After the storm (29 page)

She felt
that he'd had it all easy. But he had also suffered, much more than
she would ever know. He felt as if he had snuffed the life out of
his baby with his bare hands. His own father had given him life and
mentored him, but he had killed his own son. That knowledge was his
private hell, and he carried it with him every day.

Chapter
16

Yemi
ignored her ringing phone for a while before finally fishing it out
of her bag. The caller ID showed that it was Sesan. It was a
Saturday evening, and Aleena was with Akeem. She had not felt like
going home and had decided to stay back in the office to finish up
some work.

"Hello
Shez," she said when she connected the call. "How're you
doing?"

"I'm
good, thanks." Sesan said. "I'm outside your door. Where are
you?"

"So
sorry, but I'm still at the office trying to finish up some
work."

"It's
almost 8 p.m., Yemi." 

"Is it?
Wow, I didn't realise I had been here that long. I should be
finished shortly, though."

They
talked for a few minutes. His mother's birthday was just around the
corner, and he and Teju were planning a party for her. He was not
too happy when he realized that Yemi was not planning to
attend.

"My
schedule's a bit tight at the moment. But I've already picked out a
gift for your mother and will pop by the house to drop it
off."

"You
can't keep hiding from people, you know," Sesan said
gently.

Yemi was
not surprised that he had caught on. "I'm sure people won't want to
see my morose-looking face on that day. That's a real party
dampener any day." 

"Last
time I checked, that face was still as beautiful as ever. I know
you've been through a lot, but maybe a party with familiar faces is
what you need right now."

"There'll be just too many familiar faces, and I don't want
to face their pitying looks."

"Why
would anyone pity you? Some of our mates are not even married
yet."

"Maybe
it would have been better if I hadn't gotten married at all." She
tried hard not to have a victim mentality, but with Sesan, she had
always been able to express her innermost feelings.

"There
is nothing impossible to fix, Yemi. I've told you this before. God
can do all things."

"There
are too many things that need fixing around me. My heart, my broken
trust, and oh, I forgot," she snorted sarcastically, "my
relationship with my in-laws. Not that I want that fixed anyway. I
hate them as much as they hate me."

Her
parents had tried to talk with her and Akeem, and had even
contacted Akeem's mother to see if they could resolve the issues
between them. Akeem's mother told her parents that she had no idea
that Yemi and Akeem were having problems and that she felt
disrespected that Yemi had moved out of Akeem's house without
telling her. Mrs. Kadiri had made no further attempt to contact her
parents since then, and neither did any other member of Akeem's
family.

"There's
nothing impossible for God to fix," Sesan reiterated. "I'm almost
at your office. I've been driving as we've been talking. Can you
pack up your things and start coming down, please?"

"You
didn't have to bother," Yemi protested.

"Start
coming down, please. It's time for you to go home,
anyway."

Yemi
packed up her things and checked to make sure that all the
appliances were switched off before making her way downstairs.
Sesan was pulling into the now-empty car park outside her office
when she got downstairs.

"Hey,
thanks for coming," she said as he got out of his car.

"No
worries." He frowned slightly as he looked around. "This place
looks pretty empty. I'm sure you're the only one left in the
building."

Yemi
glanced back at the building; it really did seem quiet. "Probably,
but that eatery across the road closes quite late, and there are
always people around because of it."

"But
you're the only one left in your building."

"Don't
be such a worrywart!" Yemi teased.

Sesan
was not amused. "If you need to stay behind, you've got to make
sure that there is another member of staff, preferably male,
staying back with you."

"I'll do
so in the future," Yemi said. Sesan looked at her face; he was not
convinced. "Honestly, Sesan, you can take my word for
it."

"Okay
then, let's go." 

Yemi
backed her car out of the parking lot with Sesan driving behind
her. As she drove through the streets, she was amazed at how free
the roads could be at night. These same roads were better avoided
during the day.

Sesan
stayed at her house for a short while before he left. She knew that
he had only come to make sure that she left the office. She
appreciated her friends at this period in her life. It would have
been awful if she had no one to look out for her.

As she
lay in bed later that night, her mind went over the past two and
half months since she had moved out of Akeem's home. Work had been
her solace. It was like a form of therapy. She took all orders, met
crazy deadlines, designed, and worked on catalogs whenever she was
free. She also stayed late at work most evenings and would get home
exhausted. It made the days pass by quicker, and she had less time
to brood.

She had
initially thought that she would feel better once she was out of
close proximity to Akeem, but those feelings had been short lived.
She had begun to struggle with a different kind of emotion that
weighed her down. It had started subtly anytime she saw happily
married couples, but it had gradually become an all-encompassing
feeling. She felt like a failure—someone who could not keep her
home or her man. No matter how much she tried to shake the feeling,
it clung to her until she started trying to isolate herself from
people and also avoided social gatherings.

During
that period, she had also had to deal with Aleena's many tantrums.
Aleena neither liked the fact that she lived away from her dad nor
did she appear willing to adjust. Yemi actually felt that Aleena
would have chosen to stay with Akeem over her if she'd had any say
in the matter.

"Am I
going to have a brother or sister soon, Mummy?" she had asked Yemi
a couple of weeks back as Yemi tucked her into bed at night.
"Everyone's got a little brother or sister."

"Not
everyone, dear."

"Eniola
has a brother and sister," Aleena persisted. "Chloe also has a
brother and a sister," she said, referring to her best friend at
Dartmouth. "I want a little sister. Do you think I'll have one
someday?"

