It was 2:45pm. 

The day had begun just like any other day. I had just returned from the market and trying to settle in at my shop where I sold foodstuff and other consumables when suddenly my phone rang. 

‘Madam, this is Dr Shola, your husband is in the hospital.  Please can you come over as fast as you can? I will text the address to your phone right away’ the clinical voice sent me into a confused state. I looked at my handset and then up at my salesgirl who was arranging the items I got from the market.

‘Hello? Is he ok?’ I managed weakly.

‘Just come over as fast as you can.

‘Hei’ I exclaimed as the line went dead and I looked up and down.

My salesgirl dropped the item in her hand on the floor and rushed to my side.

’Is everything ok ma?

‘I am going out’ I managed weakly still trying to digest the information I just received. I could feel the goosebumps all over my body. I dialled my husband’s number immediately.
It rang continuously until it went dead.

I tried again

Same

‘I am going out’ I announced to Sonia

Sonia nodded; she was barely seventeen but very intelligent. She had just written her senior school exams and was saving up with the little money I paid her for school to assist her mother who was a widow. Over the few months she had joined me, we had a formed a bond and I too have come to love her as mine. She was well behaved and respectful. She rushed inside the shop and brought my handbag, car keys and veil.

‘Please…’ my hands trembled ‘please take care of the shop’ I peeked at the gold wristwatch ‘pick Nicholas up from school. You can make noodles for him.’ I avoided her eyes as I made my way out of the shop.

The ride from the shop to the hospital took like forever, my mind was befuddled with a lot of thoughts and I felt so uneasy and cold. I picked my sister on the way, I called her immediately I left the shop and fortunately she was around the vicinity. She tried to break the ice during the 30minutes drive but it did not help lift up my spirits. A thousand thoughts floated through my mind and I could not imagine what could have gone wrong. In all our sixteen years of marriage, my husband had never been in the hospital except when we were undergoing treatments just before I had our only child.
 
‘You will see that it is a minor thing’ Joyce, my sister, friend and cheerleader unfastened her seatbelt and faced me.

I blew my cheeks

‘I hope so…I hope so’

Earlier this morning, I was making breakfast when he sneaked out of the house. When I came out and found him gone, I made up my mind to have a one-on-one with him later in the night.

Joyce grabbed my hand and burst into prayers immediately. I did not hear a word of what she was saying, my mind wandered back to the dream I had earlier in the day and I was filled with trepidation. I muttered a quick ‘Amen’ and stepped out of the car.

Apparently, the person that called me from the hospital had also called his elder brother Uncle Joseph and immediate elder sister Aunty Prisca (who had been a thorn in my flesh. The woman had bluntly refused to allow my marriage have peace as she was constantly fanning the embers of confusion and quarrels in my home. 99% of the battles I was currently fighting were engineered by her. She had always been jealous of the close relationship I had with her brother and I had even overheard her saying that I cannot come from nowhere and separate her from her brother. Whenever we were opportune to meet, we managed to act civil) they both arrived in the lobby the same minute I did with my sister.

‘na wetin de happen?’ her eyes travelled all over my body as she usually did appraising me from head to toe. She had always accused me of devouring her brother’s money.

‘Good afternoon, Sir’ I addressed Uncle Joseph who was an Engineer and a Minister in one of the fastest growing Ministries in Ojo area.   He was a calm gentle man who had always stood beside me and also interceded for me in the first few years of my marriage. His wife too had been like a second mother in-law to me. He was a very tall man with a mass of grey hair that gave him a distinguished look. Whenever we had issues that we could not handle alone he usually intervened and so far, he had been indeed a pillar.

‘My wife…’ his expression was unreadable

‘Good afternoon, Aunty’ I greeted my husband’s elder sister 

I dialled my husband’s number again with shaky hands

It rang several times

Uncle Joseph thrust his hands inside his pockets, I sensed his agitation.  He was trying hard not to meet my eyes. I felt something in the air, was my mind playing games with me? I felt a rush, a cold wind washed through me, could it be the Ac in the lobby? 

I dialled the unknown number

He picked almost immediately

‘I…er…we are the… the lobby’ I stammered

The line went dead.

My sister stayed close to me and tried to keep her eyes busy whilst I tried a little game of chit chat with Aunt Prisca asking the usual questions about her four kids and her business.

‘Good afternoon’ 

A bespectacled man in white coat and white tennis appeared from nowhere. He was short and stout; dark skinned and had a postage stamp moustache. He had cherubic features that were easily likeable. A stethoscope was flung carelessly around his neck and it looked like he was out of breath. He had stress lines on his forehead and there were beads of sweat on his arms and foreheads.

‘I believe you are all relatives of Mr Bennet?’ he raised a bushy brow as his eyes travelled from where I was and to my husband’s elder brother and sister.

‘I am his sister’ Aunty Prisca pushed herself forward

‘I am his elder brother…. this is his wife’ Uncle Joseph stretched out a hand for a shake ‘Is there any problem? Can we see him?’

Dr Shola looked at me and the at Uncle Joseph

‘He was brought in here about three hours ago unconscious’

My hand flew to my mouth

‘Doctor….’

‘Apparently, he entered his car but never drove it from where he parked it in front of an eatery…. people got worried and checked on him that was when an alarm was raised and he was rushed to our facility by those young men’ he pointed at two young men sitting patiently a few metres from us.

He watched me coolly while he spoke. I was just watching his lips move while the tempo of my heart beat raced like a F1 driver. My bones tightened and I knew that something was terribly wrong, I could feel it. 

