November 17th, 2019. 8:40PM 26
OLIVIA
I look at the invitation card once again and for some unknown reason I laugh, this must be some sick joke because how can it be possible that the same Mulife that has always been uptight and emotionless towards me can just with Thelma once and decide to marry her.
I didn’t notice Lackson standing behind me, he was looking at me with wondering eyes and I knew in this instant that I had to give him the card.
He flung it open and hit me hard on the cheek in a second, it took me a minute to actually accept that this had happened.
“What was that for?’ I ask my tears refusing to fall
I have dark marks on my cheek which I only cover in makeup when I am going out.
‘You knew this and couldn’t tell me?’ ‘I just got the card today.’ I respond
He lifts his hand to hit me again but luckily Mulife walks in ‘What do you want here?’ Lackson asks angrily
‘This is not the brother I have always known, what happened to you?’ Mulife enquires his hands shoved deep in his pockets
It hurts that he doesn’t even bother to look at me but I hate that he has to find me in such a state.
‘What does it matter to you how I have decided to live my life?’ he shoots back
‘Lackson we used to be very close, I was your role model. You wanted to be like me but I advised you against it. I have always loved you but where did all that go south?’
‘I never wanted to be like you, I wanted to be you!’ he screamed catching both me and Mulife off guard
‘I have always wanted to be an equal Mulife, I didn’t want to be viewed as your young brother but your brother. I wanted to be the engineer that you were, I wanted to have the political future that your life came with. I wanted to be the one to have the woman that dad would love!’
I expected Mulife to respond or say something ill but he didn’t respond, he just stayed calm and something crossed my mind; that is why he loved Thelma. There was a way she carried herself that synched with him.
‘We are too old to be fighting over things that cannot be, and I am sorry that you didn’t get the life that you wanted but one of the things I need you to understand is that you make the life that you want to happen. No one, and I mean no one is going to do that for you.’ Mulife responded
‘Get the hell out of my house and just know that I will be sending the cops over to get my daughter!’
‘That is exactly why I came.’ He said Now this had me looking at him
‘The adoption process is over, the two of you now have no rights or claims over Olivia.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked
‘I am of full understanding that you two put Olivia up for adoption, and in one of the clauses you both signed that you would not for anything in the world ever reach out to the family that adopts her.’
‘Mulife what have you done?’
‘I should be asking you.’ He says turning on his heel
‘Mulife what have you done?’ I repeat my voice almost breaking
‘I and Thelma will be husband and wife very soon and Olivia will be ours, for now she is Thelma’s. of course, legally.’
‘She is not the one that approached us for the adoption.’ I cry
‘Are you sure? If I were you I would talk to my people but that would be a waste of time because it has already been done and like a fool you had put your signatures on the forms awaiting for the adoptive parent to do so too.’
‘No!’ I cry
Mulife comes close to me and whispers something in my ear, I have never seen him this cold. He turns to his brother and smiles mischievously before walkingout.
I don’t know what’s worst, losing Olivia to Thelma or being stuck with Lackson. It’s like I have signed my own death and I don’t even know how to get out of this situation. I think back at my life as a young girl, this is not where I imagined myself to be. I had dreams, dreams bigger than me but I allowed my father’s
political career to get in the way. My mother always warned that someday I would reap everything I was sowing but I thought she was just being an old hag, but here I am now. When I was betrothed to Mulife it was the highest achievement I had
attained, he was young and energetic. He was every woman’s dream and to be his and to be loved by his parents was all that I could settle for.
But the life that I was faced with wasn’t the one that I signed up for, Mulife was nice to me. But only because he was a genuinely nice person. He didn’t even put an effort into getting to know me, its like from the very minute he had decided that he didn’t like me and he wasn’t intending to. But I was determined, to make him mine at whatever cost.
Then Thelma came in, she was just a maid but her beauty was irresistible – one had to be a fool to miss it. So, I did what I thought would make me keep Mulife to myself, I turned her into an enemy but no matter how many buttons I pushed she still didn’t fall into my trap and that pissed me off even more. Years passed, I thought she was gone, I had made the mistake of sleeping with Lackson but Olivia was the most beautiful thing that sorely belonged to me. Mulife took her in as her own and it was all rosy until a few weeks back when his father came to shove it in my face that I had to be married to Lackson, then more than ever I wanted to talk to my mother so that she could convince my father that all this was absurd but how could I? when I had laughed in her face and called her names? When I had sided with my father thinking she was just jealous of me. Then the adoption came, that was the last blow. I knew giving up my daughter would be the last blow but what I didn’t know was that Thelma would be the one to get her and now I didn’t have much to live for. All these were sins of my past and they were doing a great job tormentingme.
Winnie