Title:GIVE US CHILD, OR GO
(Marriage with A Mandate)
Chapter Four
"You know when we didn't marry, your mum hated me?"
"Oh! She did? And was she wrong?" asked Queen Latifah
"That's why it's the will of God, for her to tell me to talk to you. Please, without you I am empty."
Queen Latifah was silent, trying to figure out something.
"Mum, gave you my number?"
"Yes, Lati. Let that not be the issue but let's see our coming together as the will of God."
"Don't ever mention God, liar like you!" she sobbed and sobbed.
The next day her mum told her Milfred had agreed that under no condition will he say this child resembles me, or at any time, alive or dead, come to lay claim to the child should a child come out of the relationship.
"Listen, he will come to Lagos and take Oath." said her mum, encouraging her to stop agitating
"Mum, why? Why did you expose me?" cried Queen Latifah
"Listen," she explained something she did not know." I don't want you to spoil your marriage. No room for a returning daughter. So, my hen and my neighbour's cock mating under my watch is not bad."
"Mummy what kind of analogy is this?" she crashed the phone and rolled on the bed crying.
Not up to three days, Milfred began to call like somebody who wants to book an appointment with heaven.
"I won't pick!" she shook her head. " Till I know what mum discussed with him"
She did not pick up the call.
"Why are you not picking when you have indirectly agreed?"
"...directly agreed or not, I can't be a cheap article!" she told the tiny voice.
"Or isn't this the only way to your target?"
"No, I can't, I will ask Mum, what she told him."
"But you can agree?"
"Oh God!" she jerked her fist because of the tiny voice making her pace about.
"Mummy, what did you tell him?" she asked thickly.
"Again? You didn't hear me?" asked her mum.
"Not that, what did you tell him?" she asked and her mum was not forthcoming, she crashed the phone again and rolled across the bed.
When she felt she has recovered, she sat down.
"I will ask him did my mum tell you to impregnate me that I need a child? She scrutinized the mock question and yelled, "No no no no!"
She sat at her vanity table and turned herself this way and that way.
"Beautiful Lati, why?" she asked."Had I known, they say, comes last. I would have remained single," she said, and cast her mind back to how the wahala marriage started: I was doing my usher work o, after law school with other girls o.
Somebody said King is calling me." Which King, I asked," he said of 'Ile Ife'
It was in Lagos, I told my mum, and she said yes, yes whether married or not, that men are scarce.
"Lati, so the journey began and everything was sweet until wahala rose by nosed pokers.
"Even if I will go out with Milfred, I will fix it when my fertility window is open. I can't just naked myself again without benefit and must ask him crucial questions and mum must tell me what she told him."
She had seen Uncle Pat with the King.
"Gat to go greet him, otherwise…hehe hey!"
Mr Pat, with the known sharp mouth, was in his seventies, the traditional Prime Minister. He lived in Lagos but had retired back home. He seldom comes out unless to discuss with King.
Seeing Lati in her elegance, he purred and purred and purred, smiling "Our queen!" she called her with nods and widened his smile, rising to prostrate.
"Uncle, no no no!" Queen Latifah rejected his attempt to prostrate, smartly going on her knees and he too prevented her and both hugged face to face.
"King Shina, you are enjoying o," he praised him and took Queen by the hand and led her some centimetres away and whispered into her ear.
" No, it's not something of laughter." he insisted.
Queen Latifah, nodded, " If it was King that told him this, I will show him! He thinks am happy they brought a wife for him and am quiet. I'm quiet just cuz I felt that was a better option" she said and took sway of dance with her dancing style.
"Beautiful Lati" she spoke well of herself, twisted before the mirror and sat back, uncorking her choice of wine.
"Nothing do you, Epicurean baby!" she assured herself.
In the evening she asked King a question. "You' re carrying my story about,King."
"How?" asked King, and his fat face formed lines of corrugations
"So, I, King Shina, will tell him to tell you we need a child?" King Shina asked, feeling highly insulted, nose twitching.
"Who then told him?"
"What do you mean?" reacted King, the more.
It was like what he tells her about having a child enter from one ear and pass out through the other. A twenty-five-year-old, does not think? He wondered.
" You don't know we need an heir for the throne?"
"King, am withhold one from you, is it?" she replied to him.
Her tears were sudden. She was going, and King paused to chase her
In some situations, love has limits.
"What is the matter, Your Highness.?" asked Mama Sara as she came in, knowing, whenever her lips were gripped in, she was worried and, when worried, one can see her capriciousness.
"Mummy, this childless issue. Am I barren? No, I'm not." she said.
Mama Sara, each time she went for a test, accompanied her. She had told her they will go 'somewhere' and when they come back, she will do something for her to pocket him.
"There is a way to pocket a husband who gives his wife problems," she told her, though, she does not believe in black power wholeheartedly.
"Mummy, King was talking as if I did not want to give him a child"
"When we go to the place and come back, be patient now."
"Mummy, my patience is running out. I didn't want trouble but if he provokes me further he will see the other side of Lati."
"For my sake, let there be peace, without you here, I will not be here, please. Biko."
She muffled her smile."You want me to die here?"
"Ahh! No.Youngest Wife. But I am being frank" Mama Sara said.
"See mummy, my target is to get pregnant and get a child this year. It will not pass!"
"Not because of them you put yourself in a fix."
"Don't you hear the slogan? Give us a child or go?"
"Youngest Wife, don't challenge God because of human beings, my point."
"I have to since he is my hope. My problem is the King, avoiding sleeping with his wife!"
"He is doing so to edge you out."
"Yes, he didn't want to go for divorce by himself but I can only leave after childbirth to prove to them that i'm okay!"
Hahaha. Mama Sara laughed."...think when the King sees a child, he will ever allow his Youngest Wife to even go outside the gate."
"True?" she smiled, "Why?" she asked, interested to know.
" Don't you know why he married you, huh?".
The two females clashed their palms.
"Mummy, please, forget that. Men are funny," said Lati
"You see one thing in life," Mama Sara began, it was her own story when she was in a similar situation.
"My man hated me and even asked me to fuck you nah by force?"
"You felt ashamed?" Queen Lati asked her, eager to know.
"No, but his people were the ones who made me ashamed!"
"How?" Queen Lati's countenance was of curiosity as she asked.
"If I pass they will laugh and murmur 'Can a child come out of this kind waist?
"Why?"
"Cuz doctor said I have a narrow pelvic bone or whatever."
"Oh!"
"That's what I passed through, my daughter."
"So!"
"I left! But as God's thoughts for his children are not of evil, just one hand my former boyfriend touched me…that's this your sister."
Queen Lati made hmmm.
She discharged Mama Sara and ran up to think of Milfred and herself. Very excited, she sat at her vanity table adjusting herself with her smile widening." Uh! But I must indirectly ask him something to know what mum told him, one…ask him if he has a child, two…emm, many things," she said, still radiating with a smile." But, I can't tell Mama Sara…never!"
She called Milfred, and before he picked up the call, she waved her index finger." 2nd February, yes…my fertility window starts" she said "Mark, 2nd February." she told him, it is a date, she has fixed it and laid down." If pregnancy comes, Lati," she asked herself." how will you handle it? Shift it to the King. Period!"
For that, no one will hear of this affair, and the king, with his prank, must do perform his conjugal duty"
It has set! Can Milfred satisfy her? If Milfred impregnates her, how possible to shift the responsibility to King?