CHAPTER NINETY TWO
Divorce
I didn't wait for the car to come to a complete stop before I threw the door open and stumbled out. The gravel crunched beneath my feet as I marched toward the house, my steps quick and unsteady, fueled by anger. The front door swung open, and Clement, the cook, stepped outside.
"Madame Bewa, are you alri—" I didn't hear the rest as I blocked him out. I wasn't ready for questions. I wasn't ready for anything. Without sparing him a glance, I brushed past him and entered the house. The familiar scent of home greeted me and I had barely crossed the living room when a voice cut through the silence.
"Hello." I froze.
The deep, smooth baritone rolled over me like a cruel memory, warm and familiar, carrying the same calmness that had once made me feel safe. It was the kind of voice that used to pull smiles from me, the kind that had whispered promises in the middle of the night and spoken our future into existence. Now, it made my stomach churn.
No.
No, no, no.
"How have you been?" The gentleness in his tone was unbearable. As if he had the right to ask me that. As if I hadn't buried my baby. So, I kept walking.
"Bewaji. Come on."
My name left his lips softly, almost pleadingly, and I hated myself for the way my heart still recognized it. Slowly, painfully, I turned.
There he was.
Standing and looking devastatingly handsome, as always. Perfectly put together, not a hair out of place. I lost a child and I am a mess and he looks like he is not the father of the child that died. A bitter laugh rose in my throat. How could he stand there looking so... whole?
I lost my baby. Our baby, and every day since then had been a punishment I couldn't escape. And he looked fine. The sight of him ignited something ugly inside me. He did this. He put me in the position where I had to kill my baby. The guilt clawed at my insides, sharp and merciless. I was drowning in it. Every second, every minute of every single day.
And he….
He did not get to stand there looking healed. He did not get to move on while I was still buried beneath the ruins of what we'd lost. He did not get to speak to me with that soft voice. He did not get to look at me with concern. He did not get to have peace when I was pestered by nightmares.
I swallowed hard, my chest tightening painfully. I wanted to scream. I wanted to hit him but instead, I just stared at him, my eyes filling with tears I refused to let fall.
His shoulder dropped and he sighed heavily.
“I know you probably don’t want to see me but I just wan…” He was cut off by the sound of footsteps and I didn’t have to look back to know that Marcus was standing behind me.
“Hello, Marcus,” Kylian greeted.
“Hey!” he replied in a neutral voice.
“I am sorry for showing up unannounced but I have been calling you and it is switched off,” he explained.
“Yeah, today has been a busy day. Please sit.” Marcus moved past me to be closer to Kylian. “I heard about what happened, I am sorry for your loss.”
I turned and glared at Marcus. Is he for real?
“Thank you,” Kylian nodded.
“I am going to let you and Bewaji talk.” He started to walk away.
“There is no need for that.” He stopped Marcus from leaving and my friend looked at Kylian in confusion.
“What?”
“I don’t think she wants to talk to me, which is okay, I deserve it. Alice wanted to send her things over.” Only then did I realize that there were two pieces of luggage in the living room.
“I brought this over and also, to see how she is doing.” He turned to me at this point with his hands in his pockets and smiled.
“You look well.”
Something inside me snapped as the words hit me like a slap.
I look well?
Rage surged through me so suddenly that it left me breathless.
“I look well?” I repeated, my voice dangerously low. “Are you kidding me?” I gritted through my teeth and I turned away because if I looked at him for one more second, I might actually scream.
Who the hell does he think he is to say that to me, after the damage he has done to me? Just before I got to the door of my bedroom, I spun around and marched back toward the living room, my anger carrying me forward. As I was about to enter, Marcus’s voice stopped me in my tracks.
“I am sorry for your loss, Kylian, I am. No parent should ever have to bury their child, but you do not get to come in here and tell her she looks good, after what she has been through.”
Kylian’s expression crumbled.
“Marcus…” But my friend didn’t let him speak.
“She wakes up every day with dreams of her baby only to be reminded seconds later that she has lost her. Do you know what kind of agony that is? Losing your baby every blessed day and when she is not dreaming, she is losing time. She hardly laughs because she can’t remember what happiness is anymore, she hardly eats, not even her favorite pepper soup because it is a reminder of the life she has lost. So no, that woman does not look well, she is drowning.”
He looked Kylian straight in the eyes.
The room went deathly silent and they stared at each other for a long time before Kylian looked away. He sighed and looked back at Marcus with his eyes filled with something I don’t want to see.
Then he softly said, “Of course, she is not, I know that.” He took a shaky breath. “She lost a child, we lost our baby. She was….” His voice cracked.
“She was going to be a new beginning for us and she died…. because of me, because of what I did.” His voice was thick with guilt now, every word sounding like it hurt to speak.
“She was so small.” He shook his head slowly. “She was so tiny.”
