He looked up and dropped his cutlery when I walked in. He wanted to talk but the look on his face told me he did not particularly know how to begin. But he managed.
“How are you ‘ he asked me coldly, one could see and hear the bitterness in him.
‘ I guess I am well”, I said in a voice enmeshed in anxiety.
“You guess well, this is no longer time for guesses, I called you for something I consider important.
And I do hope you will be able to cope with the development because nothing in life is constant, save for change:’ Tony has a clear sense of rhetorics whenever he wanted to sound serious. That was his mission that morning.
I breathed out and urged him on.
You see, Kerni, I need to let you know that you need to Ieave me,’ he said, running his palm on his mouth, “you need to try some other men.
“How? For eight months, have you bothered how I have been faring?”
“I don’t need to. It’s a free world,” he said.
“One thing is certain now, I don’t want to be seeing your face around my compound. I will appreciate if you leave quietly”
“Tony, you want a divorce?”
“It depends on you. I don’t have name for it. But I want you so far away from me. I need some space, that’s the truth.”
I sat still and pondered the evil of the past months. It had been everything but happy. I have been ordered out of the bedroom, out of the main building. guest house. And now Tony, my husband wants me out of the compound too. Several
options ran into my mind. Did I fall so cheap, like a blackmailer victim? Maybe “I had resisted from the onset, it would not have got this bad.
But there I was in my matrimonial home, being ordered about. Instantly, he broke my train of thought with his hardship question about what I felt was the best option.
“You can’t wake up and throw me out like a piece of rubbish, I deserve some respect, I’m your wife for Christ’s sake!” I screamed.
“Point of correction, you were my wife, Kemi, it was good while it lasted but for now I’m opting out. I’m tired! I repeat, I’m tired of your face around here. What do I have to show for five years of marriage; nothing. No kids, nothing!” he said.
Kids? That was one of the rare times he was expressing his bitterness for me over children. Yes, we have been married for five years. And we had not been lucky to be blessed with kids. And overtime, I had seen the romance grow dim and wane into the utter ‘hatred’, Tony was confessing to me.
Truth, however, is that Tony never really bothered me about it. He just hoarded it in his heart and kept pretending as if all was well, until his behaviour started changing.
After analyzing the situation, I told him Iwas willing to leave on the condition that he would be making monthly payments to me.
“I don’t intend to be seeing you on monthly basis. I will prefer to pay you off. I will give you a lump sum and you go your way,” he said.
“How much do you want to give me?” I said.
“I will pay you one million on naira.
Then 1 will rent you a three-bedroom apartment which I will pay in two or three years: he offered.
“No way!”, I said.
“I want N10 million. I want a house. l need the Benz and the Toyota.”
Let it not seem as if 1 am asking for too much but I knew Tony well. He is rich and I know how much he is worth. I can emphatically say that the amount I was mentioning is chicken
feed to him. So how would I agree to leave a rich husband and go home empty handed?
That would ‘be the greatest stupidity of the century. Since he wanted to make my life miserable, I was also ready to pay him back in his own coin.
The moment he heard my requests, he rose on his feet and walked across to call someone on the land phone.
“She’s not bulging, you better come to handle it. File the papers and move on”, he said and his conversation told me it was his lawyer.
“Kerni, he will get across to you.”
From then on, the negotiations progressed between me and Chief Bankole, Tony’s lawyer. He had tried in the past to reconcile us but when it seemed as if Tony was hell bent on making me leave, he turned and started supporting him.
Of course, we negotiated and at the end,
agreed that Tony would be paying me N80,000 monthly. The agreement also covered a three-bedroom flat and two cars.
Then I was to maintain his name until I remarried.
All these were worked out and in no time, I packed out of Tony’s house. It may seem I was walking out of bondage, but leaving Tony in spite of his aversion to me was not easy. A lot of realities kept confronting me.
Who would marry me when they hear I was driven away by my husband? What about being lonely without the presence of a man in my life? They were all glaring facts waiting to confront me. ,
To Be Continued
