We won!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I know, overkill!) But I am excited! On behalf of K Beck, Gagert, Akpene, Abeiku, Sedinam, Patrick Adabla, Korkor and every Kenikodjo character ever created, thank you!! (If you don’t know who some (or all) of them are, then you have a lot of catching up to do!) My post about the #BloGhAwards16 journey is right here. But for now, let’s #KnowThyMan! 😉

‘You were awfully quiet back there.’, Tonia remarked as they drove back home. Adjeley lifted her eyes from her phone screen and smiled.

‘It was just a lot to take in. Your friend and her perfect house, perfect family, perfect kids, perfect kitchen, perfect juice…and then your other friend-her life is a wreck. How can you live with such a monster and not have an escape plan? They are like two extremes. You’ve been friends with Ewuraefua longer, right? How do you look at such perfection and not squirm?’

Tonia laughed.

‘You get used to it after a while. Plus it’s not like I’m looking to get married anytime soon. Besides that, there is no way I am going to let a man treat me the way Kafui’s husband treats her.’

‘If you say so. All this talk doesn’t make me feel like getting married anytime soon either.’

***

Peter was tired. It had been a long day and he really wanted some alone time, a cold beer and silence. But he knew Ewuraefua. She would have prepared a meal, made some juice and sent the kids to bed by the time they arrived. That meant that she would want to hear all about his journey and tell him everything that had happened in his absence. Woe betides him if he didn’t eat the dinner or was not in a chatting mood. Ewuraefua will switch into ‘Cold War’ mode. They had talked about this before-this tendency of her wanting him to talk when she was in the mood to talk and punishing him with silence when he wasn’t in the mood to. He had explained time and again how selfish this was and had begged her to be more considerate of his feelings more than a million times. Every single time she would agree, pledge to change and do the very same thing the next time. Peter was tired of talking about it.

Given his childhood experience , the home he had now was the one he had always dreamt of. On the contrary that was exactly the kind of home Ewuraefua had grown up in. What this meant was, certain things came to her more naturally than they did to him like yearly family photographs, family vacations and sharing what happened at the end of the day with your spouse. These things weren’t bad things-he actually liked them but sometimes he also thought the world would still rotate just fine without them. Tonight was one of those times.

When he entered the house, he sighed. He could smell the food-rice with turkey stew and sautéed vegetables. Ewuraefua burst out of the dining room with a broad smile on her face.

‘Welcome home!’

‘Thanks, I missed you guys.’ He hugged her with one arm and rubbed her back with the other.

‘Hungry?’

‘Not really, but I know better than to say no to your good cooking.’

He waited for her to dish out the food and listened to her as she told him about everything that had happened in his absence. His eyes widened when she got to the Kafui part. She looked disappointed when he didn’t ask any questions and then as expected she pulled out her classic spoilt kid act.

‘Why do you always do this? I’ve told you how much communication means to me. You’ve been gone for two weeks and all I want to do is tell you everything that happened in those two weeks.’

‘Ewuraefua, I don’t understand you. It’s been a really long flight. I’m tired, not hungry and definitely not in the mood for conversation. And yet like the dutiful husband I am, I’ve sat here for the last hour eating your food and listening to things that you can always tell me later on instead of being in bed. And yet, once again you have managed to make yourself the victim.’

‘Don’t shout, you’re going to wake the kids.’

‘Let them wake up if they have to. Let them know their parents can fight too. Not everything has to be perfect, Ewuraefua!’

‘Mummy?’

It was Kuuku. He was standing on the stairs, his eyes filled with bewilderment.

‘Hey, go back to bed. Everything is fine.’

Peter grabbed his car keys.

‘I am going out for a drive. Don’t wait up.’

***

Kafui flinched when she heard the door open. She looked at the watch. It’s was 11:45pm. She could hear Prosper fumbling around for something. After a few minutes, he entered the room. Yes, it was him and yes, he was drunk. He sat on the bed, and leered at her for what seemed like forever. Then in a gruff voice he said, ‘I see you came back from whatever god forsaken hole you crawled in to. You should have stayed there. It would have made life easier for all of us. Now I have to deal with seeing your face in the mornings and feeling your sweaty out of shape self against my body at night.’

Kafui pressed her lips together and allowed the tears to fall.

‘You can say the meanest things you want to me but they will not make me leave this house. Your words are exactly that-words. They won’t kill me, they won’t make me go mad, they won’t take away my dignity.’

‘Who turned you into PowerPuff Girl 3? Or you think we are acting a movie – Girl Power, Kafui Edition? You will not talk back at me and you’re definitely not going to determine what my words can or cannot do. I am the man of this house. If you have a problem with my words, do yourself and me a favor by getting the hell out of here. You should thank your stars that I am not bringing up your disappearing act. Shameless woman! How can you leave your child with a nanny for a whole night? You are just like your mother!’

It stung- the comparison to her mother but Kafui kept a blank look on her face, determined not to let him succeed. He was also determined to weaken her so he brought out the cavalry- the one thing he knew would break her.

‘Take off your clothes and bend over.’

‘Prosper- you don’t have to do that.’

‘Don’t make me repeat myself!’

She dutifully bent over and winced her way to the bathroom when he was done. Only when she was alone did she let the tears fall.

***

Adjeley was waiting for Nii to come online. One of the struggles they had to to deal with as a couple in a long distance relationship was the difference in time zones. She loved Nii- she had loved him since he was 14, annoying, cute, stubborn  and yanking at her pigtails to get her attention. When his parents decided to move to the Netherlands, she was heartbroken but he looked at her with his puppy dog eyes and told her to wait for him. And so she waited- until it got lonely waiting for him to reply her texts.She still loved him-yes but she was ‘keeping herself busy’. That’s where the Andre Guerreros and Pablo Manuels came in. They had money to spend, time on their hands and knew how to treat a woman right. They were good company for now- at least until Nii came back.

No, she could not bring herself to tell him that they were sharing her with him. It would break his heart especially because he was waiting for their wedding night to break his virginity. He had always wanted to wait until his wedding night and now that he had gone abroad, he had found a purity ring to go with it. She knew the day was coming when he would have to hear that his flower had already been ‘deflowered’ by many gardeners.

***

Tonia tossed and turned a few more times before her eyes finally closed. It had been quite a stressful day. After thinking about Kafui and wondering what the night held for her, she allowed herself to dream about Tim, the one man she had allowed herself to love, the same man who left without so much of a goodbye. In the dream, she was lying on a beach, clad in a barely there bikini, flaunting her legs for the whole world to see, all the while sipping on a Pina Colada. Just then, bare chested  Tim came from behind her and covered her eyes.

‘I know who this is. You can’t fool me, Tim.’

‘Who said this was Tim?’

She opened her eyes and yes, she was looking at Tim but hearing Paa Kow’s voice.

‘Who are you?’, she asked.

‘Who do you want me to be? Tim or Paa Kow?’

And then she woke up..

There are many stories behind today’s post. I will tell some of them on my Facebook wall and on Twitter. Other than that, happy reading!