‘So you had just played daddy, you aren’t even her step father.’ Janet told him. They were in his house that Saturday morning, she had gone to see him about his last meeting with Imelda her friend like sister. Or that was what she had told Imelda she was going there to do. ‘I don’t understand why you are suddenly feeling this way. Imelda will come to terms with all of this sooner or later.’ She told him.
‘You don’t understand, Janet. I promised her mother I’ll be there for her till she marries. It seems I’m breaking that promise now.’
Janet chuckled, ‘So if she wants to get married in ten years from now, you will wait, huh? Kelvin this isn’t breaking a promise, this is leaving your own life, moving on. After all, you haven’t said you’ll stop being responsible for her. Or have you?’
‘No, not even after she is married. But it was Imelda’s last wish and I promised her.’
‘So?’
‘Janet, you still don’t get it. Imelda didn’t want marriage because she knew she was going to die. That story about a quack nurse was just so that herdaughter would not know what she hadn’t been telling her.’
Even Janet was shocked. She knew Imelda’s mother. The first Imelda. She was there with her friend when she passed away that morning. And unlike her own mother she hadn’t even left her friend with a death wish or something. ‘So you framed it up?’ She asked Kelvin.
He nodded, ‘She asked me not to tell her until I feel the time was right. And I don’t even think now is time.’
Janet came to sit beside him and put her hand around him, ‘Kelvin dear. A man like you is rare. With no much love in your life growing up, yet you love dearly when you do.’ She paused and stroked his head. ‘No time is more perfect than now. I know you love your daughter..’ she said that with a mix of sarcasm, ‘but some things just happen.’
Kelvin sighed, Imelda was more than any daughter, he love her like his heart just like he had loved her mother too. He looked at Janet, this is another woman he had come to love and though he had met her through his daughter, he had not felt any regret. ‘I feel heavy telling her now…..’
‘Don’t feel heavy, Mr. Kelvin and don’t regret anything either.’
Janet and Kelvin turned their heads simultaneously at the direction of the voice. They were shocked to see Imelda in a house coat and slippers. She came to stand before them now. She went on ‘If you have kept any of my mum’s wish, it’s that you told me the quack nurse story.’ She paused and chuckled sadly, ‘But I was too old to believe such a specialist hospital could have a quack nurse, especially with the kind of special care you made them give my mum. So after her death, I went on my own findings. My mother died of a kidney inflammatory disease.’
She smiled at her friend, ‘Congratulations Janet. You got one of the best men in the world. And Mr. Kelvin, I love you. For all the years I’ve spent with you and my mum, they were the best years of my life.’ She paused and sat down. ‘I came into the house last night, I guess you guys went out. And I have been listening to your conversation all morning.’
‘Janet, I am not mad at you for having an affair with my daddy.’ She used her hand to put the word daddy in inverted commas. ‘Yes, he has to move on and not wait till I’m married but I only feel betrayed you hid it for a whole year. And you didn’t even want to let me know he is the father of your baby.’ She chuckled and nodded, ‘This must be part of the script too, but it’s alright. I am going to act this script till the director says ‘Cut and Perfect’”
She got up and went back to her room. Janet and Kelvin were still in shock when she came back. She was dressed and with two boxes. To her friend she said, ‘Janet, this is home. Welcome.’ And to her late mother’s boyfriend, ‘Mr. Kelvin, I’m going to be at the wedding and we are still going to be talking on the phone.’
She left the house.
-Abigail
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