him about the consequences of what such action would create, not exempting the hurt it would bring to his loved ones, most especially Loveth. All these fell on deaf ears as I noticed he was quite serious with this reckless decision of his. My heart goes out to Loveth who is still in the dark as regards to this conspiracy” Divine said, in a sad and low tone as he looked into space, lost in thought.

Emilia was speechless. She was dumbfounded and short of words on what to say at the moment. She still cannot wrap her head around how this whole escapade between her younger sister and her ex’s younger brother started.

How did they fall in love, where did they meet and fall in love, more importantly, how long have they been together before their relationship came into light? These are questions that Emilia wanted to ask, but knowing her sister well enough, she knew that she would not answer any of them.

Helen have always been a strong headed girl from a tender age, and now that she is an adult, she feels more independent on her choices, especially one that relates to emotion and love.

After a prolonged silence, she said “Well, they are adults aren’t they? There is nothing else we can do to possibly influence their decisions. I have heard all you said and I wish them luck”.

Standing up, Emilia looked at Divine, smiled and then headed towards the door…she left.