AFIA (shocked)
My good gracious! Just like that?
The stranger pauses and lifts his chilled water to his lips and drinks. He savours the final blocks in his mouth, and then he nods his head.
NAA SHORMEI (shaking her head)
Surely, this story cannot be real, can it? Sounds more like fiction! The stranger fixes Naa Shormei with sad eyes.
THE STRANGER
My dear, the best life stories read better than fiction! What I’m telling you is the truth, and eventually you will find out that this is so. You see, many witnesses later narrated the incidence that indeed they made love the moment they saw each other. Now, in Takyi’s case, he went to Adwoa’s house, met her mother, received an apology and all that hocus-pocus! You see a similar situation, but Yaw Kuntu reacted differently! He carried the lady inside and did his thing without even bothering to ask if she were in another relationship or not, whether she was married or not, and he did it whilst wearing his wedding ring! There is a very long silence.
Takyi and Afia look at each other, and after a while Afia looks away numbly. Her eyes meet the twinkling ones of the stranger.
AFIA
Please, sir, continue!
THE STRANGER (smiling)
Yes, of course, my dear. I am continuing, of course… As it turned out, Adwoa Timtim had been married twice already… without children, mind you. Now, a little deviation in this similarity of cases, my dears. In Takyi Barima’s case, his ex-girlfriend, Adwoa, had a mother, her father having died some years ago. In Timtim’s case, however, her mother was dead, but her old father was alive.
Adwoa took Yaw Kuntu home to meet her aged father, who was filled with remorse, and asked Yaw Kuntu to forgive him. Yaw Kuntu took Adwoa Timtim to his family house to meet his mother. Well, as you can well imagine, Madam Nyinaa was ecstatic, so over the moon! This was the greatest news she had ever heard! It was worth celebrating! They were all happy. Especially Yaw Kuntu, because he had evidently never gotten over his Adwoa Timtim, his lai momo.
Hahahahaaa, funny. Now, for the rest of the week Yaw Kuntu was in paradise. He shared the suite with Adwoa Timtim. After the AGM, he took Adwoa home and spent another week with her at his family house. Now you could just imagine what poor Kwansema was going through. I mean, her husband was supposed to spend less than a week in Takoradi, but he had been gone for two weeks, under very trying conditions because his mother had threatened to find him a new woman.
Although Yaw Kuntu assured her each time she called that he was just tired and needed a little rest, Kwansema was still a very troubled woman. She was a Christian, and she could sense when something was wrong. She called her husband, and she was crying silently.
KWANSEMA (shattered)
Yaw, darling, I beg of you! I really beg of you! Come back to me! I know you’re tired! Please come back and let me pamper you back to full strength, please!
And, for the very first time in their marriage, Yaw Kuntu raised his voice to his wife. He was furious!
YAW KUNTU (exploding)
Ebei, Kwansema! Can’t a man spend a little time with his folks? Should it always be about you you, you, YOU?? Stop being so selfish! I’m with my people! I said I’ll come back soon! Bye!!
Yaw Kuntu cut the call, and gave his poor wife a most terrible night indeed. He eventually returned to Accra, and back to his matrimonial home… but Kwansema noticed a lot of changes in him. For starters, he was secretive, stayed out late into the nights, stood at very odd points of the house to make calls, gave her the silent treatments, and a whole lot of things!
He was edgy, unhappy, snapping at her at the least provocation and, worse of all, barely touched his wife! Kwansema was terrified! She had expected him to jump on her the moment he came back because, frankly, Yaw Kuntu loved his bedmatics! He loved doing it ankasa, whaaat! But here he was, back home after almost three weeks away and…nothing! He didn’t even take his bath with his wife anymore! Something was definitely wrong!
She took his phone one evening and realized, with sheer horror, that he had changed his text and chat apps passwords! They had never kept each other out of their phones! She was going through the contacts list, noting that a very particular number saved as A.T. had been in contact with him almost every minute of the day, when Yaw Kuntu emerged from the bathroom. He was towelling his hair and wearing a pair of white boxers. He stopped when he saw her, and he went livid with rage.
KWANSEMA (in a soft voice)
Why are you looking like that, darling? Is it because I’m holding your phone?
YAW KUNTU (wrathfully)
You call that holding? You’re snooping! What the hell do you want to see?
KWANSEMA (shocked)
Snooping? Good Lord, Yaw! Has it come to this? You returned from your trip all changed! I don’t know what your horror of a mother-
Well, the poor woman didn’t finish her sentence. For the very first time in the seventeen or so years she had met him, counting the two years they had spent courting and the fifteen years they had been married, Yaw Kuntu raised his hand and slapped his wife!
YAW KUNTU (furiously)
Respect my mother! She gave birth to me!!
Kwansema was flung off the bed by the sheer force of that slap, and she laid on the floor, shocked and weeping! Yaw Kuntu left the house, and didn’t come back till two or three days later!
Poor Kwansema went to Church, and sought solace in the arms of the Lord. She prayed and fasted, she did all that she could as a wife to win her husband back, but alas, it was proving to be a most futile battle.
Yaw Kuntu soon began to go to Takoradi often, further filling his wife with dread and stress. It was on one of such trips, when he was having dinner in his family home with his mother and Adwoa, that the first seeds of danger were sewn for Kwansema.
MADAM NYINAA (softly)
My dear Yaw, my beloved son, Adwoa and I have been talking and sharing ideas. You love her, and she loves you unreservedly. I asked her to give birth for you, but she is telling me she will never be able to give birth with a married man. Yaw Kuntu swallowed some banku, drank a little wine, and stared first at his mother, and then at Adwoa Timtim.
YAW KUNTU (sadly)
Is that so, A.T?
ADWOA TIMTIM (nodding miserably)
Yes, Yaw. It was something my mother aborted whilst she was alive, and I won’t do anything like that to dishonour her memory, love. I’m sorry, love, but if you want to raise a family with me, you must first divorce your wife and marry me.
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To Be Continued…
