Connect with us

Features

Isio Knows Better: Becoming Her Father’s Wife

Avatar photo

Published

 on

We need the courage to create ourselves daily, to be bodacious enough to create ourselves daily – as Christians, as Jews, as Muslims, as thinking, caring, laughing, loving human beings. I think that the courage to confront evil and turn it by dint of will into something applicable to the development of our evolution, individually and collectively, is exciting, honourable.” – Maya Angelou

Of all the deaths she could have died, this is the one she would not have chosen.

Mitaire looked in the mirror and swiped a damp lock of hair off her forehead. Forty-four minutes she had crouched there, in the shower, letting the cold water wash over her as she sobbed a pitiful lamentation to the gods.

Of all the deaths she could have died, this is the one she would not have chosen.

She felt like she was dying. For sure, this kind of heartbreak was a kind of death. She felt like her soul was broken. In two days, her friend would dedicate her new-born son. The son she had had for Mitaire’s husband. It was the most unpalatable pill to swallow. The straw that broke the camel’s back… one she did not see coming. She, Mitaire, the once-favoured… Mitaire the nurturer, the one who had faced many evils. Mitaire the mother of a beautiful 5 year old girl who did not understand why all of a sudden daddy kicked her out of the way when he came from work yesterday. Apparently, her daughter was good, but not good enough.

Her husband’s family wanted an heir. A son. And now he had one. And suddenly she was confronted with the betrayal of her spouse, the wickedness of the people who once called her ‘Our Wife’, and the hatred of the one she had once called ‘Dearest friend.’ This was her, now.

Here she was – with only a suitcase of her belongings flung into the remote guestroom furthest from the luxury and the jubilations of the main house and closest to the servants’ quarters. So, it had come to this… 11 years of marriage and 8 painful miscarriages after.

She chuckled bitterly at the irony and thought to herself: What nobody knows is that I am afraid and ashamed… A lot. I am afraid of failing myself and my child who trusts me. I am ashamed of the abuse I have had to endure.

It takes a tremendous amount of courage to face one’s evil, and truth be told, Mitaire had survived many evils in her life. She was thirty-six, the age her mother was when she died in her teenage arms. The grotesque graffiti left on the walls of her psyche by her past left a psychological damage that lingered long after the end of her parents’ twisted love story. She bore within her a damage unseen to the world… invisible scars rendered by tooth and claw, and borne proudly by a beautiful Mitaire in seemingly perfect condition.

Mitaire’s (meaning I have met their match in Urhobo) was a happy child. Her late parents were deeply in love. Her mother was an exotic beauty, while her father was a self-made billionaire who treasured and furnished Mima (Mitaire’s mother) like a treasured queen. Their love lasted many years against many odds while their union produced Mitaire. Their love would have been something to celebrate if her mother wasn’t the long-time mistress of a powerful man thirty years older than her.

And so understandably, her father’s wife and sons despised Mitaire and her mother. The luxurious lifestyle her father kept providing for his mistress and love-child through the years was a bitter insult to the billionaire’s older wife. Yes, the wife hated them, but couldn’t touch them, as her father protected Mima and his last daughter; from her jealousy and wrath.

But the day her father died of a sudden heart-attack was the day Mitaire’s mother fell from all grace, very swiftly. Disgraced and publicly humiliated, she was kicked out of the house her lover had bought for her by his wife and sons. Crying and confused, a young Mitaire looked into the eyes of her father’s wife as she, escorted by armed bodyguards and two of her sons had dragged a semi-clad Mima from her home. Mitaire looked into the eyes of a woman she had never met, and she saw evil.

And then it got worse. Over the next two years she understood the power of saving for rainy days. Mima, as many spoilt, over-indulged mistresses did not actually have anything to her name, nor did she know how to manage her own life as she never had to in the past. And so she tried to survive as best she could… by borrowing, owing, weeping and drinking. In the end, she had died mysteriously of an retching illness in Mitaire’s arms. Mitaire liked to think she died of a broken heart . She was only sixteen.

Yes, Mitaire had faced many evils.
Poverty, fear, violence, hunger, abuse, rape, loneliness, jealousy, blackmail, discrimination, doubt, anger, betrayal, lack, thirst, false witnesses and lust. And somehow, in spite of it all and memories that best forgotten, Mitaire had managed to build for herself a life. A life as a good person. Some people use their negative experiences to become something good and others can’t rise above their past. Mitaire was one of the former. She swore she would not repeat her mother’s mistakes. Never would she submit herself to a committed man. At least that version of history would not repeat itself.

But fate was the king of mischief.

22 years after her mother fell from grace, 11 years into her marriage, 8 painful miscarriages and one beautiful daughter after… it had come to this. Her dearly beloved, formerly-loving now adulterous husband who was once uncommitted had become the type of man she spent her life running away from. History was repeating itself in a fascinating way, she had to grudgingly admit. She had become her father’s wife.

It was only at that moment that she understood the evil she had seen in the eyes of her father’s wife. She staggered as the sudden realization hit her and squeezed her eyes shut.

Mitaire, this dream is real. Now look in the mirror and bless yourself. What else can you do?

“I can live my life for ME. I am not my mother’s shame… I am not my father’s indiscretion… I am not my husband’s rejected. Yesterday I was beloved, today I am unwanted- through it all, I am still worthy. I am deserving… of dignity, respect, of honour. I might be old, but my spirit is still unbroken. I will triumph over this evil.”

Mitaire muttered those words to herself and felt a sliver of courage. She would not be the bitter woman her father’s wife was – waiting for her husband to die to exact bitter revenge against an innocent child and his deserving mother.

Tomorrow she would leave – take her daughter and flee. She would re-create herself anew. But that is for tomorrow… Today, she is exhausted.

Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way.

Isio De-laVega Wanogho is a Nigerian supermodel, a multi-award winning media personality and an interior architect who is a creative-expressionist at her core. She uses words, wit and her paintings to tell stories that entertain, yet convey a deeper meaning. Follow her on Instagram @isiodelavega and visit her website: http://www.idds.pro to see her professional body of work.

Advertisement

Star Features

css.php