Star-crossed - Episode 8

 

Comfort:

"Comfort are you okay?!" Raymond's voice sounds distant to my ears as I feel a ringing in my ears. My father's hands come to grab me but I stagger back.
"I got you. I got you." Strong arms wrap around my waist from behind and I'm grateful to breathe in the smell of cigarettes for the first time.
"What did you do to her?! You promised me you won't hurt her!" He snaps at my father who shakes his head.
"No. I don't understand . Why would her mother have my wife's ring?"
"What are you talking about? What is he talking about?" Raymond directs to me as he turns me to face him. I bury my face in my palms and shake my head.
"I've been wearing that woman's ring on my neck for a year." I mumble.
"This doesn't make sense. Why would my mother have this in her grasp when she committed suicide?" I turn to ask my father.
"Ogechi always wore that ring on her finger until that night when I told her that I wanted a divorce. The same night your mother died. She left the house angry that night and didn't come home till dawn." My father's eyes goes bigger the more he speaks and I catch on to what he's insinuating.
"You can't possibly think she killed___" Raymond says what my father and I are thinking and gasps.
"I remember that night vividly. Ogechi vowed to never let me go

All episodes of this story can be found here >> https://www.ebonystory.com/story/star-crossed

. She__ Comfort how did you find your mother?" My father suddenly asks me, his eyes twitching like crazy.
"I just woke up and found her lying in the pool of her own blood. Her wrist was slit. The knife was on the floor." I clench my eyes shut at the memory. I'd been so damn scared that night.
"Was there any sign of struggle? Maybe something didn't feel right in the room." He looks so frantic by now.
"Comfort?" Raymond asks.
"I don't know okay?! I woke up to my mother bleeding out on the same bed as me! I don't remember anything about how the room looked."
"There is only one way to find out what really happened that night." Raymond says and both mine and my father's eyes rise to his face.
"You want me to confront my wife." My father says and Raymond nods.

****

Raymond:

"Can you hear anything?" I ask Raymond again after a few minutes of my father entering his large house where he lives with his wife and son. We are parked out on the other side of the street with my phone between us and on loudspeaker. Raymond made my father be on call for the entire confrontation with his wife so I can hear everything.
"Daddy! Daddy!!" The unmistakeable voice of a child comes from the other side of the line and Raymond motions for me to be quiet. I nod as I swallow hard on nothing.
"Where's your mother?" We hear my father's voice next.
"Up." The child says. I listen with bated breath as my father's movement registers on the call.
"Ogechi?! Ogechi!" He bellows after a few minutes of silence on the phone.
"Best, you're back. How was__"
"Don't Best me!" My father's bellow cuts the tiny voice of Ogechi.
"What's with the attitude ehn Jacob? Don't come and spoil my mood this evening please." The woman says next.
"You murderer!" My father's voice rings through the phone. My head snaps up from the phone to Raymond.
"Shhhh." He shakes his head at me.
"Wh__what?" The once confident voice of Ogechi is now small.
"Comfort remembers okay?! She saw you in their room that night! You killed her!" My father throws.
What is he saying? I remember nothing of such.
"What?! That's impossible because I didn't kill that husband snatcher."
"There's evidence, Oge! You're done for! How do you explain this." My father must be showing her ring to her now because the line goes quiet.
"My ring." I hear her audibly gasp.
"Yes, your ring. You lost it that day. You were there that night weren't you? You killed a defenseless woman in her own bed." My father accuses.
"No. It was a mistake. I didn't mean for it to happen. Yes I called her outside to talk that night. I begged her to let you go. That was what I was there for but things got out of hand. She wouldn't listen to my pleas. I slapped her and everything just happened so fast after that. There was a struggle and and-- she fell. Hit her head. There was no blood but she wasn't moving. No pulse. I panicked. Waited for the daughter to come out screaming but when there was absolute silent I knew I had to cover my tracks." I gasp at this and clamp my hands over my mouth. I blink rapidly at Raymond. Tears blind me as I clench my fists on my lap.
"How did you cover your tracks?" My father's voice is quiet now but deadly.
"I dragged her to her bed and slit her wrist to make it seem like she committed suicide."
"You murderous woman!" There's a sound of something crashing before a shrill female cry.
"Get off me! It's all your fault! You killed her. You never should have ask for a divorce. You pushed me." The hysterical sobs coming out of my phone sends a shiver up my spine.
"Raymond___" I sob.
"No." His hand covers mine on my lap and I use my other hand to clench hard onto it.
"We had an agreement?! You come back to me and I foot all the medical bills for your daughter! And when she was well enough to live, you tried to escape me?! You were married to me before that woman took you away from me! You never married her! I couldn't let you leave our unborn child. I__"
"I can't listen anymore." I sob to Raymond.
"Are you sure?"
"End the call, please." I plead before I push the car's door open and jump out of the car quickly to vomit into the side of the road.
"Hey, you're okay. You're okay." Raymond is beside me in seconds and patting my back. A sob wracks me at that moment and I stand straighter to bury my face in his chest.
"I was asleep the whole time." I sob. He is so warm I feel my fingers flatten on his chest before I clench them into fists. I see my father looking hagard as he rushes past his pristine gate. My pain starts to manifest into anger and I feel my chest rise and fall with how hard I'm breathing.
"Comfort tell me you didn't hear that. I__ " I pull away from Raymond's frame to settle a hard look at my father.
"You what? You didn't mean for me to hear that my mother was your mistress?!" I snap at him.
"Maybe I should just leave the both of you to talk." Raymond says suddenly and this has me freezing.
"No! Don't. Please. I don't want to be alone with this man." I look up into his eyes with mine pleading. He nods just before my father reaches us.
"Listen I can explain about the marriage and everything. I__" My father starts to get too close to me and I back up. Solid arms come around me from behind and I stop retreating.
"Don't you come any closer, dad. I mean, what else is there to explain?! My mother was the mistress." I say shakily.
"No. No. No." Tears runs down his sweaty face and it angers me even more.
"You lied to us for more than twenty years!" I scream. He doesn't get to act hurt.
"Comfort, please."
"Did she even know? That she was the mistress?" I ask like I didn't just hear him.
"She did." His answer is so small, but I hear him loud and clear.
"She did?! God, I had no idea. My_my mother deserved so much better than that. So much better than you." I sob into my palms. I feel Raymond's fingers dig mildly into my hips as I sob. I feel an immense urge to turn and let him hold me fully but my father quells that thought when he starts talking.
"I was so young when my parents and Ogechi's parents had us marry. Ogechi's family needed an heir and my father couldn't pass up on the offer to tap into his friend's wealth. I saw nothing wrong with the arrangements at first. My life became so much more comfortable. But years after that Ogechi couldn't conceive." He says and I scoff through my tears.
"Oh that's the pathetic reason? You made my mother a mistress for a child?!" I can't believe this man!
"No, no. Trust me, I didn't care about that, I had a free meal ticket without working after all but Ogechi took it hard. She started to resent me. We would fight and argue for days. Slept in different rooms even. I got tired of this. Left home for a week and that's when I met your mother. We fell in love so quickly. I couldn't stop it." The tears dripping down his tortured eyes mirrors that of his daughter.

Read " Set me free " by the same author ( Ameh juliet )

. Both father and daughter are quiet for a moment while I stand, holding unto Comfort's hand. Her eyes briefly comes up to mine before she looks back to her father.
"You should have stopped it. You killed her."
"I know. But I couldn't leave her when she was pregnant with my child."
"You still left anyways, didn't you?" Sarcasm drip with my words and I can tell that they cut him really deep with how his eyes softens.
"You needed the money for your chemotherapy treatment. I did it for you, Comfort. You could have died on that hospital bed."
"Well my mother died instead. I don't want to ever see you again, father." I turn from him to Raymond.
"Let's go." I say as I start for the car.
"No, Comfort! Let's talk about this! Comfort!"
I slam the door shut in his face as Raymond comes around to the driver's seat.
"Are you okay?" He asks softly as soon as we are on the road. Tears blind me as I shake my head.
"I'm not." I look up at the side view mirror to have a last look at my father and that's when I see the car coming fast at us from behind us.
"Raymond!!!!" I scream just as I feel the impact of the car crashing into us from behind.
I scream in shock as I'm thrown around in the seat as the car spins uncontrollably. I'm going to die without really living life to the fullest.
That's the first thought that comes into my mind as I see our car heading for the electric pole. I know my side of the car is going to be wrangled beyond recognition.
"Seatbelt!" Raymond yells. I fumble for the belt just as I watch Raymond turn the car right and his side of the car crash into the pole with a loud bang.