Marriage Chronicles - Season 1 - Episode 2

5 years ago

Marriage Chronicles - Season 1 - Episode 2

☆☆☆☆☆
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Continues..

..COREEN..

My husband’s family hates me. No, let me rephrase that cause ‘hate’ is too simple a word to describe how his mother and two sisters feel about me. They loathe me, for no apparent reason.

When I asked Cephas’ elder sister why they, that’s her mother, she and Cephas’ younger sister hate me so much, Ethel just laughed in my face. “You don’t wanna know,” she rolled her eyes before pretending to be so engrossed in whatever on her stupid phone.

So when Cephas came up towards me on the dressing cabinet where I was doing my hair, wrapped his hands around my neck from behind and breathed into my hair, saying a cousin of his was coming to visit us that day, I was more shocked than surprised.

“Let me guess, this cousin of yours hates me too.”

“Baby, you know I don’t like it when you talk like this.”

“So we’ll just pretend your mother and two sisters don’t hate everything about me, right?”

“Rajesh isn’t my mother and sisters.”

“Rajesh?” I tilted my head. “That’s not a Zambian name, is it? Now you didn’t exactly tell me you have an Indian cousin.”

“He’s mixed race,” Cephas unwrapped his hands from my neck and stood beside me so that I could see him in the mirror. “Some aunt of mine had an affair with an Indian man ages ago and bore Rajesh Sharma. His dad bailed on them way before he was born but aunt was so obsessed with the d--n Indian that she named my cousin after his run away father.”

“Mmmm. So he’s coming to do what exactly?”

“He’s just visiting from India where he somehow managed to take himself..he’s loaded too so he’ll be staying over at a hotel.”

“Great. I’ll cook something.”

His phone rang and he picked up, spoke for a while and hang up. “It was Rajesh, let me go pick him up from the hotel.”

“Sure.”

He kissed me on the lips and rubbed my still flat tummy. “Take care of yourself and our little one.”

“I will.”

He hurriedly put on some Vans and scuffled out of the room. I stood before the mirror, admiring my slender and beautiful self. I was beautiful, of this I was certain. Not even that short and plump Anna could be compared to me. She was my friend, yes, and was beautiful in her own way but I was way prettier than her. And yet her in-laws adored her..mmph! I knew she was envious of my marriage as Cephas treated me like a queen and to say the truth I was envious of her because her in-laws liked her. And because she had grown up with both parents unlike me whose mother had died giving birth to, whose father was so shattered by his wife’s death that he committed suicide. I was brought up by my grandmother from Dad’s side and growing up it had been only Grandma, Gwen who was another orphan and I. Life hadn’t been easy and today am not quite in the mood to tell you about all the struggles we’d gone through.

So when I met Cephas in Lusaka where I was studying at Evelyn Hone, scholarship things, I fell head over heels for him and we got married three years later. Cephas’ Dad had been quite a rich and influential business man who’d left a fortune in his wife’s and children’s hands when he died, thus Cephas’ riches. But my husband was smart so he expanded the family business such that they now owned a fleet of buses, herds of cattle, a hotel and some stores and alas, people deemed him a Satanist.

Even Anna had once hinted on the same.
We had gone out that particular day when she and I bought take away chicken and chips plus two spa-lettas from Galitos and decided to eat inside my car.

“This that you’ve failed to conceive despite the doctors confirming both you and your husband are medically fertile,” she began, “I hope all is well.”

I opted to remain silent. I was pregnant, this I knew but hadn’t informed anyone yet. I needed to confirm first, needed a doctor to divulge the news to me.

Anna was saying, “There’s talk in town about Cephas which I really don’t like but as you’re my friend, I think you have the right to know what people are saying about your husband.”

“Really?” I took a bite from my quarter chicken. “Humour me, Anna.”

“Coreen, rumour has it that your husband is a ritualist.”

If I was upset, I didn’t let Anna know. “Let them talk. What matters he is not.”

“What makes you so certain?”

“The same thing that assures you William isn’t cheating on you.” that shut her up.

It was later that evening when I was getting ready for bed when I saw something strange. You see I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I saw myself in the mirror, that’s two versions of me in the mirror. One was wearing a kimono which had blood smeared all over it and the other one was original me.
Meticulously, I turned and there was no one behind me. I placed a hand on my chest and felt my heart beating frantically.

“I must be hallucinating, I really need to get some sleep.”

I turned back to the mirror and saw the kimono clad me again..this time she was approaching my back. I screamed and fell cold on the bathroom floor.

When I came to, Cephas and our doctor were hovering over me.

That’s when the doctor announced I’d fainted due to the fact that I was pregnant.

I didn’t bother telling Cephas about what I’d seen in the bathroom because I knew he wouldn’t believe me. Furthermore, why ruin the ecstatic mood he was in?

Back to my preparing for Rajesh to pay us a visit, my maid and I made several delicacies and spread them neatly on the 2,150 U.S Dollars dining table. Which is approximately K21,500
An hour later, Cephas and the handsome looking Rajesh Sharma showed up and we had lunch together, laughing and talking about nothing in particular.

“I like your wife,” Rajesh blurted to Cephas after we’d hugged each other goodbye.

My husband winked at me and then smiled at him. “Do you now?”
Rajesh smiled too. “Yeah, she’s cool.” he looked straight at me. “You’re cool, Coreen. Cephas here is one lucky b-----d to have hit such a jackpot!”

The blushing was inevitable. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, always.”

What a charmer, I thought as I headed towards my room. If I hadn’t been happily married nor loved Cephas the way I did, I wouldn’t mind having me some Indian lover. But I wasn’t the cheating type so..yeah.

My maid rapped on my door minutes later informing me Anna was here to see me.

“Tell her I’ll be out in a minute,” I told her.

I found Anna waiting for me in the living room where we shared a brief hug.

“I just bumped into your husband on my way out,” she awkwardly said. “he was with this Indian man..”

“Rajesh Sharma.”

“Yes, he mentioned that’s his name. Who is he?”

“My husband’s cousin.”

“Cephas mentioned that.”

“Okay,” I then told her about Rajesh’s roots. “Why are you so interested in knowing about him?”

She shrugged. “Just mere curiosity.”

But deep down I knew she wasn’t telling the truth.

When she was gone and the maid had knocked off, I decided to step into the kitchen and make supper for Cephas who was yet to come back.

I was just turning on the stove when I felt a weird vibe ooze through the entire kitchen. Almost as if someone invisible had whooshed past me. Then came the light which flipped on and off frequently, on it’s own. I began to shiver and headed towards the door which shut itself tight such that it didn’t budge when I tried to open it. To say I was frightened is the understatement of the century, I just felt like pissing in my pant! I took a few steps back in retreat when the cupboard doors began opening and closing on their own, the drawers too.

And then the light went off for about a minute and when it came back on, there was a message written on the kitchen wall, in blood.

‘AM COMING FOR YOU, B---H!’

I screamed and buried my head in my palms. I was vigorously shaking when Cephas showed up.

“What are you doing seated on the floor like that, honey?”

I tried to reply but no words came out of my
mouth cause I was s--t scared. He crouched down and hugged me. “Coreen?”

I pointed at the wall, where the message was..had been cause it was now gone.

“What’s there, huh Coreen?”

I narrated all that had just happened and guess his reaction? He laughed, lifting me and taking me to the bedroom. He carefully placed me on the bed, “You deserve some rest. I’ll make dinner.”

With that, he kissed me on my forehead and left me in the bedroom.

I knew what I had seen was real, I wasn’t hallucinating. But who would believe me if and when I decided to narrate the scary tale to them?
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