Continuing from where I stopped

He said, “young girl I don’t really know you that much because I am just a driver here but do you know the history of this family?”

I immediately asked him to slow the speed so that we can talk. That Thursday I didn’t attend my classes as usual, since the driver was a good person and agreed to tell me the situation in that home.

“I don’t know you and you don’t know me either but I have been working in that family for a very long time. That man is not the first husband of your mother because her first husband died. They loved each other very much but he died before they could have a child together. But your mother had been impregnated by another man before”

I asked the driver to give me the whole information in detail begging because I wanted to live in a family that I knew very well and he agreed.

He started “this woman you call your mom was married to a man called Jean Claude Mutabazi, they lived happily and so in love but he died without giving her a child, no one imagined that your mother will ever remarry.”

He went on to say “this man they live together now was her friend before because I worked for him before I came here, he got me from the village when I was a small boy so I know him well.”

This is how it started “four months after your mother got married to her first husband, he was called for a UN mission in IRAN for a year and a half, of course, it was good money so they were happy for the opportunity. It didn’t take long because the man took his flight but meanwhile, this man they live together now, worked with your mother and she didn’t know how to drive so your father asked me to be driving her to and from work, that’s when I started sensing that there was something going on."

"My dear this family is complicated," he said, "they started visiting each other and later they fell in love, in addition to that they worked together as for me I worked for the man and acted as a driver as well. The husband was to come home after a year and a half."

"These two kept seeing each other until your mom got pregnant but a few days before her delivery date, she heard that her husband was coming back, I even heard her speaking with him on phone telling her that he was about to come back. The wife came up with a lie that she was going for work in DRC (Goma), the husband was okay with it since she told him that she won’t go for long. After a few days your mother left, leaving this man they lived together and came back after 3 months with no baby but I heard people saying that her baby died before birth.”

"My dear this family is complicated," he said, "they started visiting each other and later they fell in love, in addition to that they worked together as for me I worked for the man and acted as a driver as well. The husband was to come home after a year and a half."

"These two kept seeing each other until your mom got pregnant but a few days before her delivery date, she heard that her husband was coming back, I even heard her speaking with him on phone telling her that he was about to come back. The wife came up with a lie that she was going for work in DRC (Goma), the husband was okay with it since she told him that she won’t go for long. After a few days your mother left, leaving this man they lived together and came back after 3 months with no baby but I heard people saying that her baby died before birth”

He told me that even when he thinks about the story of my family it terrifies him.

I asked him how my mom ended up living with this man I call my father officially.

He said that “when the first husband came back from the mission, your mom was about to come back but he started hearing from people that she is pregnant, so he started investigating to know the truth while in the process, her wife came back but the husband didn’t show her that he knew it. 

“After many days of being cheated on by her wife and investigating privately, he found out the man who was sleeping with a man who is common to him. So he came up with a plan to kill him and stay with his wife, therefore your father paid a doctor to poison him at a hospital where your mom’s husband used to go for a monthly checkup due to a disease he told that I don’t know,"

I reached school past my class hours and my heart was really heavy due to the words the driver had just told me so I headed to the library and spent the rest of the school hours there.

In the evening the driver came to pick me up, we drove home without talking to each other. We reached home and I found my mom waiting for me in my room and she was busy folding my clothes and she had organized my entire room, she stood up and hugged me really tight and told me how she missed me and I told her that I missed her too.

She asked me to go see my father back in the living room well because our house had more than one room since it was really big.

I left and met the maid in the corridor and she told me that my father wanted to see me, on my way I peeped in the window and saw my father my heart bumped hard on seeing my father wiping tears from his face when I entered, he pretended as if he wasn’t crying, I acted as if I didn’t see him either and moved closer to where he was, after seating without hesitation he quickly……

To be continued…

For those who have been reading and don’t know about the story. It is a real story narrated by Natasha Umutesi who is happily married to married Gerald Mwiseneza.

The couples live in the Karumuna sector, an eastern province of Bugesera.  You’ll understand the reason behind the name of this story clearly when you keep reading. 

We will be releasing at least two episodes per week (Monday and Thursday) share with us your views on the story in the comment box.

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