Rukevwe returned to the room and sat gingerly on the opposite sofa from her husband and Alero.
Any onlooker would think Alero the mother and Rukevwe an erring and naughty child caught misbehaving.
Alero coughed,long and noisily. When she was done she removed her large parachute shaped headscarf and balanced it on the seat beside her.
‘How-‘ she started,
‘Sister,’ interrupted Ehis. ‘You no go eat fest? (first)
‘No be hungry carry me come Ehis,’ she retorted, looking at him like he had just done a cartwheel naked. ‘No waste my time. I go chop when I ready.’
Rukevwe looked from Alero to her husband and back at Alero.
She could not understand how any woman would be so controlling that even men like her husband would be reduced to stuttering around her.
‘Rukevwe,’ Alero said turning to her. ‘How many years you and Ehis don marry now?’
‘Four,’ Rukevwe answered, turning her head away in exasperation.
She knew that Alero knew quite well that they’d been married 7 years, after all her own daughter Ese who had been 16 at the time had gone into labour during their wedding reception and had her baby that same night.
It had been a real drama, one which Rukevwe was very happy about.
Alero had been so busy poking her nose in her relationship with Ehis that she had not noticed that her own daughter, who was living under her own roof had been pregnant all along.
‘Why only you one siddon dey laugh?’ Barked Alero.
‘Abi you don shack.’
‘I no shack anything,’ she replied.
She didn’t realise she’d been smiling. The thought of Alero rolling on the floor and crying at the news that her daughter was in fact not having a life threatening condition as she’d suspected but rather that she was having labour pains had brought on the mirth.
Ehis sat fidgeting with his hands.
Something wasn’t right.
He was behaving strangely.
These days he was rather unsure, distracted even.
And a touch more considerate. Why, he’d even swept the bedroom floor yesterday after Efe tripped over a plate of rice.
Ehis.. sweep? Hmmm.
Rukevwe was jolted out of her thoughts by something Alero was saying.
‘Since una marry, na only gehs (girls) you dey born. And you know say na only Ehis our mama born.’
How was that her problem? thought Rukevwe, frowning.
Alero made it sound like an accusation.
Which was better, she reasoned, for her to be childless in 7 years of marriage or for her to have her three lovely daughters?
‘Because of dat na im make Ehis wan marry again.’
‘Ehhhhhhhh,’ shrieked Rukevwe, jumping to her feet.
‘WETIN YOU JUST TALK?’
Ayibu Makolo 