Normalcy returned to Lola's home for the next two days until a faithful afternoon when a parcel delivery guy showed up in front of her home, holding a medical envelope in his hands.
Lola was busy in the kitchen cooking. She had a pair of earplugs fastened to either side of her ears. She was stirring the soup on the gas cooker while shaking her hips to the jamming music.
Brian on the other hand was seated in the living room, sipping from a can of soda and watching his favorite baseball game.
Ding!
Ding!!
The doorbell rang noisily.
"Lola, please check who is at the door." Brian pleaded, his eyes glued to the television in anticipation of a home run.
Ding!
Ding!!
"Lola! Lola!!" Brian sighed when he got no response. He could hear her sweet singing voice echoing from the kitchen but she wasn't responding to his call.
"Yes! Run Roberto... You are almost there." Brian held his breath as the team he was supporting was on the verge of winning the game.
Ding!
Ding!!
"Touch down!"
Brian shot up to his feet, almost knocking down his drink. He punched his fist in the air in jubilation while spinning around in an animated victory dance.
Ding!
Ding!!
Ding!!!
Ding!!!!
The doorbell resonated more fiercely. It felt as though the person ringing the doorbell was about to pull out the bell from its position.
"I'm coming... take it easy..." Brian shouted at the top of his voice as he sauntered over to the door and opened it.
The parcel delivery guy had a spine-chilling look on his face. "I have a delivery for Mrs Hart from Glove Clinic." He spat out, his nose crinkled from so much frowning.
"A parcel...from Glove Clinic...." Brian stared at the delivery guy, his eyes brimming with a mixture of confusion and curiosity.
"Sir, I do not mean to be rude but please can you get Mrs Hart for me or am I at the wrong address? I have other deliveries to make before sundown aside from this." The delivery guy waved the brown envelope angrily.
"So sorry..." Brian apologized. "You are in the right address. I am Mrs Hart's husband. I can take the parcel for her."
"That's fine by me. Please sign here." The delivery guy handed Brian a register and a pen.
Brian appended his signature and thanked the delivery guy. Faking a satisfied smile, he collected the brown envelope.
"Ahem..." The delivery guy shot him an angry look.
"Oh..." Brian dipped his hand into his pant pocket and brought out a five dollar bill note.
"Here...for your trouble."
The delivery guy who had been frowning all along opened his thirty-two teeth as he received his biggest tip for the day. "Thank you, sir." He said grinning from cheek to cheek before leaving.
Brian got into the house and shut the door behind him.
He briskly tore open the envelope and brought out some medical reports on some conducted tests.
"Pregnancy test... serological test for syphilis, hepatitis B, and HIV...huh!"
Brain hurriedly scanned through the results of the report.
As his shocked and confused brain slowly digested the result, the colour slowly drained from his face. His dilated pupil turned bloodshot as a tornado of fury rose from the pit of his stomach.
"Lola!"
Brian bellowed ferociously like an ear-deafening thunderclap.
"Lola!..."
Lola was busy in the Kitchen, rounding up her meal preparation while stepping to the beats of her favourite Afro-pop music when she heard Brian's shrieking voice.
Thinking Brian must have fallen off his seat or worse, passed out, Lola bolted to the sitting room, tearing the earplugs from both her ears.
"Baby! Are you alright!" Lola stormed into the sitting room, a frightened look framing her face.
However, instead of finding Brian on the floor like she earlier presumed, he was standing in the middle of the sitting room, holding a brown envelope in one hand and some documents in the other hand.
His initial jovial and loving aura had been replaced with one of woe. His baleful gaze sent spiralling chills down Lola's spine and for a minute Lola pondered if winter had arrived so early in the middle of summer.
"My love..." Lola stepped forward and tried to touch her husband. But the way he harshly slapped her hands off him and shoved her backward scared the living life out of her.
"Don't you dare touch me!" Brian barked like a gravely wounded dog about to get a shot from a Vet.
"What did I do wrong?" Lola half screamed, tears welling up in her shimmering eyes.
"This..." Brian threw the documents he was holding in her face. His muscles were so puffed up and his veins bulging and for a second, Lola feared his heart would rupture.
"What in Saint Peter's name is the meaning of this trash? Have you been sleeping around with other men?"
