Dear MIMsters: Just When I Was About To Smile Again, Life Happens (Part 3)

Adenike

Continued from part One and Two

Both their parents have been friends for many decades; life long friends even before they got married and started having children. They have maintained the friendship over the years and their children have been initiated into it, too.

Tolu and Jude have always been close. While Jude was in UI, Tolu was in OAU. Their mothers had cunningly flamed the fire of ‘love’ between them when they noticed they were inseparable. Now that they have both graduated from the university, and Tolu was expecting Jude’s baby, plans for their wedding was the next project for both families to handle.

Meanwhile, Jude had relocated to America in preparation for the wedding, and Tolu would be joining him over there by the end of the month.

The next time I would open my eyes, I was on the hospital bed with my father sitting beside me. My mother died when I was a baby. My father raised my elder brother and me with help from my paternal grandmother.

My mother’s family rejected us because they did not support their union. My father was inconsequential as far as they were concerned; he was an illiterate while their daughter wasn’t. A furniture maker he was when my mother fell in love with him to the dismay of her family members. She was disowned! I learned that my father’s business would later pick up though the word ‘pick up’ is relative where families like Jude’s exist.

Compared to Jude’s family, my father stands nowhere!

I had also hoped marrying Jude would elevate my family but …

How did I get here? How did my father get here? Where were Gbenga and Franca? Oh! I remembered I was at Jude’s.

My father turned to me, “Oluwafunmilayo!!!” He had tears in his eyes. He asked me if I was truly pregnant, and I nodded. He wailed! A nurse rushed in to see what was going on in the room and pleaded with my father to calm down.

I found out that while I was unconscious at the hospital, Gbenga had summoned courage to tell Jude’s and Tolu’s parents about me. Jude was instantly called to enquire about all Gbenga had told them, and blatantly, he denied me. He told them he never slept with me. He admitted that though he knew me but he never had any sexual relationship with me. Tolu, I was told also corroborated Jude’s story. She was said to have relayed what happened the day I met her in Jude’s room. How I was introduced to her, how she had thanked me for helping Jude with his meals and chores. How Jude had told her that in exchange, he helped me with my financial needs because I was from a poor home. How she had also promised to help me with some clothes. I was told that their parents felt I wanted to trap Jude because of his family’s status and they advised Gbenga to call my family members to take care of me.

To be continued...