The Wife ESCAPED!

For the first time in her life, Caro woke up at daylight. She was aroused from her peaceful sleep by the heat of the sun rays on her face. At first, she was startled to find herself on a comfortable bed in a beautiful room, but the events of the previous day soon came into her remembrance. But when her eyes drifted to the clock overhead, she gasped in disbelief. It was 8am!

Quickly pulling aside the covers, she jumped off the bed and found her slippers – the new ones she had met in the room. Then she hurriedly padded off to the sitting room.

“Hi sleepyhead, how was your night?”, Trisha greeted, not taking her eyes from her laptop as Caro almost tiptoed into the room.

“Umm… f… fine. Thank you.”

“Sorry we had breakfast without you. Couldn’t wait.”

Caro did not know what exactly to say in reply, so she quietly shifted from one foot to the other, awaiting her orders for the morning.

“Everything okay?”, Trisha asked, now eyeing her curiously. “Something you wanna say?”

“Em… yes. My work. Which work will I do?”

“Excuse me, ‘which work’ in what sense?”

“As in, the work I’ll do in the house like cleaning or washing or…”

“Hey Carol, look here. I didn’t bring you home to be my cleaner or a washerwoman. If there’s anything to be cleaned or washed, Rennie or the boys will do it whenever they can, okay?”

Caro nodded. “So… what will I… be doing?”

Trisha dropped the computer on the table and sighed. Caro’s heart immediately skipped a beat, thinking she was about to be scolded.

“You don’t have any family left and nowhere to go, right?”

Caro nodded.

“Okay. Now, like I said before, we’re friends and you can live here as long as you can and wish. This is my house and no one else has any claim over it. So… what would you want to ‘be doing’?”

“Emm…”, Caro hesitated, scratching her head nervously. The first think that came to her mind was to go back to school, but like Trisha had said the previous day, she was not her mother.

“Sell something or… or learn a trade.”

“What trade would you like to learn? Don’t you wanna go back to school? Or are you done with school?”

“No. I’ve not written my junior WAEC.”

“Wow. A smart woman like you is still not done with junior secondary school at this age? You must have started school pretty late.”

Caro simply nodded, not trusting her lips not to betray her by spouting the truth.

“Hmm,” her host sighed. “So, we’ll need to make sure you get into school in time for the next exams. My worry is that you may not have enough time to adapt and then prepare for the exams…”

“Ah. No o, ma. I… I mean, Trisha. I don’t need to go back to school. If I can borrow some textbooks from someone, I will be able to refresh my memory before the exams will begin.”

Trisha shook her head in disapproval.

“No, no, I don’t think private tutors can do better than schools. I…”

“No o. I don’t need a private tutor, I can do it by myself. I was First in my class in both the 1st and 2nd term exams,” she said with a touch of pride. And then added as an afterthought, “I know almost everything inside all the textbooks.”

“Okay then. Seems you’re way out of my league. So I’ll give you one week, just one week, to refresh your memory on a math topic of my choice and then I’ll get someone to check how well your memory’s been refreshed. How ’bout that?”

Caro beamed and nodded happily.

“Great. I’ll get you those textbooks tomorrow max and you can start work immediately on Math alone, for now.”

Caro nodded again. “Thank you, ma. God will b… I mean, Trisha.”

The woman shook her head in exasperation and simply waved her off.

Crossing herself in the Catholic manner, Caro exhaled through her lips and rushed up the stairs to her little paradise of a room to get her teeth and body properly scrubbed. She certainly would try the tub this time!

***

Caro stalked into the enormous kitchen feeling fulfilled and content. Her first bath in a tub and Trisha’s concern for her education was making her feel on top of the world.

She calmly surveyed the large kitchen with the air of a builder who had come to see how his creation was serving its users. A sudden chink arrested her attention and she looked in the direction where the sound came from only to see Rennie washing plates in a sink. She had not imagined that a human was present before now; that was how large the place was.

“Good Morning, Rennie,” she hailed as she walked toward her.

“Oh. Good Morning – ”

“Caro.”

“Good Morning, Carol. How was your night?”

“Ca… ro,” Caro corrected.

“Carol,” Rennie asserted.

“I said, Caro.”

“And I said, Carol.”

“Come, are you the owner of my name? It’s my name and I’m telling you how to call it a…”

“Is that what Madam Trisha calls you?”

“Are you Madam Trisha?”, Caro shot back.

“Anytime Madam starts to call you Karoh or whatever you call yourself, then I’ll call you the same thing.”

“If you call me Carole again, you’ll be surprised the kind of name I’ll give you. Do I look like Christmas carol?”

“What are you doing?”, the girl asked in surprise as Caro joined her and started washing the cutlery in the sink. Caro did not reply, but rather kept on washing with expert hands. “Please leave here. This is not your work. I’m being paid to do this work.”

“How much are you being paid?”

“It’s not your business. Just go.”

But Caro continued what she was doing.

“I said go na. What is your problem sef, this girl?”

“What is your own problem? Are you the only one that’s being paid to do work?”

“How much are you being paid?”

“You, how much are you being paid?”, Caro retorted.

“Come, I will push you o,” Rennie threatened in frustration.

“Push me na. I will break this plate on your head just now.”

“What’s going on here?”

Like flash, Caro darted away from the sink and hid her wet hands behind her as Trisha walked in.

“What’s all the noise about?”, Trisha asked again as she opened the fridge and began rummaging around.

“It…,” Rennie was about to say, but Caro slyly kicked her and immediately took over the talking.

“Nothing, M… we… we were just discussing.”

“With raised voices? Have you had your breakfast yet, Carol?”, Trisha asked as she closed the fridge having extracted a pack of juice from it.

“No, M – ”

“You better go eat now. It’s late morning already.”

“Okay. T… thank you,” Caro said as the woman walked out with the juice and a glass.

When she was gone, Caro turned to Rennie and fixed her with her fiercest scowl. The girl scowled back until Caro got tired and headed for the door.

“Mfffeeew,” they both hissed almost at the same time.