I felt like a winner. I felt like I had achieved the most difficult task in the world. A huge surge of excitement rushed through me. A big smile appeared on my face. Then, almost immediately, it disappeared fast. I remembered something MD said but which didn’t quite sink into my head at first. I heard word, secret’. What did he mean by that?
“Secret? Why secret? What do you mean by that, MD?” I asked him, a palpable tone of disappointment in my voice.
“Please, understand me, darling, you must listen to me,” MD began to explain.
“I am listening, please, tell me why you would want to hide me away from your wife and family? Why would you not want them to know I’m your second wife and the mother of your only child? Why?”
MD sighed heavily. He knew he had a lot of explaining to do. My voice was trembling with pain as I talked. I was battling to keep the tears behind my eyes from falling. But they still came running down anyway.
“Listen, Anita, I’m sorry if this is really hurting you, but you must brace up and be willing to open your heart so you can understand me very well. You need to know where I am coming from,” the man began to say things I didn’t think made any sense to me.
“There is no doubt that you mean the world to me, Anita, I won’t deny that…” he began. “You’re young, you’re beautiful, you’re smart, you’re everything a man would want in a woman. And to top it all, you are the mother of my son, Anita…my only child for that matter,” he held my hand and looked deeply into my eyes.
“So, tell me, why would I not want to make you my woman for life? Why would I not want to have you by my side twenty-four-seven? Do you think I like the fact that all of these is happening between us?” He shook his head in response to his own question. “No, my darling, I don’t like it.”
I want us to be constantly together,” he continued. “And it’s not just for us to be together, but for us to be man and wife. Without you asking me, I have also been looking at the appropriate time to make our union legalised. I want to put a ring on your finger so that I can confidently call you my wife. Or do you think that, sometimes I do not have the fear you could wake up one morning and decide you no longer want to be with a much older man like me but with a man much younger? Do you think I don’t have such fears of losing you to a younger man someday if I do not put a ring on your finger?”
“But, look, my sweetheart, there is time for everything. As human beings, we must be able to choose the perfect time for some of the very critical decisions we take in life. The decision to make you my wife officially is one that requires the most perfect timing, otherwise it will backfire and fall flat on our faces!”
I was just staring at him, listening to him. And trying to make sense of all he was saying to me. I was also searching through his face to see if I could see signs, he wasn’t being sincere to me with what he was saying. But I saw nothing. Yet, I was not one hundred percent certain he was speaking to me from the depth of his heart.
“The truth is that, if I do not choose the perfect time and we go to the Registry and it gets to my wife, all hell will be let lose. And this is why I said, it must be a secret between us. For now, until that appropriate time will come when I officially announce you as my second wife to my entire family…. This is the best I can do for now!”
For a moment, I felt like slapping the man hard across the face! I felt like descending on him and make him see reasons why he should never ever think of me as a cheap commodity he acquired and could treat anyhow he chooses. I felt a surge of hot anger rush through me at that very moment, but I controlled myself.
I opened my mouth to speak but I quickly stopped myself in time because I wasn’t sure if the words that would proceed from my mouth would not reveal the red-hot anger boiling inside me. And I was scared I could say something nasty to MD and he won’t like it all.
I am helping both of us, and you especially, by suggesting we keep the wedding a secret for now. If Elizabeth finds out, it will be war, not just for you but for both of us. And trust me, she won’t spare us both!”
I smiled. I nodded slowly and beamed him a wry smile yet again. This man must still be thinking I am still that little native girl that he swept off her feet years ago.
“So, MD, to be kept hidden and relegated to the background in your life and family is your idea of wedding? Is that what you think I deserve? For all that I represent in your life, this is what you think suits me right now, am I correct? No problem.”
The man was out of his wits, he didn’t know what to say to me anymore. “So, when do you now think will be the appropriate time to tell her Majesty your wife, that I have officially become your wife? When is that appropriate time you think you will tell her and she will jump up in excitement and roll out the drums to welcome me into her home? You want to hear the truth, MD, I will tell you…. that moment will never come, it will never happen! Except you do not want to be truthful to yourself!”
MD remained quiet. He obviously was thinking about what I just said. It must’ve made some sense to him. He thought about it long and hard, then he looked up into my face, sighed like a man who has given up on a battle, then he asked me, “So, how do you think you and I can get married and not get into trouble with my wife if we don’t keep it quiet?”
…To Be Continued
