Chapter 35: Chapter 35

: Daniel and Daniella

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Chris lied on his back with his arms crossed under his head while his wife lay at arm length with her back towards him.

He really couldn't understand why Nina was such a big deal?

Or why his mum continuously pour fumes on issues concerning his wife.

He loved this three women separately and uniquely with different feelings of love.

Why they couldn't just get along is still a mystery to him.

The rigidness in her shoulders told him about the barely container anger. She didn't just issue him an ultimatum, she gave him a warning.

He hated being threatened or giving an ultimatum and she knew that. Still he should have personally made sure she got home safely.

Angry Temitope is relatable but pregnant hormonal angry Temitope is a wrecking ball.

Lying on his side and staring at her back profile, all he wanted to do was to pull her in and cuddle. He knew better than to touch her right now.

"Pamela!" He called gently.

Soft tears rolled down her cheeks, he really hurt her tonight. He never stood up for her against the other two most important women in her life.

" I am sorry for the way I handled earlier. But honestly Mine I am tired of constantly fighting over Nina or my mum."

"Nina is an important part of my life; you know this he added softly"

"Why?" She asked without turning her face to him.

Awkward silence followed her question and after swallowing large balls of saliva he began, hoping she didn't hate the monster she married after he was through;

"David was my closest friend, growing up, everyone knew I wasn't big mummy's child because there was no way I could hide my skin color. Christiana was dark skinned so hers wasn't noticeable but I took after my mom.

He stood for me and our parents were also friends. When I left home at 12 and took to the streets the only reason I survived was David. Their parents were also rich so at times he brought me money from school, he kept my secret and he looked after Christiana.

One day I met my benefactor and left the streets as a kid, he said I was too bright to be here and took me off.

He was a British man that I conned in Lagos traffic. Just like that in London and gradually my life was changing, I was going to school. I was toping my class in less than two years I had finished the local high school curriculum taking me three steps higher than my mates.

He was kind to me. He was rich and so although he took care of me financially and enrolled me in therapy he couldn't do much.

As a kid he knew I was troubled, I will draw and paint for hours whenever I remembered her and the gift for art was in me.

The changes started when I went off to college. Money, demons, no guidance, no purpose, just a kid who never truly belonged.

I started doing drugs. It was small at the beginning just Ritalin, I used it to sharpen my focus and attention. Then it became slightly addictive, I couldn't study without it or maintain focus.

The face was a bonus, it came with women.

Did you know rape increases sexual drive?

I had a large sexual drive a bit above normal.

I had so many addictions and so i easily moved to higher drugs and alcohol! The high phew!!

I enjoyed the high life, there was money to buy enough of it.

After a while my guardian found out even though my education didn't suffer. So he sent me to rehab, which made it worse.

There weren't helping all they wanted to talk about was how the memories with big mummy made me feel like I wanted to remember or how I felt intense fear for the sister I left behind the sister whom I swore to protect.

As a young man of 21 for a while I stopped my habits. I went to Harvard business school for another degree after MIT. Then suddenly my guardian took me back on an unexpected trip to Nigeria.

All this while he was fighting cancer but I never knew, I just kept living high on his cash.

On getting back here there was nothing more I hated than my father, a man whom I have grown up to look exactly alike. The only difference was skin color.

Christiana changed she hated me for leaving, back in the toxic place which was my home sitting across from big mummy who suddenly became a deaconess in church.

I milled my father for money which he gave to cover his past failures as a father, alongside with Davids help I made smart investments.

Until that faithful day we had gone to a friends house for a party with Nina and Christiana tagging along.

I was supposed to be looking out for her but somehow I was steadily getting drunk and on my way to being fully high. The cup of punch in my hand which was spiked with Ritalin and a little liquid heroine was in my hand and I was sipping gently.

Until David rushed and dragged the cup from me taking it in one large gulp. He reeled from the effect but thought it was just a little alcohol and he needed the Dutch courage as we were going over to unilag right that instant to see a babe that was driving him nuts.

A little high on my own, I didnt see anything wrong with David driving the car. I remember a little now how his eyes were dilated from the intoxication in his system and how he kept swaying his head to imarginary music.

It didnt matter because in a short while he drove into a moving truck and the impact for him was worse.

I remember how his eyes rolled into his head while he slowly lost his life, the impact of metals crashing into him a mirage he could barely survive.

For a while we were trapped there but what killed me that night was how I killed two people.

David and Christiana. They were together in a relationship while I was away, but kept fighting and finally had this big break. The unilag babe was to stick it to Christiana.

