CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR
Knotted
“Tell me about the voice,” Dr. Berot inquired. I let out a heavy sigh and nervously rubbed my hands together.
“Sassy,” I commented slowly.
“Sassy?”I nodded.
“She can be sassy, a joykill, reckless, arrogant, noisy, a busybody. She pokes her nose into businesses that are not hers. She is messy and everywhere.” She jotted something down in her small notebook.
“But,” I continued, “she was also brave.” I shook my head as I fumbled with my hands. “She knows what she wants, and she goes for it. She is not afraid to voice her concerns. She is smart too.” I grunted as I thought back to Kylian’s betrayal. “She was the reason I knew something was not right with my marriage.”
I rested my back against the couch. “She is my guide, even if I don’t listen to her most of the time. She calms me when I freak out, which I do a lot. She was my personal motivator. She believed in me when I didn’t even believe in myself. She was someone I could count on to be there for me at all time.” I sighed heavily. “Someone like that does not deserve to be punished for my sins. Please help her.”
Dr. Berot adjusted herself in her seat and said, “That is the goal, but I need you to know that before we can fix her, we need to talk about your baby.” I closed my eyes tightly and slowly nodded.
“Good,” she commented. “So, tell me how you met your husband.”
I frowned. “You said we were talking about my baby. How does talking about Kylian fix my inner voice?”
“You are right.” She leaned forward slightly.
“You see, when a couple loses a child, they grieve together. They lean on each other, even when they're hurting in different ways. But you went through one of the greatest traumas a mother can experience, yet Marcus, your friend, is the one here with you, not the man you had your child with.” I lowered my gaze.
“At first, I thought maybe he blames you like you blame yourself, but now you said something was not right with your marriage, which means there is something else at play here that you are not talking about. I think we need to talk about what was not right before we come to the loss of your baby.”
Then she stood and went to the cabinet at the end of the office. She brought out a slim rope and came back to her seat. I watched her knot the rope several times until the rope became a ball. She made eye contact with me.
“Your inner voice is not the separate being that you make her out to be. She is your mental state. She is you, and right now...” She stretched the ball of knotted rope towards me.
“This is your mental state.” I looked at the ball in her hand grimly. “All knotted up, and to fix her, we need to slowly undo each knot.” She started loosening each knot until the rope was straight again.
“I don’t think your inner voice is broken just because of the loss of your baby. Of course, it was the major factor and the final nail in the coffin, but there were other contributing factors too. So, we need to treat those contributing factors to heal your knotted mental state.” She dropped the rope on the table and relaxed back into her chair. “So, tell me how you met your husband.”
I let out a huge sigh.
“I met him in my dream.” Dr. Berot raised her eyebrow. “I dreamt that he came to ask for my hand in marriage, and the moment I woke up, I fell in love with him.”
“Without meeting him?” she questioned for clarity.
“I didn’t have to meet him because he was everywhere.”
“I am confused.”
“He was... he is a celebrity, a global celebrity, a household name, so he was everywhere.” She studied me for a moment.
“And you fell in love with him without meeting him?” she asked slowly.
“Love...” I exhaled slowly. “I don’t know if it was love or a crush, or lust or infatuation. I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now, but what I do know is that I saw a man I wanted to be like.” Dr. Berot remained quiet, her gaze fixed on me.
“A man who knew what he wanted from life, a man with a goal, a man fighting for his dreams, a man with a future, a man who came into my life when I needed him the most.”
“Why did you need him?” She asked me and I let out a humourless laugh.
“As a Nigerian woman, to be successful, you need four things.” I raised my hands and counted on my fingers. “Education, a job, a husband, and children. Those were the four criteria for being known as a successful woman in the society.
“Back then, I only had education. I already had my master’s degree, but it was not enough. Even if I had only an OND, no job, and a husband with two kids, that was the definition of a successful woman. But I only had education.” I swallowed hard.
“And every day, constantly, my parents were always reminding me of the failure that I was. My friends were moving up the ladder, building careers, starting families, while I was stuck in one position... a master’s degree holder in her father’s house.” I let out a sigh.
“It was a really difficult time for me, so I turned to Kylian.”
“Kylian!” she exclaimed as I watched her connect the dots, and I saw the exact moment she did. “He is married?”