Brian's thunderous voice could be heard from at least three blocks away from their bungalow.
"What...No...never..." Lola's voice shook with an imminent tremor.
Outside, the Hart's house, Mrs Clover was just concluding her garden weeding, when she heard the young couple's voice, quarrelling. Without giving it a second thought, she hurriedly brought out her mobile phone and dialled Rosemary's number.
Luckily for Mrs Clover, Rosemary answered the call on the first ring.
"Mrs Hart... you have to hurry down to your son's house immediately and make sure you come with enough backup." Mrs Clover said in a foreboding tone.
"Your son and his wife are fighting again and this time, I think your son might not survive. Come quickly."
Mrs Clover maliciously ended the call before Rosemary could reply. Then she tossed her garden gloves and watering can on the grass floor. She carefully tiptoed over to the side window of the Hart's home and crouched under an open window to get an undiluted version of the ongoing drama.
Back inside the house, Brian was screaming at the top of his lungs, demanding answers to the scattered papers on the tiled floor.
Lola on the other hand was crawling on her knees trying to gather the scattered documents on the floor together. Her hands were trembling vigorously as she scanned through the results of her lab test. The content of the result caused all the blood to drain from her face.
"Who have you been sleeping with Lola?!" Brian matched over to where his wife was kneeling down and jacked her up to her feet. He shook her vigorously as though she was a lifeless being he was trying to revive.
"Who have you been f**king behind my back."
Brian's grip was so tight around Lola that it made her whimper in pain.
"No one...baby...I swear..." Lola cried out helplessly.
"If you do not start talking... I swear in the name of my late father... I will kill you right here with my bare hands."
Vengeful tears slowly streamed down Brian's bloodshot eyes.
Lola felt her heart collapse over and over again. She wanted to plead with Brian to consider his weak heart. But the frostiness in his eyes made her realize that he meant every word he said.
In their five years of happy marriage, Brian had never manhandled her in this way even though they had gotten into several conflicts. This made Lola wonder if this was the dark side he always talked about.
"Start talking... Lola..." Brain shook her more aggressively, tightening his grip around her arms and almost crushing her bones.
"Brian stop... you were hurting me..." Lola's survival instinct quickly kicked in as she tried to free herself from her husband's deadly grip.
Brian felt his chest tighten and was forced to release Lola in other to massage his aching chest.
"Ahh..." He cried in anguish while massaging his hurting chest.
Even in her nervous and horrified state, Lola quickly helped her husband to sit down and sprinted to the bedroom to get his drugs.
At this point, Brian was in so much pain due to his aching heart. He was forced to take his medication first from his crying wife before picking up the conflict from where he stopped.
"PT positive... HIV positive...why, Lola...what did I ever do to you to deserve this..." Brian's whole body shook with so much grief.
Lola was still in shock at the results from Glove Clinic and how it found its way to her home.
A million questions were bombarding her brain and causing her to have a migraine. Instead of words, all she could do was sob dejectedly. She wished there was a way she could vaporize into thin air.
"Lola..." Brain's broken voice cut through her thoughts like a sharp pointy iceberg cutting into a frozen lake. "... If you have ever loved me in all our years of marriage, you will tell me the truth. Did you cheat on me with anyone?"
"I...I...I..." Lola hiccuped severely, her overwhelming emotions suffocating her by the second. "B...b... Brian...I...I...I'm sorry."
Lola went down on her knees, giving her husband a good distance of about four feet.
"Who..." Brian clenched his fist and gritted his teeth as only one name popped up in his head. "...was it your boss?"
Instead of a reply, Lola intensified her sobbing, wrapping her vigorously trembling hands around her chest.
"God! Why..." Brian's piercing voice shook the four corners of the house.
"I did it to save you..." Lola's helpless and partially inaccurate reply was like grilling a barbecue underneath a highly inflammable propane tank. "I had no one to turn to... The hospital bills were too much for only me to handle... I couldn't afford to lose you."
"You slept with your boss to save me....argh..." Brian gritted his teeth as the pain in his chest worsened. "You should have just let me die... You should have f**king allowed me to die, you shameless woman..."
Just then, the front door was forced open by a heavy boot.
A battle-ready and bitterly enraged Rosemary alongside a host of the extended Hart family barge into the house.