SHORT STORY: THE LAST WISH

The Last Wish.

When Yaw got home that night as his wife Akua served dinner, he held her hand and said “I have something to tell you darling”. She sat down and ate quietly. Again, he observed the hurt in her eyes. Suddenly he realized that he did not have the courage to open his mouth to say what he had to say. Nevertheless, he had to let her know what he was thinking. He finally raised the topic calmly. “I want a divorce”.

Akua didn't seem to be annoyed by his words, instead she asked him softly, “but why, my darling”? Yaw avoided her question and this subsequently made her angry so she threw the spoon she was holding and shouted at him, “You are not a man”! That night they did not talk to each other. Akua wept the whole night. Yaw obviously knew she wanted to find out what had happened to their marriage, but he could hardly give her a satisfactory answer. Akua had finally lost out to a lovely girl called Adzo. The truth was that Yaw no longer loved her anymore, but rather pitied her!

With a deep sense of guilt, Yaw went to his sturdy and took out a sheet of paper on which he drafted a divorce agreement, in which he stated that she could have the plush 8 bed-room mansion, the S-class Jaguar car, and 30% stake in the law firm. She glanced at it and then tore it up into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with him had suddenly become a total stranger. Yaw felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but he could not take back what he had said for he now loved Adzo very dearly.

Finally, she cried loudly in front of him, which was what he had expected to see. To him, her cry was actually a kind of release and the idea of a divorce, which had obsessed him for several weeks, now seemed to be firmer and clearer. The next day, Yaw came back home very late and found Akua writing something at the bedside table. He did not have supper and went straight to bed and fell asleep very fast because he was tired after an eventful and blissful day with Adzo.

Yaw woke up a few hours later and found that Akua was still there at the table writing. He shrugged and went back to bed. In the morning, she presented her divorce conditions to him stating that she did not want any property from yaw but instead, she just needed a month's notice before the divorce could take place. She requested that in that one month both of them should try as much as possible to keep up a good appearance so as not to make anyone suspicious about the pending divorce. Her reasons were simple; their nine-year old son had his exams coming in a month’s time and she did not want to disrupt him with a broken marriage. This was very agreeable to Yaw so he answered “Why not?” However, she had something more to say to him. She asked Yaw to recall how he had carried her into their bridal room on the wedding day. She therefore requested him to carry her out of their bedroom to the front door every morning for the remaining one month of their marriage which had obviously hit the rocks. Yaw for a moment thought his wife had gone crazy to ask for such an odd request, but he agreed since this was just to make their last days together bearable.

Yaw told Adzo about his wife's strange divorce conditions and she laughed out loudly and thought it was very absurd. “No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce”, she said scornfully. Akua and Yaw had not had any body contact since the divorce intention was explicitly expressed so when he carried her out on the first day, they both appeared clumsy. Their nine-year old son found this act very pleasing so he clapped behind them saying, “Daddy is holding mommy in his arms”. These words brought a deep sense of pain to Yaw as he carried his wife out from the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, then he walked over ten meters with her in his arms. As this occurred, Akua closed her eyes and said softly to her husband; “Please do not tell our son about the divorce”. Yaw nodded, feeling somewhat upset about the whole episode. He put her down outside the door and she walked the rest of the distance to wait for the bus. Yaw then hopped into his new 7-series BMW and drove off to work alone pondering over the whole issue and the effects it was bound to have one his nine year old son.

The second day arrived and both of them acted much more easily. This time around, she leaned on Yaw’s chest and he could smell the fragrance of her blouse. He realized that he had not looked at his wife carefully in almost three months. He also realized that she was not getting younger any more and he could see there were fine wrinkles showing on her face and her hair was also beginning to go gray! Their troubled marriage had already begun to take its heavy toll on Akua. For a minute, Yaw kept wondering to himself “what have I done to my dear wife?”.

On the fourth day, when he lifted her up, he felt a sense of intimacy returning for the first time in months. “This is the woman, who has given ten years of her life to me” he thought to himself.

On the fifth and sixth day, he realized that the sense of intimacy between them was growing even bigger and he felt like kissing his wife but he quickly wiped the thought off his mind as though it was a deadly plague. He did not tell Adzo about this when he got to the office this time around. He had also noticed that it had become easier for him to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made him stronger, he thought to himself.