"I don't
know, Aleena. But I'm sure that your daddy will have more children
someday."

"But
don't you want another baby?" Aleena asked as she looked at her
almost accusingly.

Yemi
tried to keep her face expressionless, but Aleena's words were
getting to her. "I'd love to. Someday, I'll explain it all to you,
but you need to go to sleep now, Alee." She stood up and took the
last storybook she had read from the night before out of the
bookshelf. "Which story do you want me to read to you?"

Aleena
had looked at her mutinously. "Any story you like," she said,
pouting and looking away.

Yemi had sighed inwardly. I'm not the bad person here,
Alee,
she thought to herself. Your dad is
the cause of all the problems.

She read
the story and then sat there, looking at her sleeping daughter's
face. She wished she could make her understand her position, but
how could she tell a four-year-old that she refused to stay on with
a man she didn't trust anymore, just so that she could pretend at
marriage?

∞∞∞

"This
can't be correct." Yemi murmured to herself as she stared at her
bank balance online a couple of weeks later. She had made out
cheques for some expenses she had incurred over the past month and
was expecting it to be less. She checked again and saw that Akeem
must have forgotten to stop paying her an allowance. Well, now that
she knew, she was going to alert him. No one was going to accuse
her of scrounging off him.

She
wrote out a cheque to cover the amount he had paid into her bank
account, enclosed a short note telling him what it was for, and
sent it through Kufre to him that Friday when his driver came to
pick Aleena up.

Aleena
still spent her weekends with him, apart from the weekends when he
was out of town. She had thought he would decline having her over
at some weekends, but he stuck faithfully to the routine. Aleena
told her that he took her and Kufre to Nadia's or his mother's
place for a few hours when he had to go out, but he obviously
preferred to do that rather than leave Aleena with Yemi. She felt
he was trying to make sure that she didn't steal his daughter's
affections from him. As if that was even possible; Aleena was her
daddy's girl all the way.

"I'm
going to marry Daddy when I'm a big girl." she had told Yemi
recently. "Then Daddy won't be alone anymore."

Yemi had
refrained from saying anything. She knew that Akeem was dating a
Nollywood actress, so he was definitely not alone. She had seen
pictures of them together in a magazine, and Sara had confirmed the
relationship. The magazine had put a wedding picture of Akeem and
Yemi as an inset and mentioned that their marriage had obviously
hit the rocks, but thankfully there was nothing more on
them.

Not that
she cared about him dating the actress. He could marry her for all
Yemi cared. She was also welcome to his family. A nice package
deal. Maybe she would fare better than Yemi had done.

The next
day, Yemi decided not to go to work. The last two weeks had been
hectic, and she wanted to give her body a break. She groaned when
she woke up at about the same time she normally did. She willed
herself to go back to sleep but gave up about an hour
later.

There
were some designs that had been dancing around in her head, and she
brought out her notepad and began to sketch them down.

Those
designs would look great on Kelly, she thought to herself as she
surveyed them later. She was still Kelly's main designer, even
though Kelly now lived in Abuja after winning the senatorial
elections. Yemi had an arrangement with her and some other clients
to make clothes she thought would suit them. She knew their
preferences on styles, colours, and fabrics, and she rarely had any
of those outfits sent back to her with a complaint.

She
spent the morning leisurely and was in the middle of watching a
comedy on TV when Sesan called and invited her to the beach with
him and Amanda, Teju's daughter. Teju was on a weekend away with
her husband and had left Amanda with Sesan.

"Hmmm, I
won't say no, but let me see if Aleena can come along with us," she
told Sesan.

She
called Akeem. They rarely communicated except for when they needed
to exchange information about Aleena. And even then, they kept it
very brief. He appeared to be just as keen to keep away from her as
much as she was to keep away from him.

His
phone rang for a while before he picked it up. "Yemi?" he said upon
connecting the call.

Yemi got
straight to the point too and told him the reason for the
call.

"I've
got other plans, so I'm afraid that's not possible," Akeem
said.

"Oh, all
right then. I just thought that it would give you a
break."

"Is that
all, or is there something else you wanted?" he asked
abruptly.

Okay, don't bite my neck off. S
he
answered in the negative. He hung up after a curt "Bye
then."

Someone's in a bad mood, she thought to herself. The actress
lady needed to step up her game. He was never this grouchy when
they were together, well, up until she discovered what a cheat he
was.

She had
a good time at the beach with Sesan and Amanda and got home
pleasantly tired.

The next
evening, Kufre handed her an envelope from Akeem when his driver
brought them back. Inside the envelope were the ripped pieces of
the cheque she had sent to him.

∞∞∞

Over the
next couple of months, there was a lull in the amount of orders she
had coming in. She didn't like it. It left her with too much time
on her hands. And it didn't suit her pockets either. Akeem had
rented her office in a highbrow area. She still had some time to go
before the rent ran out, but she needed a steady source of income
if she was going to be able to maintain the place.

She knew
the lull was normal. Even the greats like Sharon Braithwaite had
moments like this, but it made her realise that she had to think of
ways of increasing her clientele base in order to keep such periods
to their barest minimum.

The lull
continued for a while. Business would pick up a little, and fresh
orders would come in, but then it would dip even lower than before.
So she was excited when she got a call from Sharon. She was taking
part in the upcoming Nigerian fashion week and wanted Yemi to help
her with some designs.