When You Wish He Lied

It was in barely dawn and the atmosphere was just becoming less hazy due to the midnight rainstorm that made a loud and flashy impression on that dark night early august, just two years after a major flood that claimed the lives of several dozens in the ancient city of Ibadan. The chiming of the phone beside Banji woke him up, just in time to hear the cockcrow, a sign that day break was a moment way. The chiming stopped and he was about to doze off again when it interrupted his swift transition back to dreamland.

“Hello, huh? Where? Alright, I will be right there” he responded reluctantly. 

“Babe” he turned to the other side of the bed, speaking to his wife Sarah, she responded so he continued,

“They called, I have to attended to this one urgently”

“But I thought we had an agreement”

“Yes, I know but they called and when they do...”

She interrupted him before he could finish

“You have to leave, I get. Just be safe ok?”

“I will”

The sun was fully out at around 9am, and Sarah was making breakfast in anticipation of her husband’s arrival. Calls like that weren’t supposed to keep him all day at the work. He was a senior engineer in a major multinational company and he was responsible for the oversight of several installations of the company in the city. In the early hours of that day, an installation was experiencing a setback caused by the heavy downpour during the night, he was alerted as to the situation at the facility. Sarah was expecting to hear from him so she waited until her patience candle burned out. 

She tried calling his number several times but it wasn’t reachable so she gave up. “Apparently work got the best of him, he will come and meet me here. We had an agreement about work this weekend” she thought, already getting exasperated. She soon settled into other forms of occupation and not long, it was nearing dusk and there was still no word from her husband. She became more agitated as he still wasn’t reachable and most of his coworkers weren’t either. Her phone began to ring, on the other end was her friend uche.

“Babes, wassup? Are you at home?"

“yes”

“Is Banji at home with you?”

“No, he stepped out earlier today”

 she responded, her voice a bit shaky 

“Hope it’s not work again?”

“Girl, why all these questions, what happened”

“babe, is he at work?”

“yes, I guess”

Immediately she responded, Uche dropped the call. She tried calling back but she didn’t pick up. A few minutes later, she heard a knock on the door, her legs got her to the door, faster than a thunderbolt. She opened the door without asking who.

Uche barged in looking so rough and shabby. She lived not quite far away from the estate where Sarah and her husband lived, and they were very close family friends. 

“Babe, I wanted us to have this conversation face to face that’s why I decided to drive down here in such a hurry” Uche said

“Alright, what is it? You scared the monkey out of me, you still are” Sarah responded, trying to remain calm.

“Okay, let me explain. I got a call from the company about forty-five minutes ago that there was a collapse in one of their installations and they can’t seem to ascertain the level of damage caused so they were contacting most of their staffs that could have been called in that morning”

“Alright, what now happened?” Sarah, now losing her patience

“Let me continue, I guess they couldn’t reach Henry so they called me. I tried his number a couple of times before it went through. He told me he was called from that installation that morning and he left around 9am but they said the installation collapsed around 7am. Based on the cheating history my husband has, I figured he was at it again so I called like I was checking on him and that lying bastard told me he was at work, at that installation. The dog has been with his side chic all day, he had no idea what was going on. For a second, I was happy he wasn’t there but then arrghh… ”

She observed that Sarah was looking confused and worried, so she couldn’t help be ask.

“Don’t tell me Banji is at that plant”

“He has been out since before daybreak, I can’t reach him!” Sarah responded now about shedding tears.

“OMG! That doesn’t sound right, but are sure it’s the same plant?” Uche, in shock

“Errm, I don’t know, like I don’t know anything right now, he was beside me this morning and he was gone”

“Jezz, I wanted to come and report henry to your husband that’s why I was asking about him on the phone. I thought you guys were taking the weekend off work”

“Yes we were but he said this one was urgent, he was supposed to just go and come back before I even bling. Oh! God, I’m I not done for?” she began wipe uncontrollably. 

Uche tried to calm her down, she had a heavy heart herself due to her husband infidelity but it was nothing to be compared to the pain Sarah was going through. 

                ****

          (Three months ago)

“Banji, are you sure I am your mother? You have basically ignored everything I told you to do."

“Mama! Aren’t you the only one that can answer that question?” he responded with a little bit of sarcasm in his tone.

“ori e baje” she responded, with a tone void of rage. 

“Mum, I got this, I will send the money and I will come and check the house okay?”

“o daa o, I have heard you, my regards to that man you are leaving with” she said with a scornful gesture.