Akua was choosing what to wear one morning and after trying on quite a few dresses, she realized she could not find any suitable one to wear so she sighed, “All my dresses have grown bigger”. Yaw was watching from a distance and then he suddenly realized that indeed his wife had actually grown lean and that was the reason why he could carry her more easily over the past few days. It suddenly downed on him that Akua his lovely wife of ten years had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart that it had caused her quick weight loss in just a few weeks. This was not to mention the loss of their five year old daughter Serwaa who had also died a few months back while Akua was away on a business trip abroad. Serwaa had fallen off her bicycle and in the process knocking her head on the pavement. While she lay on the ground unconscious, the maid servant had called Yaw to come home to attend to the emergency but because he had delayed a whole hour, she was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. Akua blamed herself for not being around when this happened and had been living with the guilt ever since. Yaw quietly reached out and touched her hand.

At that very moment their son Junior came in and said, “Dad, it is time to carry mom out”. To him, seeing his father carry his mother out every day had become a joy to watch. Akua then gestured to the little boy to come closer and she hugged him tightly. Yaw turned and looked away because he felt guilty about what was happening to his marriage and then again he was afraid he might change his mind about the divorce at the last minute. He quickly held his wife in his arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, and then to the hallway. Her hand surrounded his neck softly and naturally as he held onto her body tightly; it was just like their wedding day. However, her much lighter weight made him feel very sad.

On the last day, when he held her in his arms he could hardly move a step. Their son had already gone to school so he held her tightly and said, “Darling, I had not noticed that our life lacked soo much intimacy”. He drove off as usual to work alone but half way through, he changed his mind and headed straight for Adzo’s apartment. Upon reaching the car park, he jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door and headed for apartment number 207 on the fifth floor. He was afraid that any more delay would make him change his mind about what he was about to do. Yaw pressed the door bell and Adzo opened the door with a very big smile on her face. “Honey, please come in and make yourself comfortable. What brings you here so early in the morning?”

Yaw said to her, “I am sorry, Adzo, but I do not want the divorce anymore”. She looked at him in astonishment and then touched his forehead. “Honey, are you alright? Do you have a fever”? She asked. Yaw moved her hand off his forehead and repeated what he said. “I am sorry Adzo, I said, I will not divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I did not value the details of our lives and not because we did not love each other any more”. As he spoke, he realized that ever since he carried his wife into his home on their wedding day, he had also vowed to hold onto her until death do they part. He now saw how foolish he had been and the great pain he had caused his wife. He was still in dreamland when Adzo woke him with a dirty slap across his face. “You son of a bitch! Get out of my house and come back no more!” She pushed him out and slammed the door behind her. Adzo crawled onto the sofa, the very place where they had made passionate love for the first time ten months ago, and burst into tears. “Oh Yaw, you will surely pay for this. I left my fiancée for you because I thought you really loved me!”. “Oh what a big fool I have been, God will surely punish you one day” She kept on saying these words as she wept and cried throughout the whole morning.

Yaw quietly climbed down the stairs and drove off in a state of guilt and total confusion. He drove around town for several minutes sobbing softly and not knowing where to go. He spotted a floral shop on the way, and then a thought flashed through his mind. “Oh damn! Why not!” he said to himself as he stopped the car. He quickly wiped the tears off his eyes with his hands and stepped out of the car. Then he walked into the shop to order a bouquet of fresh white roses. The sales girl asked him “Sir, what should I write on the card?” He smiled and wrote “Darling, I will carry you out every morning until death do us part”.

Folks, the very small details of our lives are what really matter in any relationship. It is not the mansion, the cars, properties, money at the bank, etc, etc, etc. All these things will definitely create an environment conducive for happiness to strive but they cannot give happiness in themselves so let us find and make time to be close to our spouse's, families, friends and loved ones.

There is a lot to learn from this short story and I urge you to pray after reading it and ask God to help you identify your shortcomings in order to enable you rekindle your relationship one more time. By so doing, we will be able to build strong relationships that can stand the test of time.

HAPPY VALENTINE!