WRONG
ACCEPTANCE
“Ikenna, are you that daft?” Chief Uzoma
roared on phone. “Don’t you know when someone doesn’t want to pick your call?”
Ikenna, his third child who was in the
university, had been intermittently and consistently making effort to reach him
since morning all to no avail. He thought it wise to take the apparent
disturbing phone calls at this time being 5.00pm just to avert further
‘embarrassments’.
“If you dare call this line again,” he
rode on in a jiffy. “I bet you, you would regret knowing me as your father.” He
forcefully landed, quickly cut the call on the chap.
It was in the previous day being Friday
that Chief B. U. Uzoma got the report that the 20-year-old Ikenna was currently
living with a female colleague in his school apartment. The undergraduate who
was a second year student of Architecture wasn’t aware that such notice had
gotten to his father’s desk, thus was so devastated over the abrupt weird
attitude being displayed by the 61-year-old Nigerian.
He had as well tried getting in touch
with his darling mum, Ifeoma but her phone was malfunctioning at the moment.
She could not take any incoming call owing to the anomaly but Ikenna had
assumed that she was equally avoiding him. All these complications had almost
resulted to nervous wreck.
The poor dude was left with no other
option than to prepare his baggage towards visiting home. Thank God it was
weekend, Saturday precisely, so he had all the time in the world to depart from
the campus till the following Monday. The institution was about fifteen
kilometres (15km) away from his home and the distance required two transits if
the traveller was meant to commute in a public vehicle.
“My son, living with a woman?” Chief
Uzoma soliloquized as he stood alone in his house lounge the moment he cut the
call on Ikenna. “Could it be real?” he added, tried to walk round the enclosed
arena and never minded that the television sited before him was switched on.
In a few seconds time, his wife Ifeoma
walked in, and smartly observed that all was not well with him. “Honey,” she
called as she stood by the door. “What is eating you up?” she tendered, walked
to the centre table, took the remote and lowered the TV’s volume to the barest
minimum.
Chief Uzoma hastily turned on hearing
the question. Hmm….!” he exclaimed, walked to a seat and sat down. “My dear,
don’t mind me.” He urged as he was loosely seated in the multiple-coloured
cushion.
Ifeoma was yet to know that her son was
reportedly residing with a lady. Maybe this was the apt moment for her to
receive the information from the apparently demoralized father of five.
She
stepped closer to him and sat in the seat sited closely to his. “What did you
mean by that?” she enquired. “Isn’t it obvious that you look very disturbed?”
She thought aloud, fixing her gaze on his.
“Disturbed?” he asked rhetorically.
“Please dear,” she said. “Stop this
pretence.”
“I don’t know what you are talking
about.” He said in false pretences.
“You don’t know what I am talking
about?” she echoed.
“Of course,” quoth Chief Uzoma.
“Because, there is nothing wrong with me.” He said, took a breath. “Just that I
had a very stressful day.” he contrived hesitantly.
“A very stressful day?”
“Yes,” replied the titled chief. “My day
was so hectic.”
“Okay ooh.” She surrendered, raised the TV’s
volume with the remote in her right hand.
Perhaps he was of the view that she need
not know about the circumstance, or maybe that wasn’t the right time for
disclosure. Whatever the case could be, the fact remained that he would at a
time surely let the cat out of the bag.
When
the information filtered in yesterday while he was seated in his private
office, Chief B. U. Uzoma thought it was a mere joke or something targeted
towards pulling his legs, little did he know that the informant truly meant it.
“What..?” he exclaimed at the top of
his voice while seated when the information via phone call sounded more
serious. “Oh, my God…!” he added, stood up.
“Uncle,
this is happening here on campus.” The informant, Okey added. “I wish you are
here to see things for yourself.”
Okey who made the call just to send the
notice across, was Chief Uzoma’s nephew. He was begotten by the Chief’s married
younger sister and was schooling in the same university with Ikenna, though in
a different department.
Since that previous day the information
came to him, he had been psychologically and mentally unstable but till this
moment, had never bothered to hear directly from the accused chap, or consider
paying him a surprise visit toward ascertaining the genuineness of the notice.
Neither had him made up his mind to share the story with his lovely wedded
wife, Ifeoma who had ab inito remained his best friend in any matter on ground
let alone this very one that concerned their biological son.
“Lest I forget,” quoth Ifeoma as they
were closely seated right in the lounge. “Ikenna has been trying to reach me
but my phone is bad.” she disclosed, paused. “Please, has he called you?”
Chief
Uzoma shook his head reluctantly. “No.” he managed to utter.
“Honey, why are you acting this way?” Ifeoma
ranted. “I am talking about your son here.”
“My son..?” he said, looking into her
eyes. “That is not my son.”
“What…?”
“You heard me right.”
Therein, Ikenna walked in with a brief
luggage. “Hey mum!” he exclaimed elatedly, stepped towards the couple.
“Hey, that’s my boy…!” Ifeoma responded
on sighting him, hastily stood up.
She graciously walked to and hugged
him enthusiastically.
“Dad?” the chap called, looking at his
father who was still firmly seated.
Chief Uzoma didn’t respond.
“Your son is greeting you.” The wife
reminded, looking down to him.
“Mitchew…!” the Chief sighed, stood up
and dashed into his matrimonial room.
To be continued, please!
FDN Nwaozor
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