Under the Mango Tree Series: Episode 2

Rainbows and Jason: Part 2

Naana Adjoa Boakye had been living with her only granddaughter in Kumasi, Ghana for the past couple of months. She was a sixty-seven year old retired high school teacher who had spent more than half her time on earth in Nigeria. She lived in Lagos, and married a Lagosian. She had a beautiful daughter, Solape Ogundipe who she took back with her to Ghana upon her husband’s death.

However, when Sola turned twenty, she returned to Lagos to live with her paternal aunt. A couple of years later, she married an engineer who she claimed she loved more than life itself. When they got engaged (which seemed like a short time after they began dating) and they were introduced Naana took one look at him at and said to her daughter

“I do not like him.”

She entreated her daughter to hold off the wedding for a few weeks at least, but the love struck Sola wouldn’t listen. She married Kris nine months after she first met him. The first four months after the wedding were blissful and beautiful. Sola was happier than she had being in a long time, and she told everyone who cared to listen as much.

Sola was one of those people who loved deeply when they did. She was easy going, and smiled a lot. Hence, she was easily approachable, fun loving and sociable. She made friends wherever she turned and was always Miss Popular. Naana who was a quiet and reserved person found her too sanguine sometimes and thought this was a trait that may bring trouble in the near future.

Naana saw in her daughter, a splitting image of her late mother. Naana’s mother Yaa was sanguine, and lived a happy go lucky life just like Sola. She feared about her daughter’s future, especially with men. As a girlfriend, Sola was perfect. But, as a wife, not so perfect. Especially when she was married to a special breed of men – the very jealous kind.

Kris, Sola’s husband was a very jealous man. He loved to know what she was doing, at what place and time. Knowing how nice and sociable his wife, he tended to worry about her a lot. As a banker, he knew she met a lot of people daily, especially men. And as a man, he knew that men loved beautiful women and tended to hang around to them to admire and flirt. The thought of men hanging around his wife admiring her beautiful curves and smile sent waves of fear and anxiety rippling through him like a million prickly pins in many sensitive places.

That was when he started to frequently check-up on his wife. He would drop by at Hallmark Bank, in Surulere where she worked to check up on her unannounced. He would take unexpected breaks from his office in Ikorodu to visit his wife at home on weekends. He constantly called her phone, and when she missed his calls he had very graphic images of her in bed with another man. This often sent him after her, trying to ascertain what she was doing.

By the end of the first year of their marriage, they had started having fights about his overly jealous attitude. And then one day it graduated from verbal fights to something else. The first time he hit her was when he found her talking to a man who turned out to be an ex. This was at a gala event at her office, and he waited till they returned home. He beat her the way you would a log of wood into many pieces (literally), without giving her ample time to explain to him that it was a harmless conversation. She ended up with a black eye and several bruises on her body. He was deeply sorry about it, and promised never to do it again. But did he keep that promise?

As time went by the frequency of the beatings increased. Sadly, Sola went through this phase of her life alone. She never told anyone, not even her mother who she was fairly close to. In the third year of her marriage, Sola became pregnant. He made a shocking pronouncement on the day she informed him that she was expecting a baby.

“It’s time to quit your job, darling.” He said, giving her a kiss on the forehead.

“That’s not happening Kris. I can’t do that.” She protested.

Her friends Candy and Ije advised her against quitting her job. They thought she shouldn’t quit, since she was doing so well, and was due for a big promotion in a matter of weeks. Even her mom disagreed with her husband’s declaration.

However, a month of sweetness and persuasion got Sola to hand in her resignation letter to the bank management and become a full time house wife. She believed that staying home would quell her husband’s fear about her cheating or leaving him. It seemed to work as he didn’t hit her throughout the pregnancy. On the contrary, he was all sugar and spice throughout this time.

At the ninth month, the baby was born- a girl. That was when things turned around again. He had expected his first child to be a boy and he couldn’t accept the fact that he had a daughter instead. His disapproval was shown as his many childish tantrums and gradual withdrawal from his erstwhile caring style. After the birth of the baby, she decided to start a small business to keep from being a bored housewife.

His answer to that was an emphatic no. He didn’t want her out there in the world in easy reach to all the men he knew would want to chase after her. But, she went behind his back and started a unisex boutique. When he discovered this, the beatings started again; more ferocious this time. He would beat her up, if she returned home late from her shop. Even if she answered back at him when he spoke or hung out with friends he didn’t know, he would reply by beating her up.

This continued for years. As a result of the beatings, she never had any more children for him. Her second pregnancy was aborted by his constant beatings, and so were the third, fourth and the fifth. However, she never had the guts to leave him. She stayed with him because she loved him, and because she didn’t want to end up as a single mother.

Furthermore, she kept the abuse secret from her friends and family. So, the bruises on her back were a fall from the stairs to her mother. The black eyes were an eye infection to her friends and the broken arm was a domestic accident to her aunt. She thought she had everyone fooled, but soon everyone started to suspect that all the injuries couldn’t be from the sources she claimed. Her daughter on the other hand was not fooled by anything she said. She knew what it was, and it filled her with rage when she thought of it.

She knew what her Dad did to her Mom, and it made her sick keeping her Mom’s secret from their friends and family. To ensure that she didn’t witness the abuse, her father had shipped her off to boarding school, when she turned eleven. She had cried all day on her first day in boarding school, afraid for what her father would do to her Mom in her absence.

The proof of it was in her mother’s walk, when she returned home on holiday. Her mother had claimed she sprained her ankle, and walked on clutches. Her father simply petted her mother, while fully collaborating the story. But as she recovered from the injury, he started keeping late nights which was actually the undertone of something bigger.

Over the years, Kris Okonkwo started seeing his young secretary. Soon, she became pregnant for him and when the scan showed it was a boy, he advised her to keep it. Bimbo, his secretary bore him a son when his daughter was seventeen years old. Then began the double dealing and the lies. He spent countless weekends with his new family, but to his wife he was working. She didn’t question this new turn of events until her mother voiced her doubts about his countless trips. Naana set a private investigator on his trail and it was revealed that he was having an affair.