chapter 18

It was already two weeks since mama started to stay with her son and his wife, with her bags full of trouble of course.

Ifeoma was already tired of it all but she had stopped paying any attention at all to her and kept giving her husband attitude. She stopped complaining as well and just went about her work, also making sure to mind her business in the house. It felt like she was the third wheel in the house and not her mother-in-law.

She didn't even talk much to her husband anymore neither do they play and joke around like they used to. Mama was straining the relationship and it still seemed normal to Fikayo.

Ifeoma turned to the wall as her husband prepared to lay on the other side of the bed. Fikayo sighed.

What was paining him wasn't the fact that she refused to talk to him but the fact that she also refused to do the bed duties and it was frustrating him already.

"Oma, please. I'm horny" Fikayo started.

Ifeoma knew she can always win over her husband in that aspect, when he starts begging and pleading for sex. She knew that she has a upper hand and she was ready to use it to her satisfaction.

"Oma, I'm sorry" Fikayo begged even though he really didn't know what he was sorry for but then he'd do anything to have some of that sugar.

"What are you sorry for o?" Ifeoma asked and turned to him.

"I don't know" He replied.

"If you don't know what you're sorry for, why say sorry? Get ready to sleep" Ifeoma snapped.

"Wait na. Okay, I'm sorry for the strain we are having and whatever I might have done to offend you. Oma, I'm sorry for what I'll do next sef. Please na" Fikayo pleaded desperately.

"It's when you are horny that you remember to beg for everything you've done and haven't done. Ayo, I've been relegated to second wife o, there should be shifts. Do you want to starve your first wife?" Ifeoma said sarcastically.

Fikayo decided to play dumb, "I have only one wife and that's you, my dearest Ifeoma. I can never think of taking another wife not to talk of relegating you to second wife"

"Indeed, your mother nko?"

"Oma now. I'm sorry, please" Fikayo tried to close the issue as he started to kiss and caress his wife.

Mama barged into the room suddenly and they almost jumped out of their bed.

Ifeoma hissed, Fikayo rolled his eyes too.

"You want to make love and you didn't lock the door. It's like you've forgotten that we have someone in this house that doesn't understand the word privacy" Ifeoma murmured glaring at her husband.

"Mama, what is it?!" Fikayo snapped.

"Akanni, how dare you shout at me? Is it not you I am watching out for? Nothing is more important than what I came here to do. Get up! We need to pray right now. There are evil spirits in this house, they're in every nook and corner" Mama lamented.

Ifeoma hissed loudly again and turned to her other side.

"Keep hissing. I can't blame you, you are the one who invited those evil spirits anyway. You're their queen, Marine water evil spirit" Mama cursed while Ifeoma continued to ignore her.

"Mama! It's enough! We don't have any evil spirit in our house. Pastor comes to sanctify it regularly" Fikayo convinced.

"All those yeye pastors? Just give me the opportunity to invite baba Anigilaje , my herbalist. He'll point them out for you, even your wife will dance out and show her real self" Mama pestered.

Fikayo was getting even more irritated.

"Mama, you're getting on my last nerves. It's becoming too much. My wife is not a mermaid or whatever you think!" Fikayo snapped.

Mama burst into tears.

"So now I can't even guide my own son properly? Akanni, you know what I went through to make you who you are today

o . So now, you want to start shouting at me because of your wife? The woman that wasn't there when I was suffering to make you who you are today, ehn , Akanni. The woman that will leave you if one small thing happens to you now and I'll still be the one that'll stay by you."

Mama remnisced amidst tears.

Ifeoma hissed again.

"Drama Queen" she murmured.

"Mama, I'm sorry. But there's no evil spirit. I'm sorry for shouting at you" Fikayo apologized.

" Oko mi, what an elder sees while sitting, a child would never see even while standing, the evil spirits in this house want evil for you and I would not allow them. I didn't give birth to you and raise you for years only to allow some idiots turn you into something else for me. And your wife? She's so relented when it comes to praying matters, look at her sleeping when I said there is fire on the roof. Until the fire burns her, she won't pray" Mama said.

"Anybody that wishes for fire to burn me, Holy Ghost Fire will burn that person" Ifeoma said solemnly although loud enough to be heard by her husband and his mother.

"Holy Ghost Fire will not burn me, I carry Holy Ghost fire in me already. The banana is rotting, we keep saying it's ripening. Useless wife. Only God can help you!" Mama concluded and went out of the room.

"Mama, that's too harsh! You want prayer? Oya!" Fikayo said as he followed his mom out of the room.

"Evil spirit is in the house? If there are any at all, it's she herself, nothing else." Ifeoma murmured.

***

Fikayo came back into the room after a long chain of prayers and by then his wife was asleep.

He decided to wake her up.

"Oma, oya " He said.

"Please, please! I don't feel like anymore, go and meet your mother. She can do everything for you!" Ifeoma snapped and went back to sleep.

Fikayo sighed.

"What has he gotten himself into" He thought.

TO BE CONTINUED...