The following weekend, Jay was at the barber's having a haircut when he got a frantic phone call from Reena.
She sounded upset as if she had been crying.
"You need to come home right now, Jay!" she said.
As he drove the short distance to his house, he wondered what could have happened.
Had the so-called 'spirit' husband suddenly showed up in the flesh or what, he wondered.
Reena was sitting on the steps of the verandah of his apartment, surrounded by suitcases and other luggage.
"What's going on here?" he asked, as he stepped out of the car.
She ran up to him.
"Your mother, Jay. She came and...and..." she said, her voice breaking.
"My mother's around? And she threw you out of the house? Where's she?" he demanded, noting her dishevelled look, her eyes dull- looking and red rimmed from weeping.
She nodded towards the house.
"Are you ok? Come with me," he said, holding her by the shoulders.
Inside the house, his mother and Aunty Grace, her younger sister were at the dining table, eating and talking.
"Oh, Jacob, you're back. Come and join us. I brought your favourite vegetable soup and..."
Usually, Jay was always happy to see his mother whenever she came visiting from her Ikorodu home but not that day; not after what she had done to Reena.
"What's the meaning of this, Mama?
Why are you doing this to my wife? How can you just come here and throw her out like that?"
"Wife? What wife? When did you marry her? Anyway it's not going to happen as long as I'm alive!" she declared.
"That's not the issue now, Mama. She's staying with me and you can't just come and kick her out! Where do you want her to go?"
"She should go back to where she came from or did she fall from the sky?" the woman retorted, not ready to budge from her hard line posture..
She left the dining table and eyed Reena up and down, hissed and went to the kitchen.
Jay, still fuming at the shabby way Reena was treated, marched after her.
"Look, Mama. This is the woman I love, that I want to marry. You should at least treat her like a daughter not like an enemy."
"Treat who like a daughter? That thing?" she said as she washed her hands at the sink."What do you know about her? Who are her people? Her family? You pick a girl from the street who I hear behaves strangely and you want to marry her? What's wrong with you, Jacob? What charm did she give you that made you lose your senses like this? Well, you can do whatever you like but note that I can never accept her into our family."
She left him in the kitchen and called out to her sister: "Grace, let's go!"
After his mother and aunt had left, he held Reena close to him on the couch, apologising for his mother's behaviour.
"I don't know what came over her. She's normally a nice person."
Reena laid her head on his shoulder, sighed and said:
"She's right you know, Jay. Maybe it's time I left."
"What are you talking about? Where are you going?" he queried.
"Back to where I came from," she said.
He gazed curiously at her."And where's that"?
She was silent for a moment.
"Jay, I think it's time you knew the truth. You see, I'm...
The concluding part of this series will be published soon. Watch out!
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