I didn’t sleep, not properly. I lay on my side of the bed, staring into the darkness, listening to the sound of my wife’s breathing. She was sleeping, or at least she appeared to be. I wasn’t. Her question kept repeating itself in my head.
“If you are allowed to marry four wives, why have you assumed that your first wife is automatically going to agree to be one of them?”
Simple question, very simple. Yet somehow, I had no answer. I turned onto my back, stared at the ceiling, then turned to my side again.
Maybe she had misunderstood me. Maybe I hadn’t explained myself properly. But I had. I had spoken for almost half an hour. I had explained everything, religion, responsibility, fairness, culture, our future and everything. I had interpreted her silence as acceptance. Now I was wondering whether it had actually been restraint.
I closed my eyes, another question came. What exactly did I expect her to say?
“Congratulations, Jide”?
I almost laughed. Then another thought entered my head.
What if she said no?
What would I do?
That was where the situation became uncomfortable. Because somewhere inside me, I already knew that I had not started this conversation simply because I wanted to test a religious possibility. There is a part I hadn’t told my wife about.
I got up, walked into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, stared inside, closed it and opened it again. Nothing had changed.
I poured myself water, drank, then stood there in the darkness. Maybe I should forget the entire thing. Go back to my normal life, my wife, my children, my responsibilities, six years of marriage and our home we have built together. Perhaps this was simply one of those thoughts that should remain a thought.
I returned to bed. Ten minutes later, I was back in the kitchen. Another glass of water. This time, my wife called from the bedroom.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been going to the kitchen.”
“I’m thirsty.”
A pause, “At two in the morning?”
I stared at the glass in my hand, “Obviously.”
She didn’t answer and I went back to bed. Somehow, after hours of thinking, arguing with myself and mentally cross-examining my own intentions, I finally slept. For a few hours.
Morning came too quickly. I woke up feeling like somebody had removed all the strength from my body. My head was heavy and my eyes were tired. Even my bones seemed to be asking me what kind of nonsense I had been doing all night. My wife was already awake.
She greeted me, “Good morning.”
“Morning.”
She was preparing my lunch. My food was packed and my bottle of water was beside it. Everything looked normal, too normal. But something was different.
Her voice was polite. Not warm, not cold, just…Careful. I watched her. She didn’t mention last night, neither did I.
I picked up my lunch, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
That was it. I left for work, and somehow, that silence followed me into the car.
By the time I got to the office, I was exhausted. I sat behind my desk, opened my laptop, read the same email three times, nothing entered my head. My mind kept returning to the conversation, then to her questions, then to the things I had not said, and finally…
To her.
My first love.
I hadn’t planned to think about her, but there she was, again. Her name appeared in my mind like it had been waiting patiently for years. We had loved each other before my marriage. Young love. The kind that makes two people believe the world is theirs.
Then life happened. We lost contact. Distance and different paths. Eventually, I met my wife. We got married, had children and built a home. Life moved forward, or so I thought.
She then resurfaced, unexpectedly. A message, then another and then phone calls. At first, I told myself it was harmless. Two old friends reconnecting, nothing more. But feelings don’t care about the explanations we give ourselves.
She was still herself, and somehow… I was still myself around her. She was single, financially independent, successful, very successful, actually. She didn’t need me to take care of her. She wasn’t looking for somebody to rescue her.
She had been unusually honest about what she wanted. She knew I was married and she knew I had children. She didn’t pretend otherwise. Her position had been straightforward.
“If you love me,” she had told me, “then don’t make me a secret.”
She had even said she wouldn’t mind being a second wife. Not because she was desperate, not because she needed my money and mot because she wanted to compete with my wife. She simply wanted me. According to her, she had no problem sharing a man if the arrangement was honest and respectful.
At the time, I told myself that I was only listening. But listening had become conversations, conversations had become meetings and meetings had become something I didn’t want to name.
I rubbed my face. This was the problem. If she were simply some random woman, I could dismiss everything. But she wasn’t. She was someone I had loved before. Someone who knew me before marriage. Someone who had resurfaced at exactly the wrong time.
My phone buzzed, I ignored it. It buzzed again. I picked it up. One message.
**Are we still meeting later today?**
I stared at the screen. My first instinct was to type:
**Yes.**
My second was:
**No.**
My third was to switch off my phone completely. Instead, I put it down. Then picked it up again. I stared at the message.
Last night, I had gone home convinced I was simply discussing the possibility of another marriage with my wife. This morning, sitting alone in my office, I realised the truth.
I wasn’t deciding whether to marry again. I was deciding between two lives. One was the life I had already built…A wife who had given me six years, two children, a home, history.
The other was a love I thought I had buried. A woman who had somehow returned and made me question whether some feelings ever really die.
And now my wife’s question from the previous night came back to me.
“Why have you assumed that your first wife is automatically going to agree to be one of them?”
I suddenly wondered whether she had sensed it. Whether she already knew there was another woman. Whether she had been listening to everything I said while waiting for me to tell her the part I deliberately left out.
I looked at my phone again. The message was still there.
**Are we still meeting later today?**
I stared at it for a long time, then I whispered to myself,
“What exactly are you doing, Jide?”
My finger hovered over the keyboard.
I could answer.
I could cancel.
I could tell the truth.
I could lie.
I could walk away from the entire thing.
Or…
I could meet the woman I had never stopped loving.
My phone buzzed again., another message.
**I need to know what you’ve decided.**
I swallowed, because suddenly… I wasn’t sure which woman I was more afraid of disappointing.
My wife.
Her.
Or even myself.