What? He got to see her?
“A new life, a tiny innocent life wiped away just like that, she can’t be okay.” He wiped away the lone tear that slipped down his face. The room fell silent.
“But despite all of that, she looks well to me.” Confusion flickered across Marcus’s face. “Because the last time I saw her.... her eyes were dead.” The words hung in the air. "There was nothing in them. No anger. No sadness. No life." He swallowed hard. "She looked like someone who had already left this world and forgotten to take her last breath. I thought I lost her too, but not anymore." A shaky smile touched his lips.
“Life is back in her, she is angry… at me. I never thought I would be this happy to have someone mad at me but I am.” His gaze softened.
“Because it means that she is still standing, fighting to live through another day.” His voice dropped to almost a whisper. “So, whatever it is that you are doing, please continue. It is working.”
Somehow, this feels worse. Worse than if he had meant to insult me, because he wasn't mocking my pain. He is micromanaging my feelings like he always does. I always hated him for that.
He got to see my baby and I did not. He is the reason why she is died and he got to see her. How is that fair?
“Who the hell do you think you are?” I stepped out from my hiding place, fury coursing through my veins. Both men snapped their heads toward me.
“Bewa….”
“What right do you have to ask him that?” I demanded, my voice shaking with anger. He blinked.
“Bewaji…”
“You still see yourself as my husband, is that it?” I cut him off as I took another step toward him.
"You walk in here, you ask about me, you worry about me, you talk about me as though…" My voice broke. "…as if nothing has changed."
“I am just trying to look after you.”
“Well, don’t,” I snapped. “Because we are done, I want a divorce.”
“Bewaji, I think you should slow down,” Marcus cautioned and I glared at him.
“Stay out of it.”
I looked at Kylian.
“You don’t mean that,” he said.
“I do actually but what did you think was going to happen after everything, after what you did….” His face crumpled. “After your betrayal.”
“Bewaji, it was not my intention….”
“It does not matter what your intention was, it happened and you let it happen. My baby died for that, you can’t seriously think if you give me enough space, you would get back what you let slip away.”
“Bewaji please, don’t do this.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “I can fix us, please. We are expect….”
“If she had not died, the chances of us getting back together were as low as ten percent and now that she is dead, we are so done. I don’t want anything linking me to you ever again, I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to see you ever again. I want you out of my life.”
I turned and walked away, tears rolling down my eyes.
The door of my room clicked shut and there was silence. I stood there, my chest rising and falling, my tears still wet on my face.
Then it hit me.
Something was missing.
I just made the decision to leave my husband, where was she?
Where was that voice? That annoying, relentless voice that never left me alone. The voice that talked too much, always interrupting when not called. The voice that argued with me, comforted me, mocked me, reminded me to eat, reminded me to breathe. The voice that had been with me for so long that I had stopped thinking of it as separate from myself. The voice that had kept me company through lonely nights.
I don’t think I have heard her throughout everything that has happened.
I closed my eyes.
“I am leaving Kylian, what do you think?” I heard nothing.
“Seriously, nothing, no sarcastic comment, no soft applause. There is no ‘you should think about this more.’” I opened my eyes, panic blooming in my chest. "No… no, no, no. You don’t get to abandon me." I pressed my fingers against my temples.
“Come say something, anything, scold me, I deserve that for killing my baby. Laugh at me or tell me I am being dramatic.” Nothing, so I sat on the floor and tried once more.
From a distance, I heard it, I heard her voice.
I had a baby.
A daughter.
I was going to show her the world,
raise her to be a strong woman.
But she died.
All that blood…
She must have suffered.
My poor baby….
“Come on, not you too.”
I cried and stood up and started pacing. What do I do? I think I broke her. I am the one that is supposed to be punished, not her.
I heard a knock.
“Who is here?”
“It is me, Marcus,” he responded and I wiped my tears away.
“Come in.” He opened the door and wheeled in the luggage.
“Kylian left, so, I brought in your stuff,” he said.
“Thank you.” I moved toward the window, still rattled by my discovery.
“I don’t understand you, Bewaji.” I closed my eyes in frustration as I was in no mood to deal with him right now.
“I don’t care what you don’t understand, Marcus, I don’t want to talk about it,” I stated angrily but of course, he wouldn’t be Marcus if he let things go.
“About an hour ago, you almost bit my head off, telling me how you lost your husband and were not getting him back.” Then he scoffed. "I thought you lost him because he blamed you about the baby but he does not, in fact, the reverse is the case and you want to divorce him.”
I turned to him in fury.
“What is it about ‘I don’t want to fucking talk about it’ did you not fucking hear?” I snapped and yelled. “I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!”
He flinched but I don’t care.
“Close the fucking door on your way out,” I stated and turned back to the window.
TO BE CONTINUED ON NEXT SATURDAY, 9.00PM WAT.
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