"you must be very stup*d!" He howled, "Your mother didn't train you well...cause if she did, you won't be serving me this derelict, undone eba!!" His voice echoes through the walls of the house down to the streets,
"I'm...so..r..ry" I stuttered, but it seemed to have aggravated his uncontrolled rage,
"You are what?!!!" Throwing the hot eba at me, but I managed to move out of the way real quick, causing the eba a perfect landing on the wall, seeing the mess he had done, he banged his fists on the table, rising and raging like a lion who has seen his prey.
Fiercely he approaches me, but I was already positioned to make a run at the exit,
"ELORA!" He screams, his sight blinded with wrath, I knew in an instant I was in for another beating of my life, but this time, I wasn't ready to have one, my body was still healing from the bruises it sustained from yesterday's punch, I wasn't ready to add another bruise to it.
"I'm sorry Ray...." I pleaded, but it was on deaf ears, Raymond is a beast of a man, and all his intentions were to use his fist on my face and body again, an act he frequented for the past 6years of my life with him.
This particular Sunday morning, prior to the incident, I had finished preparing the kids for church when Ray stormed into the kids room to demand for a breakfast of eba and fresh vegetable soup, an irregular routine which was against his own rules of not having breakfast on Sunday morning, He had demanded I make a fresh soup for him out of the blue, a task which was beyond me cause he stopped giving me money for upkeeps and for restocking the foodstuffs in the house 2years ago, when I complained that I'd go to the market 15miles away from the house, he responded with a resounding slap on my face in front of our kids of three boys and a girl, demanding I must trek to the market with just 5000naira,
I managed to drag myself to the market, made the soup just like he instructed but his unappreciative nature undermined my efforts, I and the kids had forfeited going to church just to please Ray, but his nature was to inflict pains on me.
I ran out of the house into the streets to avoid been used as a punching bag again, I couldn't even notice my unkept hair, cloth and barefoots, I looked liked a mad woman who just ran out of the psychiatric hospital,
Ray ran after me, but I managed to outrun him this time, into the streets I ran, not knowing where I was running to, I had run for a couple of minutes when my weak legs couldn't carry me any longer as I fell heavily into the dirty mud water on the streets of ikoro, it was then I realised everyone on the streets had seen my condition, some cursed the man behind my predicament, while some blamed I could be the reason for my shame, all the while I was trying to drag myself out of the dirty water, what I heard was "This woman and her husband again", the voice was my neighbour's voice living close to our house, she was talking to the woman whose shop she was buying from, I couldn't contain my shame, my eyes beclouded with tears, it was about to rain heavily, the cold wind had started to whistle, I dragged myself up only to be met with a helping hand....JAMES!
"Let's get you cleaned up", he lifted me up and led me away from the prying eyes of the streets,
We got to his house not too far from the point of incident, a well furnished beautiful 5bedroom duplex, I hesitated following him into the compound but didn't have a choice I needed to be out of sight from the mockery of the streets,
"Mandy, please take her into the guest room to change her clothes" he said to the 8year old beautiful girl with blue eyes, who just stood at the door wondering what was going on,
"Elora, let me get you some clean clothes to change into", he turned to leave,
"Don't worry James, I will just clean this up and then I'd be on my way", I repudiated, leaving him standing in confusion,
"Still stubborn, I guess", he said, but I simply smiled while I followed the young girl into the guest room,
"Mom, what happened?" Mandy lifted her face, that's when I saw the tears filled in my baby's eyes, my womb opener!
I know you must be wondering what this is all about, here is my story....
(to be continued)