“There is doctor-patient confidentiality, right?” I asked.
“Yes.” She adjusted herself. “I am not allowed to share what you tell me.”
“Good.” She was quiet for a while, then finally said, “You were the woman who went viral.” I nodded.
“You were called crazy.” And suddenly, I burst into laughter. I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt. It wasn't funny. None of it was. But I couldn't stop.
The laughter cracked open somewhere deep inside me, and suddenly it wasn't laughter anymore. I started sobbing. The humiliating kind. The one that stole your breath and folded your body in half. I covered my face with both hands, ashamed of myself.
I had allowed Kylian to mess with my head for a very long time.
“He was everything to me.” The words trembled out of me as I wiped the tears away, but more kept coming.
“I had nothing going on in my life, so I turned to him. His wins were my wins, his losses were my losses. He was my father, my mother, sister, brother, friend, boyfriend, husband. I told him my plans, my hopes, my dreams. I ranted about everyone, including my parents, to him. I told him things I would never tell anyone.” I laughed bitterly through my tears.
“I celebrated my little victories with him and shared my failures with him too. He was my safe space. Sometimes I scolded him, sometimes I told him what to do.”
I placed my hand on my chest and spoke. “He occupied this huge space in my life. I thought about him when I woke up, and his face was the last thing I saw before I went to sleep. He lived in my head.” I looked down at my trembling hands. Then I squeezed my eyes shut.
“I was drowning in life, and he represented hope for me. This man who didn't know I existed became a life raft I clung to. He was the light in my very dark tunnel. Of course, he never replied to any of my messages.” I smiled through fresh tears.
“But somehow, he was real. He felt alive. He felt like he was always with me. Maybe it was because I had low self-esteem.” I inhaled shakily as I locked eyes with the doctor.
“But he made me happy. He was the only thing that held me together during that period.” Dr. Berot let the silence breathe before speaking.
“So, how did you two meet?” I stared at a spot on the floor, my voice becoming distant, as though I were watching someone else's life unfold.
“I had already moved to another city for work when my father called me about the marriage proposal.”
“Which you accepted.”
“In a heartbeat. It was Kylian Mbappé, the man I loved. It was a dream come true, or so I thought. There were so many things I ignored because I was in love.”
“Like what?”
“For starters, why my parents would let me marry a stranger, and not just any stranger but a stranger from another continent. I should have known something was fishy. Or the fact that his family held me at arm's length during the wedding. He never spoke to me during the one month we were apart while I sorted my documents to leave Nigeria. Or the fact that I was imprisoned in a hotel for over a month.” I shook my head and internally scolded myself for missing so many signs.
“The day I went viral was the day I found out my marriage was a ruse. For show. I was a carefully selected actress in someone else's story.”
Silence.
"And how did that make you feel?” she asked quietly.
“I went crazy, like you saw.”
“How did it make you feel?” she asked again in a firm but gentle voice. I stared at her, but she didn't relent.
“Stupid. I felt stupid.” My breathing became uneven, and I quickly wiped the tears that rolled down my cheeks. “Like an idiot, like a dumb fool. I let myself be used as a pawn for someone else's success.”
“I wasn't even worth telling the truth to. I was just useful.” I buried my face in my hands. “I felt so ashamed, so unbelievably ashamed.” Dr. Berot let me cry before asking the question I didn't expect.
“But you stayed,” she pointed out.
Yes, I stayed.
“A man of Kylian's standing, after what you did, would try to cut you out. But if you are still married to him, legally, you must have done something to stay.” She leaned forward and held my gaze.
“Why did you stay?”
The question struck somewhere deep inside me. My breathing quickened, and the office suddenly felt too small and too suffocating.
“I...” My voice failed. “I can't.” I pushed myself to my feet so abruptly that the chair scraped loudly across the floor. “I can't do this.”
“Bewa...” I was already backing towards the door.
“We'll continue another time.” My fingers fumbled with the handle. “I can't talk about this.”
I had every chance to leave. Why did I stay? Was I that obsessed with him that I let myself be tormented that way?
Before Dr. Berot could respond, I pulled the door open and walked out. Only after I reached the corridor did I hear her quiet voice behind me.
“We'll stop here for today.”
TO BE CONTINUED ON NEXT SATURDAY, 9.00PM WAT.
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