24 Jun PREVIEW: A Renewed Kind of Love

CHAPTER ONE

A WISH…A PRAYER

APRIL 2020

Morin

WHY SHOULD I BE THE ONE to pray for our marriage? He’s the one who messed up. Let him pray!

These were the words that echoed in Morin head as she sat through the online prayer session from the link her mother-in-law sent, without fail, at 7am in the morning, and always with an accompanying text message.

Make sure you join today, Omorinsola. There is nothing God cannot do. He is already answering our prayers.

That was today’s message. As the charismatic pastor on her screen prayed with rising intensity, Morin sighed, wondering if her beloved mother-in-law was also sending these links to her son, Mofe. Almost a year since their separation, if her metric of God answering their prayers was Mofe’s return to town after months of frolicking with his mistress, then her mother-in-law dearest, and indeed anyone of that mindset, had another think coming.

Unable to focus, Morin exited the YouTube prayer session, navigating instead to the two Instagram accounts she had avoided like the plague in months gone by but which she had taken to stalking in the last couple of weeks; her estranged husband’s and Keji’s, the woman he left for – his ex-girlfriend…and her one-time best friend. But while Mofe’s page hadn’t been updated since his perfunctory post on their tenth wedding anniversary a year before, Keji’s had yet another picture of her with arms wrapped around Mofe, with the caption I Miss My Man, in line with the throwback pictures she had been sharing for a few weeks. Morin’s lips pursed as she looked at the image on her screen, her chest constricting at the sight of Keji’s face nuzzled in the crook of Mofe’s neck as she took the selfie. Never one for pictures, Mofe’s smile was awkward and almost reluctant, but the hand resting on Keji’s waist looked anything but unwilling. So, unlike his mother thought, there didn’t appear to trouble in paradise between the lovers.

Deciding she’d had enough self-torture, Morin blocked both accounts again. Blowing out air from her mouth, she set her phone on the nightstand, shut her eyes, and tried to will away the familiar feelings of despondency and despair that arose when confronted with the reason her decade-long marriage had collapsed; her husband’s infidelity. It was easier when he was away. It was easier to work towards recovery when she didn’t have to see him. After blocking and muting any social media account that could have updates about him, it was easier to begin her journey to self-recovery. But with Mofe’s return to Nigeria, it was going to be a whole lot harder.

And that was proven the one and only time she’d seen him since his return. After intentionally avoiding any occasion of running into him since his return in February – having her cousin, Bimbo, in the house with the kids when he visited – her mother-in-law’s seventieth birthday party two weeks ago was the first time she’d set eyes on him in almost year. And if the panicked look on his face was any indication, he was just as unenthusiastic about seeing her as she was about seeing him. Their greeting had been awkward and brief and had left her with a racing heart that triggered an anxiety attack the moment she was alone in the bedroom they’d once shared when she got home that night. But, for some reason, that same meeting had given his mother hope, and even though the woman had been sending her the daily prayer link since Mofe moved out a year ago, after her birthday, these came with prompts to ‘pray against the forces of evil around Mofe which have started weakening’. The image of Keji’s latest post flashed in her head and Morin scoffed.

Weaken indeed.

It wasn’t ‘forces of evil’ that made Mofe do what he did exactly a year ago. No.

He’d done that willfully.

Mofe

Mofe sat contemplative in his apartment, the prayer link from his mother reigniting, yet again, the memory of seeing Morin at his mother’s birthday party two weeks before, after so many weeks of trying, but failing, to even if only get a glimpse of her every time he went by the house to see their children. He didn’t click open the link, neither did he turn on the TV as had been his intention when his eyes opened. Instead, he lay awake in the dark room, the room quiet but his loneliness loud as tolling bells, mourning everything he’d lost on the eve of what would have been him and Morin’s eleventh wedding anniversary.

Wishing he could go back in time to change it all.

After lying in bed for another hour, he reluctantly pushed himself off it and set off to shower and prepare for his meetings. He had already lost his marriage, he couldn’t afford to lose his livelihood as well. He was getting dressed when his phone vibrated from where it lay on the bed. Walking over to it, he frowned when he saw Keji’s name flashing on the screen. He knew he should block her, knew he should severe this frayed thread of communication that still existed between them, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that to her. Even if all her phone calls followed the same trajectory of begging him to return to Geneva.

“I can’t talk,” he said as he answered the call.

“I wouldn’t have to call you if you were here. I miss you.”

He sighed and massaged his forehead, having exhausted all the words to let her know they were done. Permanently.

“I have to go,” he said instead.

“How many times do I have to tell you I’m sorry? I’m sorry! Not a day goes by that I don’t regret the things I said to you…”

“Keji, you and I both know this was over long before that,” he answered, his exasperation rising. “This never should have happened in the first place!”

“Don’t you say that! Don’t you dare say that to me, Mofe!” Keji wailed. “Don’t you dare say that about the beautiful thing we have.”

Mofe rolled his eyes and sat on the bed. It was the same song and dance every single day.

“I’ll send back the money…” Keji said.

“No. Please keep it. It’s your well-earned finder’s fee and I should have paid it ages ago.”

“But it’s too much…”

“Please, just keep it and leave this thing be,” Mofe said, his head beginning to ache. “I’m not moving back to Geneva. We’re over, Keji. I don’t want to have to block you but please, just…” his words faltered as he sighed, wishing words were all it would take to not only make her understand what he was saying but to undo the last year, wiping it entirely from existence. “Just let me get my head in the right space. Please.”

Not waiting for a response, he ended the call and contemplated tapping the red Block Caller prompt at the bottom of his phone’s screen. But as exasperated as Keji’s persistence made him, as frustrated as he was by his solitude in the small short-let that was his temporary abode, as frustrated as he was by the destruction of his marriage, he knew Keji wasn’t the villain in his story.

No, that was a title meant for only him.

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