 I wanted to hold on fast to something 

I grabbed my sister’s hand

She circled it in hers and gave me a reassuring squeeze 

‘Can I see my husband now?’ I managed

The doctor looked at me and then at Uncle Joseph

He took a deep breath

‘Come with me’

He turned and walked down the corridor, I followed him. As we walked down, I cast a quick look at the two young men that had brought my husband to the hospital. They quickly looked away.

We walked on; the people faded like the pages of a book against the wind. Their voices echoed like the deep sounds of a well. I had served in the Northern part of Nigerian and experienced first-hand how deep the wells used to be. We used to hear sounds form the wells whenever we had to get water, scary reverberating sounds that filtered to my ears now. I was suddenly in another world. I was floating through the corridors oblivious of the people around me.

It seemed like my spirit had left my body and I was caught off somewhere in another world. 

Dr Shola opened the door and we all followed, a man lay on the only bed in the room. It was my husband; his eyes were closed. He was wearing one of his favourite shirts; a red and white checked shirt. His eyes were closed and he looked peaceful.

My hand bag dropped from my shoulder as I rushed to his side. I threw myself on him and rested my cheek against his.

‘Er…. madam’ the doctor began passionately

‘Doctor na wetin?’ Aunty Prisca’s shrieked

I held my husband and tried to lift him up, I had missed his touch over the few days we were quarrelling and I had made plans for tonight.

‘My crown’ I whispered lovingly into his ears as the tears rolled down my eyes
‘My crown…Honey? Come on, let’s go home’ 

I heard my sister draw in a long breath behind

‘Madam he is gone’

Four words that shattered my life

For a few seconds I could not breathe, I stared unseeingly at my husband lying peacefully on the hospital bed.

I shook my head

‘No…No Sir, he is just sleeping’ I maintained ‘how can Bennet die? How can he die without telling me eh?’ I looked at him and at Uncle Joseph who was looking at me with pity. My vision was blinded by the tears but I did not want to accept what the man was saying.
Aunty Prisca put her two hands on her head and jumped

‘Hey! Hey!! My brother ehhhhhhh!’ she shrieked

‘My crown? Please wake up let’s go home’ I turned back and teased his eyes the way I normally do when I want to disturb his sleep. He hated it. He would open his eyes immediately, attend to me and go back to sleep. It always baffled me how he could easily sleep off.

I teased his lids again

No movement

I pulled back the white cloth and tickled him. He could never resist tickling

No movement

I shouted

Then I screamed

‘My Bennet is not moving oooo…. doctor come and do something please’ I pleaded
‘Doctor, come and do something fast….’ I wept

Someone held me, another grabbed my hands, they tore me away but I fought back. I wanted him to wake up.   I ran back to the bed and grabbed him, I held him against my bosom so he could feel my need for him and wake up.

They say the crown represents authority and covering. Suddenly, I felt naked; uncovered. Someone had stripped me!  I remembered the dream I had a few hours earlier of how I was walking around naked…. uncovered.

 Suddenly, I felt vulnerable

I screamed again

‘Olowo ori mi’ I chanted as I did whenever I wanted a favour from him

They grabbed me again and pulled me away from my honey.

‘No!’ I cried

Uncle Joseph went to the bed and bent over the lying frame, I saw his chest rising and falling like the waves at Bar beach. The waves we all had played in only a few months ago and then he covered him with the white cloth

I screamed……. again

Someone pulled me up as I fell on the floor.

I was carried away from him

I wanted them to cover me, every one was looking at the woman who had suddenly become naked. Their sad eyes followed me. My wails called out to them to give me comfort, to bring my cover, my husband.

My life would never be the same, I knew it from the very moment. 
 
My days became blank

The sun did not rise again, how can rise again without my world being in it?

Smiles faded

Friendship with the people I thought I knew were broken

As the symbol of authority was taken away, peasants came into the Palace to hurl insults and try to enforce inhumane traditions.

I was stripped of all my rites as a wife and as a mother. Within a twinkling of an eye his siblings whom I had given my food and water invaded the privacy I shared with their brothers and took all. 

The most painful was seeing my gender in the fore front of the battle, women like me commandeered by Aunt Prisca took everything away from me without a thought of the child their brother left behind.

The rug was pulled from under my feet, I did not see it coming because I felt Uncle Joseph would fight for me. He was just a man against an entire family, they say one person cannot do what a group of people can do.

I was stripped and pushed into the cold when death stole into my home. for months, I lost my senses and was forced to go through seclusion to prove that I had no hand in my husband’s death. Within a few weeks accusations flew left and right on how I made life unbearable for my husband. Aunt Prisca was the spearhead of all the accusations, I knew she was after all her late brother’s properties. I loved my husband and was ready to go through the rites to prove my innocence.

My sister would hear nothing of it, together with a few, she travelled down to my husband’s village and dragged me into the car she came with when she saw that I was dying slowly of starvation in the room they had left me. My in-laws threatened that I would forfeit everything that my late husband owned. My sister maintained that could be replaced. That day we drove straight from the village to Lagos.

I had to begin my life afresh from where the oceans of grief vomited me. It left a huge vacuum in my life and I fear it may never be filled. 

The placement of a crown indicated the role of its wearer and reflects an exalted position and also the presence of honour. To remove it was an indication of shame. And that was how I was treated in my husband’s family. I and my son became an outcast and I was seen as nothing and treated less of a human being.

They took everything he ever owned but I have his memories and of course our beautiful son who like his father has given my life a whole new meaning.