Messy Sheets

She picked up the call and lovingly answered just to be met by a bellowing angry voice on the other side, “you messed up!!". What? She asked in shock, raking her mind to what she might have messed. She hadn't entered into an unwarranted business deal, her baby was excellent in school, she wasn't having an affair and finally had landed a house girl who could cook literally everything. She thought that her daughter might have messed some of his business papers and began to apologize for it which agitated Mark more. No! You messed the sheets! I? I never touch those sheets of paper, she interjected. No the bedsheets. Whaaaaaat! She had checked her morning after and the pad had remained in place, no single stain on her undergarments either! How now!! Am sorry if you woke up to a messy bed, I will clean it up once I get home. I am really sorry. That call stole her peace all day. She got home totally embarrassed by the happenings of the morning and quickly rushed to her bedroom to clean up before he got home just to be met by two tiny spots on the white sheets. WHAT THE HELL!! she exclaimed in shock! She sat down and started theorizing the reason for his outburst. Maybe he was just angry over something and took out the wrath on her. But for what? two tiny drops of her menses.!!.....

He came home late and drunk. "WOMAN, you who can’t respect your man enough to give him a clean bed! You have disrespected me for long! Today you will know am a man! He shouted scaring their daughter who quickly scurried away crying to her bedroom. "Calm down baba Emma, you will wake up the whole neighborhood. What’s going on with you?" Before she could finish, a huge slap hit her cheeks dropping her to the floor in utter shock. This wasn't the man she had lived with for seven years. He had never lifted a finger nor raised a voice. She wept quietly in a heap where she had dropped and looked at him. His eyes were red with fury, like a lion ready to pounce on ready prey. Picked herself up after receiving a few further blows and ran to her daughter’s room and locked it.

Her parents and the elders were sitted and she was prompted to speak. Mark sat quietly in a corner taking in each word that she said. He never once looked at her despite it being over three months since she left her home.  When his turn came, he produced a piece of paper and gave it to his brother, tears begging to stream down his cheeks.  The loud groan that came from the brother indicated disaster. She grabbed the paper and on it “I am sorry mama Emma, it wasn’t about messy sheets but about my mess. I am HIV+.  She sat paralyzed in space, her mind a mangled mess, death images flashing through her eyes; her daughter, her life, her career, her marriage! Her soul shattered!

How? From where? Why hadn't she noticed anything unusual? Was she infected? He was home early, played with his daughter, dotted on his wife, the perfect couple; they were called. Now here she was, the wife of his youth, her vows at the alter haunting her; for better or for worse she swore. But for which worse? Does it stand also for self-inflicted worse? Her family was also asking her to forgive him, the church and friends all looking to her. At a cross road she remembered; the two dots of menses on the sheet; at least that needed a few minutes soaking and rubbing; they would come off and the sheet would look like it has never been messed up. But this Mess she was in was bigger than any stain she had encountered. And all looked up to her to clean a mess she had not created!!!!

" Rockin' chairs Rockin' babies Rock'a'bye Rock of ages Side by side we'll be together always And if you hold me tight when you love me Thats all I will ask of you And I'll stand by you through our rockin' years" was all she had longed for. Now that rocking life was now a rock which she was expected to break with her bare hands. No one seemed to care that she was bleeding.

They had met on a working trip. She was sassy and classy with beautiful legs and he had been awed immediately. A few drinks later, an affair had brewed. She was her coolant on life issues and stresses. And now she had cooled him to his grave. The shock waves had taken time to settle in him, after he found her with another man and she had bluntly dismissed him as his tenure had ended and encouraged him to take his meds. Which meds? It is then the reality of his actions dawned. And he became a ball of anger leading to domestic violence on an innocent wife. He had turned to alcohol at least to try taking the memories of his actions away but it was only a seasonal relief…at dawn it still dawned to him on the realities of his actions.

Mama Emma had taken the news badly.  The counselling for which his pastor and folks were putting them through seems a faraway solution. She was a shell of her former self finding it hard to forgive him and in turn he wouldn’t forgive himself for putting her through all the pain. The one day he had walked into their home and she was there sitted in a dark bedroom, crying softly, he made the decision. He travelled home to his mother’s abode and wept in her bosom. And in the morning they found him dead, hang on the roof of his simba. And he was never coming home, to Mama Emma to clean this huge stain he had made in their bliss.