Layers of Happiness (Episode 2)
Ruth picked up her things and left our home on a Sunday, amidst the morning mist that engulfed January.
Layers of Happiness
That Sunday the Harmattan wind removed the family picture on the wall and shattered it on the floor, leaving the broken glass to tell the story of the bitterness that walked with me as I prepared for the Sunday service.
I was in the study room, that Sunday morning, when Ruth brought the medical report. Last Thursday, I had gone for a medical checkup to ascertain the state of my fertility in Ruth’s hospital where she worked as one of the nurses. And we were told that the result would be ready soonest.
Now, with the result in Ruth’s hand, she flung the result at my face and shouted
“You are infertile, you have zero sperm count”
“And I am not going to stay with a man that is a horse in a child’s drawing book,” she shouted even harder to awake our neighbor in the next flat.
“I am leaving you for good! You are a stupid man that calls himself a pastor” she said pointing her finger at my face, almost hitting my eyeballs.
I was dumbfounded. I looked at her face but I didn’t see the Ruth that said yes to my marriage proposal. I didn’t see the butterflies, in different shades of colour, flapping their soft wings as the presiding pastor pronounced us husband and wife.
I saw someone else. I saw a woman who had made up her mind to leave her marriage barely six months into it without a second thought. I saw someone who can’t fight. Or perhaps, someone who doesn’t want to fight.
Or she didn’t even believe in the union from the beginning.
I watched her slam the door of my study room against me and went to the bedroom. But I followed her silently.
She began to pick up her things. She brought out the portmanteau and opened the wardrobe. She put her dresses, her shoes, her box of makeup into the portmanteau and left.
But then, she removed her wedding ring from her finger and threw it at me.
At the door of the living room, she turned back as she opened the door to the world and said
“You are finished, Paul.”
“You are finished,” she repeated it again but now with a grin laughter.
And she left.
… to be continued.
Also Read: Layers of Happiness (Episode 1)
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