Marriage Chronicles - Season 1 - Episode 19

5 years ago

Marriage Chronicles - Season 1 - Episode 19

☆☆☆☆☆
.
continues..

..COREEN..

My mind was made up. Either Cephas tells me the entire truth or I divorce his sorry a-s and move on with my life. I had a Bachelor’s in Business Administration after all so I’d just find myself a job and start my life anew, that’s if my dear husband decides to remain adamant.

I arrived home with a bag in my hands just for the maid to gratefully sigh and say, “Thank God you are finally home, madam. The boss is in the bedroom drinking heavily, as he does lately. You go talk to him cause honestly I’ve tried my best!”

“It’s fine, Rosemary. I’ll get through to him.”

I knocked on our bedroom door and told him it was me. Cephas opened the door quite sooner than I had anticipated.

“Coreen,” he called. “You’re back to me..For good, right?” I couldn’t break the news to him in his current state lest he does something uncalled for so I said, “Yes, Darling. But for starters, you’ll go into the bathroom and have a cold shower, take a nap and I’ll prepare coffee when you wake up. Am sure you’ll be feeling fresh by then.”

He tightly hugged me. “I’ll do exactly as you say, my dear wife. When I came here and found you gone, I thought you would never come back. Thanks for coming back!”
He was drunk and was starting to get emotional. Not wanting to have to deal with a crying man, I pushed him into the bathroom and urged he showers.

I cleaned the bedroom as he showered and spread the bed for him. An hour later, I was seated beside my husband who was fast asleep. I couldn’t help but miss those old days when our marriage was almost perfect.

The only thing that had been lacking was a child. I sighed and brushed a kiss on his lips.

“I love you, Cephas Mwaba. I’ll always will.”

I waited until he was sober and we were having supper..that’s when I broke the news to him.

“I want a divorce.”

“Pardon?” he dropped his nshima back on the plate and looked at me as if he was seeing me for the first time.

I leaned back in my seat. “This marriage isn’t working, Cephas, thanks to your dishonesty. I thought married people aren’t supposed to keep secrets from each other but that’s now the case with you. Am the one who sees Lubuto’s ghost, not you. It’s me she torments and who knows why she’d pick me? Maybe it’s because am her twin sister or its because am married to you, her man and murderer.”

“Lubuto is your twin sister? And no, I didn’t murder her.” “She is my twin, granny told me so today. And the other day when you told me half of the story, you told me Lubuto had died after you forced her to have an abortion which in my book makes you her murderer. Look here, Cephas. Am giving you a fortnight to man up and tell me exactly what you had done to Lubuto for her ghost to be haunting me and don’t you dare cook up bullshit stories!” I was too angry to continue eating thus I pushed my chair back and stood after washing my hands.

“Two weeks, Cephas. And I’ll be gone, for good this time around cause I’ll divorce your sorry a-s!”

“Coreen-”

“Don’t you Coreen me!” I shouted and walked out on him. A whole week past and he wasn’t telling me nothing. Maybe the nigga thought I was bluffing no wonder I went to a lawyer and was given divorce papers which I signed right away. When Cephas came back from his business ventures that evening, he found the divorce papers waiting for him on the bed.

“They’re already signed,” I told him, matter of factly, as he picked them from the bed. “You’ve got one week left, Cephas.” I turned to leave the bedroom but stopped when he told me to.

“Come take a seat,” he said and patted the edge of the bed.
I quietly sat.

“You really wanna know what I’d done to Lubuto, don’t you?” “I wanna know so quit beating around the bush and go straight to the point please.”
He buried his head in his palms while exasperating. “What if the truth pushes you farther away from me?”

“Let me be the one to decide that.” “Fine..Oh God, this is tough. Remember I told you I’d forced Lubuto to have an abortion? That was a lie. I had drugged her juice, Coreen, and had watched her wince and wriggle on the floor as she bled immensely. All I wanted was for her to lose the baby so that I could finally get rid of the manipulative b---h but I think the pregnancy was quite big that time no wonder the bleeding didn’t cease and before I knew it, she was gasping for breath and begging I take her to the hospital. As I dilly-dallied around the room while pacing and thinking about what I was going to do next, Lubuto took one deep breath and went still. I panicked, thinking she was dead and not knowing she had just passed out. What to do with the dead body, I didn’t know.” “Go on, am still listening.”

