The Wrong Woman

Happy December People! It snowed yesterday. I have this love-hate relationship with snow. Can it come without the cold please?

Anyway, it has been an amazing year and God has been God-perfect. Stuff happens to us, a lot of stuff that the world tells us is just wrong and we agree. The truth of the matter is wrong is only wrong if we let it be wrong (Aristotle in the house yo!). Today, choose to right those wrongs, choose to see things the way your Heavenly Father does -

'And we know that in all things (wrong or right), God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.' Romans 8:28

Enjoy the story folks


He knew she was the wrong woman by the third day of their marriage.

The realization didn't really come to him as a shock. It was more of a dawning; like how you know the sun is going to rise so you are not even the least bit shocked when sunlight nibbles at your neck.

For someone like him who loved numbers and who saw percentages and probabilities in every scenario, he had considered this possibility many times. There were millions of women in the world after all; a couple hundreds of thousands of marriageable age in his vicinity of Lagos. What were the chances that he would get lucky and marry the right one out of all those numbers? Mighty slim! And the probability that he would make an error? A resounding 99%! He had done the calculations many times, you see, so he knew exactly what the numbers were.

It was the third day of their marriage and the second day of their honeymoon. She was swimming in the pool while he read an article in the Wall Street Journal. So what if he was on honeymoon? That didn't mean the world had ended or that he didn't have stocks to think about. Aisha had given him hell when he put the newspaper in their beach bag as they started out in the morning.

'We are supposed to be honeymooning not working,' she had said rolling those huge eyes of hers. 

He was glad now that he had ignored her. He found the pool boring. He was on the Investing page when he heard his wife laugh. He glanced away from the paper for a second to see what was causing her amusement and it was at that very moment that he knew for sure just how wrong he had been about his choice of life partner.

 

She was talking to an old couple she had only just met and they were all already acting like firm friends. Anyone else would look at the scene unfolding before him and be enamored by the beautiful woman who could put an old couple at ease so quickly in this place where only the young seemed  welcome. Anyone else would consider themselves lucky to have her in their life. Anyone else would think her the perfect choice to spend the rest of their life with.

 

But he wasn’t anyone. He was Nefe and all he could see was a woman who was nothing like him; a woman who snored like 3 pigs at once and kept him up at night, a woman who warmed up to people easily while he preferred to stay in the background, a woman who didn't know the first thing about bonds or stocks and fell asleep when he talked about his favorite subject, a woman who was definitely not the woman of his dreams but had pushed her way into his reality. 

It was a mistake of gigantic proportions.

She was bringing the old couple to meet him and Nefe swore under his breath.

‘Suck it up,’ his head told him. ‘This is you for the rest of your life - schmoozing with the old and senile!’

His heart laughed at him as he shook hands with the old couple and heard himself invite them for dinner at their rental home later that night.

 As they ate, he thought about how the situation could have been far worse. For one, he could have married a woman who didn't know how to cook, Nefe pondered as he listened to the old couple talk about their grandchildren.

'So how many children do you both want?' The old lady asked them. Her name was Anne.

'Nefe wants one but I want a full house so we might settle at ten,' Aisha said.

Everyone else laughed while Nefe's head whispered childcare costs to him.

He waited until the couple left before going for a walk himself. Aisha didn't even ask why he was going on a walk without her. The other women he had dated would have insisted on coming along for the walk. But not Aisha. She was just wrong on so many levels.

He walked to the beach and found somewhere he could sit and watch the stars away from everyone else.

The truth was that she was as wrong for him as much as he was for her. He wondered if she had come to this realization as well and if she had, whether she would consider leaving him? His heart missed a beat as the thought came unbidden.

He walked back to the rental a lot heavier and weighed down by much more than beach sand.

She was reading a book in bed when he walked in.

'Hi Baby' she said, her eyes never leaving her book.

'What is the probability that you married the wrong man?' He asked as he leaned on the dresser.

'99%.' She answered without missing a beat or looking away from her book. 

'I don't want ten children.'

'I do – I can do three myself and we will adopt the other seven,' She replied, still on her book.

‘Where is my Wall Street Journal?’

‘Where it belongs –in the dustbin. You can play stocks when we get to Lagos,’ She answered as she turned a page. 

'You really shouldn't be so friendly with strangers. They could have been serial killers.'

'They are the same age as your grandparents.' She placed the book by the lamp and yawned.

'Dinner was delicious. You cook well.'

'I ordered takeout Oga! Abi since when do I cook Chinese food?' 

'I hate you, you know right?'

'The feeling is mutual. Come to bed, you weirdo!'

He started to laugh as did she.

There are very few things in life to which there are no wrongs and only rights; foremost amongst them is love. This was a truth that they both knew.

By the third day of their marriage, he knew he had married the wrong woman but from day one, it didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was love – that he chose to love her despite everything and that she chose to love him too. It would be the only thing that would matter till the curtain call of their lives.

 

 Song of the day : Emeli Sande - Clown