“Mama! Sarah, is her name, she is my wife and she is a woman in all capacity” he responded 

“Sorry o, Oko iyawo. What do you call a woman who has been married for three years with no child ehn?” she paused then continued 

“Ako aya niyen na, a male wife shor. I knew it, when you saw beautiful and well-endowed Yoruba girls there, awon omo ilewa, you went all the way to ile igbo, to bring a barren hen” she hissed, look him in the eye and said;

“There goes another valid point that you never listen to me your mother” 

This was one of the numerous discussions about Sarah that Banji’s mum had engaged him about her childlessness. He always defended her because attacks from his mom were always targeted at her womanhood. Most times just like this scenario, Sarah would be in the house when mama visits, but the couple always made it look like she was away because on countless occasions, things had gotten nasty when mama meets Sarah face to face so she hides in the room throughout the duration of the visit. After she left that faithful day Banji on getting into the room met Sarah in tears.

“Babe, you know all those things she said aren’t true” 

“Maybe, she doesn’t know why we don’t have children yet but that doesn’t exempt me from the hatred she has for me” she responded

“Well once all is set, we can start making babes, we will take a weekend off from any form of commitment, you will go off the pills and it will just be me and you going on and on… one of those matches will definitely result in a beautiful baby boy”

He paused kissed her on her forehead, wiped her tears away then he continued.

“Can we do that babe?” he asked. She nodded in affirmation with a blush.

 Then he said;

“So when that happens, you will be rest assured that we will all smile, just three months more, I need to plan well for my unborn children before I start planting the seeds”

The both laugh and kissed after wards.

                 ****

“Uche, this weekend was supposed to be special, it was supposed to be like a honeymoon, we had it all calculated. Why is this happening now, I don’t know what has happened to my Bamiji”

She kept crying, while pacing around the living room. Uche was trying to comfort her but she was failing at it. They have been friends since their third year in the university and somehow they got married to two friends so it was an automatic case of family friendship and not only that, their husbands worked in the same company. Never have they thought since the inception of their friendship that such a day as this will come, when one will have a cheating husband and another, an apparently faithful on whose whereabouts’ is unknown. Sarah could almost wish her husband was like Henry, probably with his mistress and not laying lifeless under the rumbles of a collapsed plant. 

The time was now 7pm and there was still no sign of her husband, the company had now made contact with her but they couldn’t say for sure if he was in the plant as at the time of the collapse. 

The news was now everywhere and the number and identities of the causalities weren’t known, but all throughout that day, another news was ignored, there was a flood in some parts of the city and some things were destroyed. Sarah, couldn’t get herself to face the reality that her husband was no more so she never left the house until she was sure he was part of the victims of the plant’s collapse.  

Uche left the house after a while leaving her to herself and hopes that Banji will be safe. She sat on the floor of the living room staring at the door hoping that she will hear him knock at the door and walk right through it. There were a lot she wanted to tell him, atimes she will hallucinate, munching words like she was with someone, seeing things that weren’t there. This continued until she snapped out of it by the aid of the doorbell.  

At first excitement was about building up inside her but then she remembered that only a visitor will use the doorbell, Banji never uses it when he is at the door. Still curious as to who was at the door at that time of the night she reluctantly walked to the door and asked;

“Who is it?”

“Is this Akinbade’s residence? We are from the Nigerian police fore”

She could barely keep herself together, in her mind, all forms of red lights went off, she felt her worst fear had eventually happened, maybe they found his body, and maybe they have come to tell her that he didn’t make it. She tried to calm herself down and opened the door. 

Two young men walked in, one dressed in mufti while the other was on uniform. 

“Hello ma, my name is john, we believe you are the wife of one mister Oyebamiji Akinbade right” said the man in mufti

She nodded in affirmation, with paled eyes and an extremely inquisitive countenance. 

“Alright, in the early hours of today an incidence occurred. A bridge around Jerico area collapsed due to the rain last night that destroyed a lot of properties. Although we all thought no major incident happened at that bridge but then we found a Toyota carmry with this plate number somewhere down the meandering water. The car apparently crashed into the gap the collapsed bridge created, we believe that is your husband’s car?”

“O my God!” she exclaimed now in tears again. 

“please calm down madam, we found him in the vehicle, unconscious, he must have driven so fast that he didn’t see the bridge and went right into it” he pause and continued.

“Your husband has been taken to the University Teaching Hospital. We have been trying to contact his next of kin but all we had was this address in the vehicle’s documentation and his own phone number which of course is useless”

A little spark of joy lighted her face because of the news, at least he never made it to the plant but he was in another unpalatable situation. She quickly asked to be taken to where he is and they left the house in a hurry.

Banji was in the ICU of the hospital and had suffered a minor head injury due to the impact of the crash, the water below the bridge wasn’t deep so he was lucky not to have drowned before being discovered. He was out of coma the following day and they spent another week at the hospital with family and friend visiting. 

Sarah’s retrospect on her thought made her realized how desperate she was during those hours of uncertainty, she had a friend whose husband was cheating and lied about going to work when in actual fact, he was with his mistress but luckily, he was exempted from being a causality of the tragic incidence at the plant. She hoped somehow that Banji was with another woman and lied this once about going to work, at least he will be safe. Every worker in that installation that day either died or was severely injured. It’s funny how love can be, in that desperate moment, when you wish he lied.

  The end!