A few days later, Dr. Sam’s dad is back home and his female friend, Sandra, is back in the country. She’d cut short her stay in Dubai because she was worried that some girl had taken over her man, so she said. Dr. Sam refused to pick her up from the airport on the day she arrived. She didn’t give him any notice of her returning. She just called early on Thursday morning with her Nigerian phone line.
Dr. Sam thought she had been back before then only for her to tell him to come pick her up at the airport. “We just arrived. I’m sure you’d get here before I’m through with the arrival formalities,” she said. Dr. Sam’s eyes darted to the bedside clock -a few minutes before 5am! “What did you just say,” he asked, incredulous. “We just arrived in Nigeria. Could you pick me up? You will have to start coming immediately so you can get here on time. I’m so tired…I so want to rest!” she said.
Dr. Sam could hear the tiredness in her voice. “Did you inform me that you’d be returning today? We spoke yesterday afternoon and you didn’t sound like you had plans of coming back. You think I’m a cabbie? Well, for your information, this cabbie ain’t going anywhere at this time of the day,” he told her with a yawn and cut the line. She called again and again and he muted the phone. It’s high time he stopped being pushed around by Sandra. They have to reappraise their relationship.
He turned on his side, yawned and was asleep before he knew it. He was surprised he could sleep. Normally, he felt so bad each time Sandra was upset even if he wasn’t the cause. Not anymore. About three hours later, he was woken up by the insistent ringing of his phone. Sandra! Groggily, he had picked it. “I’m in your house and I was told you’re still in bed,” she spat. “And when has it become a crime for a man to rest his bones?
Moreover, you know the way to my room,” Dr. Sam said, surprised at himself. “Now I know that you’ve been monkeying with some dirty street girls and allowing them to pick your calls. I ain’t coming to your room,” she said angrily. “Well, I guess monkeying with smelly street girls makes me dirty also.
Means that you’ve been monkeying with a filthy street man and that makes you smelly also,” he said. Gosh! Where did he learn this? He wondered. “Your language is uncouth. Not the language of a gentleman! I can’t have anything to do with an uncouth man,” she said haughtily. “Wow! That’s interesting. You can go back to your good home and let me have my peace of mind!” Dr. Sam said. “No honey. I didn’t mean that. It’s just that I was angry when a common girl responded to my greetings when I called you. I’m a jealous lover, you know that. I…I…you know I love you so much. I don’t want anybody to come between us,” she had stammered. “And you expect me to believe that?
You left for a friend’s wedding in Dubai, against my wish. You even quarreled with me because I refused to go with you and you spent almost three weeks there. For a wedding that held for a few hours in a day? You called me a fool because if you didn’t, you would have known that no man would allow his woman to be gone for three weeks for someone’s wedding. Did the couple not travel to the Bahamas for their honeymoon, five days after their wedding? So who were you in Dubai with? Or you were washing up after them? Give me a little brain woman!”
Dr. Sam had said and cut the line. Of course, she had come to his room and cried out her eyes but he remained adamant. That was three days ago. Right now, he’s confused. He doesn’t even know why he’s so angry with Sandra.
On a good day, she’s an angel but those rare days don’t last. Her mood swings per minute. She’s all loving one minute, the next, she’s unleashing the dragon. She’d cried to all their mutual friends and they have tried talking him out of his stance. The pressure is so much, especially as they all know that he’s bent on getting married in December. August has just ended! Is this the right time to start thinking of looking for a new woman? Kim! He smiles…but Kim belongs to another man…a man who, in less than three weeks, has morphed from a total stranger to a friend and now…almost a brother! To make matters worse, his dad has taken to Sam like a fish takes to water.
Again, he knows he loves Kim but that love is not sexual…however, he wants to stay close to her. There’s this joy that envelops him whenever they are together. He recalls his discussion with Sam the day his father was discharged from the hospital. Dad had requested to see Sam and he came alone, after work. The three men had talked about life, family, dreams et cetera. Dad was in high spirits that day. It was obvious he enjoyed Sam’s company. At a point, he had declared, “You know what, boys?
I feel I’m the father of twins. You should have been twins. I wonder why you’re both named Samson. If I wasn’t there in the hospital, I could have swore your mother had twins and one was stolen, but I was there. “I ran in immediately I heard you cry that day. I was so scared then because she was so young. I was also very young then. Your mother actually named you Samson. I named you Valentine because you’re a child conceived in love. A love that was so blinding that I took it forcefully when she wasn’t ready. She didn’t want that name at first because she never believed it was love that made me do it.
“She wouldn’t talk to me for a long time… until she realised she was pregnant. That was when she came back to me. It was a rude shock to me because I never expected it.” The two young men looked at each other. Dr. Sam has heard that story a number of times.
His father always repeated it. He continued,” I was a youth corp member then. But I knew the pregnancy was my handiwork. She was a well brought up girl from a good home. I knew what I went through to get her to my room the day it happened. “I was ready to take responsibility but my parents would hear nothing of such. They told me in clear terms that they had a girl waiting for me. They had concluded arrangements with the girl’s family. Of course, I had met the girl but she never appealed to me.
“Then one evening, Val’s mother came to my apartment with a little bag. Her parents found out and drove her out of the house, she said. She cried throughout that night. I was in a fix. There was no way she could stay in my house. People would see her and since she never disclosed the identity of the man to her parents, it would be best to move her out immediately. “I promised her I’d marry her. I told her I’d take her to the city and get her a temporary accommodation till I sorted out myself. It was a few weeks to my passing out.
In the early hours of the next morning, I told her that since I made her pregnant, I had to continue making love to her. She refused and I told her that was the only way she’d convince me no other man had gone in there since I took her virginity.
The fight left her. She allowed me and for the first time in my life then, I made real love and enjoyed it so much. I couldn’t remember the number of times I went in to her that day. I called in sick that day in the school where I was teaching and went back home to be with her. After about a week of cooping in my house, it was no longer safe. I was scared my corp member friends would come to the house and see her.
The story was out then that she left home. I had rented an apartment in the city and one night, on the sixth day after she left home, I reluctantly took her to the city. “My parents didn’t accept her. I continued to care for her until she had my fine son here (he smiled). When my parents learnt she had a boy, they asked me to accept the baby and pay off the mother. They gave me a huge sum of money for that purpose.
I took the money, kept it for her and sent his mother back to school. I told my parents that she said she would release the baby when he was ‘old’ enough. She came at intervals with the baby to see my parents. We hoped it would change their mind. They knew where they lived but never visited.
“Then, one day, more than four years later, she became pregnant again. My parents demanded to see their grandson but she couldn’t take him to see them because she was very heavy. We didn’t know how to break the news of the second pregnancy to them.
“At a point, I had to go pick Val from his mother to see his grandparents. He was to stay for one week. That was the first time he was visiting alone and sleeping over. It was a bad decision, we found out too late.
We didn’t know that a four-year old could communicate very well. Two days later, my mum told me she was travelling to see her elder sister. She came back two days later. I didn’t know she had gone to the city where Val’s mother lived with some people and harassed the poor pregnant soul. I got to know that later because…I lost her…I lost her.” Dr. Sam’s father’s eyes were fixed on a spot as he relieved that past. The two Sams stared at the old man. Such a burden he had borne for so long…
*********
His story is so touching! The first cut is the deepest, they say. No wonder he is yet to get over it more than 35 years later. But where does all this leave the two Sams and Kim?
The story continues on Sunday!
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