C4 CHAPTER 4

The problem with African tradition, you marry someone, you marry the whole fucking clan. Two days have passed since I left my house and moved in with my mom and I enjoyed the little peace that came with it. There I was not forced to face the world. I could lock myself up in my room and sleep for the better part of the day, wake up just to eat before I lock myself up and cry some more, and then sleep for fifteen more hours.

But then Daniel had decided to invade that little peace I had and gathered the whole of his clan to come and harass me in my mother's house. When my mom woke me up because my "in-laws' had come and wished to talk to me, I was tempted to go into the kitchen and grab a knife so I could chase them away. They all were the reason why I was where I was. The whole Rafiki's as big as it is, failed to raise their child into a real fuckin man. Instead, they raised a deceitful one, and for that, I didn't want anything to do with them. Instead of chasing them away with a knife like a mad woman, I had told my mom I had no in-laws at all and that she should send whoever claims so away.

But then again, the whole Rafiki family proved to be stubborn. Ten hours later they were still in my mother's house, refusing to go away. They seem to have nothing going on in their lives so they go around haunting people's souls. Their dark aura spreading through my mother's house was starting to overshadow me and I needed to get rid of them as soon as I could so I finally got out of my room. I didn't even bother changing into anything decent, I figured my pajamas were just fine.

When I got to my mother's lounge, the whole xxx clan was there. He, his uncles, his aunts, well maybe his grandfather too was there. Thankfully his mother was not there or else I would have really considered that knife idea. Her not being there actually made sense though. No matter how much I tried to build a relationship with her, she never liked me at all. So I figured the only reason she would have come down here, was that she was bringing my belonging that I left in the house I used to share with my husband.

Out of respect for my mother, I greeted my "in-laws" or maybe I should have called them my elders because I was sure that was what they had become the moment I caught their son red-handed and they were going to walk out the door fully aware of that.

***

I did not know it took so long for lawyers to draw up divorce papers. What is so hard about stating that their client wanted out of their marriage because their partner cheated and they were walking away with fifty percent of their properties?

After wasting their time trying to convince me that I was making a bad decision by leaving my husband because of one mistake. They all tried to brainwash me into believing I could go back to my house and be happy again. Trusting him not to wander around and cheat on me again now that he was going to have that child he wanted so badly. When they mentioned how happy other women were in polygamy marriages, I had had it up to my throat and all the respect my mother taught me flew out of the window. I stood up, opened the door for them, and instructed them to leave. Telling them their son will receive the divorce papers in a few days' time. And as soon as they drove their cars out of my mother’s yard, I had my lawyer’s number on the dial, asking him to hook me up with a good divorce. Luckily the person he directed me to, was a good friend of his and he had managed to talk him into squeezing me into his very busy schedule and I got my appointment sooner than I would have.

It took him a whole fucking week to draw up the papers. Once the papers were done, I had served them to my soon-to-be ex-husband through his personal email. In the days that followed, I had tapped my feet impatiently waiting for his response but I got none. Instead of a reply to my inbox, I woke up to quite a number of messages from my friend Sally. They all were links to those online gossip magazines. The social circle I have been involved in for the past few years has made me familiarize them. I clicked on one of the links and it lead me to an article which read

‘Popular fashion designer in a nasty divorce,’ and there was a picture of me and Daniel at last year's fashion show red carpet.

I quickly exited and clicked on another and it had the same news, just different headlines and I swore that I surely was going to chop his head off. He even entertained one of them and told them. ‘I married her when she was young so I guess right now she has grown up and now has a different view on life and I am not really the person she wants to spend her whole life with,’ that is what he had said when he asked why we were divorcing.

He could entertain stupid gossip magazines but won’t respond to my email? I was so mad at him and his stupid game was driving me up the wall.

I had contacted my lawyer asking him if there is anything I could do about it and he told me that according to the law my husband had up to sixty days to respond before I could do anything. That made me scream out loud and tug on my hair.

‘However, you can force him to respond to the petition sooner rather than later,’ my lawyer informed me and that totally got my attention.

‘How so?’ I asked, sounding way too eager even for myself.

‘Your husband cheating on you is actually considered a breach of contract, and you can actually sue him for that and the other party, for intentionally interfering in your marital relationship,’

‘Okay,’ I said, not sure where he was heading to.

‘You actually have the right to ask the jury for them to pay damages based on loss of consortium, humiliation, mental anguish, the list goes on especially now that he had made the issue public and I surely can make the amount a hefty one,’

‘Well, I am not interested in the money, I surely will have enough from the share I intend to get once the divorce is finalized. What I want from him is a divorce!’

‘I am not saying you should sue them. What I am saying is you need to let him know that you know you can sue them and the damages will be hefty but you will choose not to, if only he doesn’t contest the divorce, because he is likely going to and that he responds to your request as soon as possible,’

‘You mean I should blackmail him?’

‘You are just letting him know the power you have on this issue,’

If playing dirty was what it was going to take for me to get that divorce, I surely was going to do it and I was not going to be sorry about it.