“Can you give me some goddamn time? This is harder than it looks, Coreen!” He snapped and lowered his voice afterwards. “But there was this Richard guy who had approached me about ritual killings and all so I thought he’d know what to do with the body so I called him. He showed up at my house half an hour later with a cooler box full of ice and a sharp butcher knife in the other hand.

‘We’re taking her heart out,’ he announced as he knelt before Lubuto who lay in a pool of blood.

‘We? I’ve done half the job so you just do it, man!’

‘Fine. Just come help me cut her up first. Come on, don’t be such a p---y!’ I truthfully don’t know where I mustered the courage from but I knelt beside him and with his instructions, begun cutting Lubuto’s chest open. And then she suddenly gasped and opened her eyes, I threw the knife with a yelp.

‘We have to finish the job,’ said Richard as he picked the knife up.

‘Please,’ Lubuto had pleaded. ‘Ceph Donut, you’re killing me.’ ‘Its too late,’ Richard hissed and cut her up and pulled her heart out. Lubuto glared at me, then the heart and mumbled, ‘This isn’t over yet, Ceph Donut.’ She breathed her last and died.”

This level of wickedness was weakening me to the bone. “What happened next?”

“Geez..we cleaned the house, buried her body in the middle of nowhere and sold the heart. The police investigated after Lubuto’s mum made noise but they found nothing so the case got closed.”

“These riches that you have, the money you got after selling Lubuto’s heart is the capital, right?”

“Does it really matter?” “Of course it does!”

“If it makes you feel any better,” he stood and t----t his hands into his pockets. “It isn’t. My conscience got the better of me so I gave all the money to Richard, I swear on my late father’s grave! The guy is filthy rich now and resides in Dubai. My riches come from my inheritance.” The only words I could utter were, “You’re wicked, Cephas. Whether Lubuto was a pain in the a-s or not, that doesn’t give you the right to do what you had done to her. Am afraid after this confession, I can’t continue being your wife.”

He knelt before me. “Don’t do this to me, Coreen. You know am nothing without you! Please,” his eyes were teary. “I don’t care, Cephas. What if I annoy you one day and you decide to slit my throat and sell my heart too?” I vigorously shook my head. “I love you but this is bigger than me so please kindly sign those divorce papers as soon as possible. If you really love me, as much as you say you do, the least you can do for me is sign the divorce papers and set me free.” I moved out of Cephas’ house the following day and found me a house in Kalingalinga. It was high time I straightened my life out.

For the next few days, Cephas and Granny kept on bombarding my phone with calls and texts so I broke my old SIM card and bought a new one. I was listening to knews on the radio one day when I heard about Anna resurfacing and claiming William had attempted to murder her.

Two weeks later, I womaned up and paid Anna a visit at her place. She wasn’t around when I arrived so I decided to wait for a while. When she finally showed up driving a new car, I braced myself for the moment I’d been waiting for. My reunion with her. “Anna!” I rushed to hug her when she got out of the car but she pushed me away.

“What do you want?” she rudely asked me while locking the car.

I was more shocked than surprised. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“Why would I be happy to see a backstabbing b---h?” That stung!

She went on to say, “We’ve been friends for almost a decade, Coreen. And I survive a fatal incident and hear from mum that you produced a recording of me and Rajesh having sex and also had pics of us holding hands? What exactly were you planning on doing with that evidence?” “I messed up, Anna, and am sorry. We’ll discuss that later cause right now am curious. I really wanna know who is innocent and guilty between Rajesh and William and also, what had happened to you cause I was even convinced you were dead.”

“And I bet you were thrilled. Sorry to cut your happiness short but only the good die young so I ain’t dying any time soon and about your other concern, since you’ve become CNN slash FBI, I reckon you imvestigate and find out who the real culprit is but for now please freaking leave my premises before I embarrass you!”

With that, she did a catwalk to her porch and took keys out of her purse. She was mad at me and had every right to be so I convinced myself all she needed was time and I was going to give her just that.

When I arrived at my new place, I found her seated on the couch watching T.V.

“I didn’t know ghosts watch TV too,” I froze in the doorway. “I’ve left Cephas so what else do you want from me?”

“Your help.” “And what makes you think am willing to help you this time around?”

“Because you don’t have a choice,” Kimono me stood and approached me. “Cephas is yet to pay for what he did to me.” she gripped both my arms and disappeared. I felt a weird s£nsat!on and then something scary happened.

I could remember Kimono me meet Cephas, them making love, she talking to her mum on the phone, Cephas watching her bleed and they taking out her heart. I could remember Kimono me’s life so accurately that it felt as if am the one who had gone through all that she had.
.