Must Read: Taking Chances

Episode 7 years ago

Must Read: Taking Chances

The atmosphere was still cooking with a kind of angry heat, when mama,
Daisy and Jumoke walked in. As Jide had noted, Daisy was wearing her share of the family uniform, though her hers fitted her perfectly and highlighted her curves. The clock showed the time to be 9:10. Yet Noone
in the parlor was making a move.
The entrants quietly went to seat on different settee in the parlor,
they too didn’t know what to say or do. As they sat, each to his
thought, Jide looked different, he hadn’t taken his bath neither was he on the uniformed attire.
Daisy had noticed a sort of glint in Jide eyes, in the split second he
had paid them a cursory look when they came in, his eyes had lingered on her for more than required, and that her unsettled her a bit. Later, on
her seat she translated it to mean admiration or at worse, a figment of her hazy imaginations. She wasn’t sure, ‘Must still be the juice’ she thought.

Noone said anything for the next few minutes and the silence was
deafening, everybody was tired of the mulish Jide, His was a case of
taking a horse to the stream and then leaving the drinking part totally to the exigencies of the horse for Jide still didn’t show concern one
bit as his gaze fixed on the Tele.

Mama spoke now, she was visibly angry. If everyone kept their peace, Jide would end up having his way and today would be a total waste,
Though Jumoke had called one of her usher friend at the church to shift
their thanksgiving to the second service, the service was already
30 minutes underway! What kind of defiance was jide putting up? she thought fighting hard to contain her anger.
‘Jide’ she started ‘please for the sake of Abike…’ Abike was his
deceased mum ‘…and for the sake of the love and respect you ever had
for me and your dad, wole ko lo we, jó omo mi, jó … am begging!’
(enter go and bath please, my child pls) mama said with the softest
voice she could mutter, ‘cos inside she was burning hot. It was very
obvious that Jide wouldn’t respond to force, best to try the pleading way.
‘Don’t bring mum into this issue’ came jide’s curt reply few minutes
later, as if he had been contemplating.
Everyone kept mute, even mama. And after what seemed like ages, Jide switched off the television, stood up, hissed and muttered something, before storming out of the parlour.
Silence still.
Some minutes later, Jide resurfaced, he’d taken his bath and was wearing
a black shirt on a jean trouser, he was also putting on a black speck,



every eyes turned on him but he said nothing to his family, he just went past them outside.
An impatient horn from Jide outside jolted them from their inertia, they quietly stood up and walked out, noone uttered a word. On the chair sat
the bag containing Jide’s Ankara cloth, it would obviously rot there
forever, Daisy thought rather amused, this husband of hers was
definitely a character.

********

Minutes later, they arrived at the headquarters of Love Word Assembly
situated in Ikeja, mama had insisted on riding in Jide’s car, even
though he disagreed. Mama had said she could not take any chance with
him, if not he would do something st.u.pid like dropping Daisy along the
road and zooming off elsewhere, after much persuasion accompanied with
another family drama in the compound, Jide grudgingly accepted.

Their thanksgiving kicked off not long after they arrived for they came
in quite late but in the nick of time. The family had hardly settled
down when the Olukoyas family was announced to come for their wedding
thanksgiving. Mama immediately got busy, soon, relatives and family were
dancing to the altar with huge tubers of Yam, mama could not contain
her joy, she danced from one corner to the other shaking her behind, she
would dance front and dance back even to the amusement of the
congregation.

Jide felt so sill.y in the midst of his uniformed family, it turned out
to be that some of their relative were also wearing the same Ankara
material, he was angry, irritated and mortified, if not for the presence
of a large congregation, he would have simply left. Mama’s dancing was
irritating him the more, she was dancing like she was the one who had
wedded not him, Daisy on her part was all smiles and was shaking her
body lightly to the praises being sang by the choir, not only her but
all his family, his sister, father, brother, the relatives and well
wishers from the church, he wondered if there was another reason this
people were happy about if not the obvious? He just couldn’t wait to be
out of these clowns known as his family.


Daisy on her part was having a good time, she had atfirst felt silly about the uniformed clothes everyone was wearing, soon she got used to it, even loved it, ‘another reason to love the yorubas’ she thought. She noticed her aunty and waved, her aunty waved back, she was part of the entourage of thanks givers, Daisy felt welcomed and at home in the midst of them all.