AGATHA slept very little that night, falling into listless naps between meditations that left her more disturbed than rested. What she came home to witness was self-explanatory enough; the living room scene and her matrimonial room in a rumpled state suggested that her husband was messing around with some other woman in the house.
Her conviction seemingly right yet blurred, she tried to weigh all the likely possibilities of who the woman could be. Could it be one of the models who paraded her husband’s office? All of them, most times skinny daredevils.
On the other hand, the rumpled state of her matrimonial bed readily implicated her housemaid, Ebong. She reasoned that her husband could not have brought just any woman into the room except someone within, and that could only be Ebong. She had access to their room and it wouldn’t have looked out of place for both of them to feel comfortable in there. She sighed and a wave of anxiety swept all over her, like an astronaut about to make a first trip to the moon.
As if mother luck was on her side, coming too early, that same Saturday morning while she helped her daughter with her homework, Agatha noticed as Ebong ran out of the kitchen in discomfort and toward the visitors’ toilet; she had her hand over her mouth, trying to hold back an explosion of vomit.
Agatha hurriedly dumped her daughter and ran after her like a detective who just got a chance to pin down a criminal. It was the moment she had craved; getting to the root of it all in no time.
She had an idea about what that could be. She had been there before. When a woman suddenly jerks and takes to her heels toward the toilet with her hand over her mouth, it only tells her she is pregnant. That, ordinarily, should make the woman happy and her husband excited, except if the nest was perched on the wrong tree. Like what she was about to find out now.
The young lady was done vomiting and was cleaning up her mess when Agatha caught up with her. She eyeballed her with suspicion. Then she went close to her and pulled her by the chin toward her so they were eyeball-to-eyeball. The question was apt. ‘Did you miss your period?” She stood over her like a giant balloon and she tried to guard the door so she won’t flee. ‘No ma!’ the lady replied, a little embarrassed, and her eyebrows rolled like a nervous snake.
She read the weight in her boss' question and instantly took pregnancy off the table. “I am not pregnant. I only drank some bitter leaf mixture early this morning before eating, that's why I vomited”, She said.
Agatha knew that could happen, yet something played on the lady’s face that told her she shouldn’t believe her. So she wasted no time in putting a call through to her doctor and demanding she come around as a matter of urgency. Next, she called her best friend, Clara, whom she had hinted about the recent development in her home.
She and Clara had been friends for over fifteen years and the two of them will naturally confide in each other. Often, Agatha did more of the confiding and Clara was always never short of advice to give her on what to do. Her interference in Agatha's home business was constant, perceived as normal, and was always very welcomed.
That done, she made an attempt to crash in on her husband who was just settling down to breakfast. Her outburst pierced into him suddenly with a thunderous effect that made him drop his cutlery involuntarily. The cat had been led out of the bag now.
“She’s pregnant!”
“Who?” The man gave back inquiringly with a mouth cut into a temporary frown.
”She", Agatha spat out, searching into her husband’s eyes to fish out the uneasiness a man feels when caught hands down. She saw nothing.
"Who is she?"
“Ebong!” She burst, the anger on her face was so terrible it could drill a nail into a brick wall.
“Well, she’s an adult and she has her life to live." The man's frown had deepened. "And did she tell who is responsible for the pregnancy?”
"Honestly, you should be asking her before it gets to my turn to do it!" She cut him off and walked away; purposely to debar him from muscling up a defence with his words. Clara, her bestie had warned her against pushing too hard until she was sure of her claims.
The doctor examined Ebong for a while, staring at her tongue and holding one of her palms up close to her eyes. Then she made her lead her to her room for a closer examination. Agatha plastered a palm over her forehead while she waited anxiously for the two disappeared women. The consequence of stretching her mental side too hard on the recent development in her home had built up into a consistent migraine.
How long had this been going on? Did Eddy actually get out of the room with the ladder? Was Ebong in her room picking the dirty laundry a scam? Could she be pregnant for her husband? Is Eddy, her husband, sleeping with her housemaid? She spat irritably and shook her head with disgust.
Then, the doctor emerged. She announced plainly that Ebong was not pregnant. Agatha gave a sigh of relief and then looked toward her husband. He seemed to care the less about the whole nonsense.
But despite the doctor’s confirmation, Agatha would still hold on tight to her conviction that something is going on behind her back. Pretty obviously, those two are up to some game. She will not stop until she gets to the bottom of it all. She suddenly felt dizzy and promptly fainted.
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