She waited in the car for him hoping she could talk to him and tell him how sorry she was for being difficult the last time they talked. She got tired of waiting outside and got into the back seat hoping to give him a good scare whole at it.

That day she had menstrual cramps and didnt even want to come but only did to have a talk with David who had been avoiding her.

When we got to the car the key at the ignition didn't bother us or the Air conditioning being switched on we were too stoned to realise it anyway.

Sleeping innocently at the back seat was my twin sister and while David died on the spot. The sister I swore to protect whose live I have mostly been absent from was bleeding from a major impact to the brain.

Brain dead they told me at last when I woke up" he sniffed tears running down his cheeks as he spoke.

Pamela turned into his arms drawing his head into her bossom while he wept away.

That night he didn't just loose his best friend and sister he also lost himself.

She wept for the boy with poor choices whom life dealt harsh blows. She wept for the man still suffering from old scars.

He wiped his nose and continued.

"I was in the hospital for three months but when I woke up nothing was the same. David was gone and Christiana too, I wouldn't let them take her off the life support machine. I prayed for something in those days of recovery I found God, psychotherapy was hell.

It was always the same picture some days I hate closing my eyes to sleep as I slept that day because his eyes is burned in my brain.

So you see, I killed Nina's brother the least I could do is to take care of her. Its the very least I can do.

Sometimes the memory come back so sharp, the heat of being trapped in that car the break and bend of each of his bone the tears in my father’s eyes.

The day after when I woke up my father caller me a murderer when they found out I intoxicated David. Maybe out of grief 'He hated me for killing the only offspring he loved. ' He said.

So you see! I keep feeling like I'll do something to end this marriage because it is the only thing I'm good at, killing things and people. Even my father who birthed me couldn't forgive or love me." He hid his face from her as he spoke the last part.

"Don't say stuff like that. You can't blame yourself forever my love learn to forgive yourself, learn to forgive him, learn to let go of the past. Until you do that before you truly heal." She said pushing her fingers through my coils.

"Promise me Temitope, promise me you won't leave me too because I can't handle it. You are the only one I have left! I'll annoy you sometimes, I'll even hurt you but I'll try not to kill this. So promise me?".

Till date that look he gave her was the most broken and vulnerable she had ever seen him.

“ I promise you my love. I promise you" she whispered kissing his forehead.

After all he was her survivor!

********

Two months later.

You only begin to understand what the phrase "love at first sight" means when you hold your nine month miracles in your arms.

When everything stops and you wonder how you could have contributed into making something so beautiful almost ethereal.

That moment suddenly becomes a turning point in your life you want to be better, do better for them.

Everything begins to revolve around the little life you just formed, you continuously want to protect love and shield it.

No wonder children were called bundles of joy.

Pamela was rushed into Christ Own private clinic Lagos at the wee hours of the morning.

Her water broke when she went to get a "midnight snack" as she called it. Which was usually are 6th meal of the day.

She woke Chris up calmly when she saw the pool of water on the kitchen floor. From there till this moment it has been a blur of screams, tears, fear and extreme joy.

Chris drove on high speed to the hospital gathering the already packed maternal bag. The babies were a week earlier than the expected delivery date. Excitement and fear gripped his balls as he sped down the street of the Lagos estate. A strange fear of losing the three of them gripped him but he pushed it away as his wife groaned.

Weeks before this the couple watched a documentary of married couples about to deliver their babies. Most wives indulged in a string of curse language and even though they laughed it off at that time. She said "I'm a strong woman baby. Delivery won’t make me insult or turn on you".

The clear reverse was the case right now.

"Would you please drive faster ehn! Shebi you scored this Goal inside me" rolling her eyes and hissing at him

Chris kept mute his other hand grasped hers squeezing gently as a form of support.

The entire journey from her screams in the delivery wound, to every cry, to every push, every word uttered, ever curse word till their babies gave their first cry was the scariest but best moments of his life.

Chris leaned down to kiss his strong woman on the forehead for truly all mothers were the strongest beings on earth, childbirth is a phenomenal battle.

There in that moment where his little family began he named them Daniel Oluwabankole Oluwagbenga and Daniella Oluwanifemi Olugbenga.

After David and Christiana's Tribal names.

He sighed in contempt, knowing his journey to completion could never be told without these part of him.

Slowly all broken pieces of him could mend together those kids brought him not just hope but faith.

Faith in wholeness.

*****

Wawu. Who missed me o!!

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