I don’t know how I got here.
One minute I was at the police station, the next minute I’m standing on a bridge. Cars are passing behind me, people are driving home, somebody is laughing somewhere, and life is still happening.
How strange, the world didn’t stop. It should have. Mine did but everybody else’s seems perfectly fine.
I grip the rail harder, I can barely feel my fingers. I haven’t cried in almost an hour, I think I’ve gone beyond crying. The last twenty-four hours have been too much for one person, too much.
This morning I had a husband, a sister, a mother living under my roof and three children. A home, a life, and now…I don’t know what I have anymore.
I close my eyes, immediately, I see him…Chidi. Lying on the floor, blood, so much blood.
I had screamed so loudly the neighbours came running. I remember falling to my knees…I remember calling his name…I remember shaking him…I remember already knowing.
Because there’s a stillness to death, a terrible stillness and my husband had it. Ten years…ten whole years…just lying there. Gone.
I still haven’t properly mourned him.
How can I?
Every time I try, something else happens. The police came, questions, neighbours, ambulance, noise, and then somebody said my sister’s name.
I remember laughing, actually laughing. Because it sounded ridiculous and impossible. My younger sister?…No.
Not my sister.
Not the girl who had lived with us for years.
Not the girl who practically raised my children with me.
Not the girl my daughter calls her second mummy.
Impossible.
Then I saw her in handcuffs with police officers and suddenly impossible became real. Then my mother collapsed, just collapsed. One minute she was crying, the next minute she was on the floor. Then somebody shouted for water, another person shouted for a car and someone else shouted my name.
I still don’t know who took my mother to the hospital, I still don’t know who picked up my children, I only know I called my friend and told her, “Please get my children.” I don’t even remember saying their names, I just remember saying, “Please.”
Everything after that happened like a dream, a terrible dream. The hospital…The police station…The questions…The waiting. I kept thinking there had been a mistake, there had to be.
My sister couldn’t kill my husband.
No.
There had to be another explanation…maybe she found him, maybe she touched something, maybe somebody lied…I held onto that hope all day. Then they finally allowed me to see her. I almost wish they hadn’t.
Because the person sitting there…wasn’t my sister. At least she didn’t look like her. Her hair was scattered, her eyes looked strange, almost empty. She looked like somebody wearing my sister’s face.
I sat down slowly, she didn’t even look at me. I called her name…Nothing. I called it again, still nothing. I reached for her hand but she moved away.
I started crying…“Tell them where you were.”…Nothing. “Talk to me.” Nothing. “Please.”
Then she laughed. I have never heard anything like that laugh before. It didn’t sound human, it sounded broken. I felt cold immediately, and then she started mumbling.
At first I couldn’t hear, so I moved closer. Then I heard it.
“I didn’t mean to kill him.”
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
She laughed again.
“I didn’t mean to kill him.”
I felt my entire body go numb, and then moved closer.
“What are you saying?”
Then suddenly…she jumped at me. I didn’t even see it coming. One second she was sitting, the next she was on top of me. Her fingers were reaching for my face, my eyes, and she was screaming…
“I wanted to kill you!”
I froze.
“I wanted you dead!”
She was crying and laughing at the same time.
“Why would he choose you?”
I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even understand. Police officers rushed in and pulled her away. She was still screaming…
“Why would he choose you?”
Then she started talking, talking and talking, and every word felt like somebody stabbing me.
Four years…She and my husband…An affair…Right under my roof…Under my nose…In my house…My house. She laughed while she said it, laughed as though she was telling a funny story. Then she said she had gotten pregnant.
I stopped hearing properly after that…Pregnant. She said he wanted to marry her…Marry her. I think my heart actually stopped, then she said I made him change his mind. I don’t know how…I don’t even know when…Because I didn’t know any of this existed.
She said she had an abortion…I wanted to scream…I wanted to wake up…I wanted somebody to tell me this wasn’t happening.
Instead she kept talking, Then came the worst part.
“He wanted me to leave.”
She said it with so much anger.
“He wanted to work on his marriage.”
She spat the word marriage.
“What about me? What about everything he promised me?”
I looked at her, really looked at her, and I didn’t know this person. I genuinely didn’t. This woman hated me…all these years. She hated me. I remembered birthdays…Christmases….Family pictures…Laughing together…Cooking together…Sharing secrets…And all that time…
She wanted my life, she wanted my husband and she wanted to be me.
Then she said something that will probably follow me for the rest of my life.
“I wanted us to kill you together.”
I stared at her.
“I went to tell him the plan.”
She laughed again.
“He chose you.”
She screamed it this time.
“He chose you!”
The room became quiet, even the police officers looked shocked. One of them actually looked away, I think even he didn’t know what to do with what he had heard. Then she started laughing again…at me…at my marriage…at my life…at everything.
The officers took me out. I don’t remember leaving, I don’t remember walking, I don’t remember driving, I don’t remember anything, I only remember ending up here…
…on this bridge.
I open my eyes, the water below is black, very black. I grip the rail tighter…I think about my husband…then my sister…then my mother…then my children.
My children…three little people who still think their world is normal. Three little people waiting for me to explain why Daddy isn’t coming home…Why Auntie isn’t coming home either…Why Grandma is in the hospital.
How do I explain any of this? How? I don’t even understand it myself. I suddenly realize something…The woman who left for work this morning no longer exists. She’s gone. Whoever I am now…I haven’t met her yet.
A tear rolls down my face, then another and then another. I look at the dark water below, then look at the lights of the city and then back at the water.
I take one step forward, then stop. Somewhere in the distance, a phone starts ringing. I look down…my phone. I don’t remember taking it out.
The screen lights up…it’s my daughter’s picture…her smiling face. The contact reads: My Baby Girl.
The phone keeps ringing…I stare at it…then at the water…and then at the picture. The ringing stops.
A second later…it starts again. I close my eyes and for the first time today…I honestly don’t know which direction my life is about to go.