(Continued from last issue)
David and Diane have been married for years; then there is Julie, the young secretary whose axis collides with the couple’s in ways none of them saw coming.
DIANE
After everything he had put me through over the last few days with his disappearance and subsequent radio silence, I had known that seeing David again would be difficult; I just hadn’t expected it to be as difficult as it was.
That he could walk in with such a cavalier attitude, and then top it off by acting like I was crazy for being mad, flooded me with such a depth of hurt and rage, that I literally had to step away and lock myself in our bathroom until I could get my emotions under control.
That was not helped by David incessantly knocking at the door and pleading with me to come out, but finally, probably more because of my irritation at his knocking, rather than that I had managed to get my emotions under control, I opened the bathroom door and faced him defiantly.
“Fine, talk, even though I don’t see what you could possibly have to say!” I snapped.
In response, he took a deep breath, and then looked me straight in the eye, before simply announcing, “I’m moving out.”
For a few seconds, I simply stared at him in shocked silence, suddenly unable to formulate a coherent thought. Although by packing up most of his stuff and disappearing without a word, that was in effect what David had already done, and even though over the past few days I had been confronted with the reality of him being gone, to hear him actually say he was moving out, felt like I had been punched in the gut and had all the air knocked out of me.
He took advantage of my silence to go on: “I can’t go on like this. It’s always one thing or another with you; one minute you’re at the site fighting about property, the next you’re sending that bloody doctor over to the apartment, the next you’re causing a scene at my mother’s place; I just can’t do it anymore, Diane.”
Him blaming me for the wreck his affair had turned our marriage into was enough to jolt me out of my speechlessness.
“If you’ve decided to walk out on your family and go shack up with your whore, that’s fine, but at least have the balls to own your decision, rather than try to blame it on me! You did this David! You! Not me!”
I hissed through gritted teeth.
DAVID
Informing Diane that I was moving out had turned out to be just as hard as I had expected it to be; she had been furious and called me every name in the book, and if she had felt any sadness at the end of our marriage, she was too proud to show it, and certainly did not admit any responsibility for any part of its collapse.
In all honesty, though, that did not really bother me; what really stung, was leaving her the house I had poured years of hard work, diligent planning, saving and sacrifice into, to move into a rented two-bedroom apartment.
The other thing that I found incredibly difficult was talking to the girls. I had assumed that because they were still young, they would accept my carefully planned speech about how I was moving out, but still loved them, and would see them all the time, without too much of a fuss; instead, they had promptly burst into tears, begging me not to go, and breaking my heart in the process.
I loved them fiercely, and we had always had a very special bond; they had been my little princesses, and I had been their hero; so, for them to act like I was deserting or abandoning them, cut deep.
Like his mother, the only emotion Daniel showed was anger, as he sullenly glared at me from across the living room. When I asked if he had any questions, or anything he wanted to say, he just shrugged and mumbled something that sounded like ‘go, I don’t care.’
I was not surprised by his reaction as our relationship had always been challenging, but I was belatedly struck by the fear that me moving out would only accentuate the divide between us.
Furthermore, I would not put it past Diane to take advantage of the fact that I was out of the house to control the narrative of our separation to the children, and try to turn not just Daniel, but the girls against me as well.
The only way I could think of to combat that threat, was one I had already resolved to do anyway – to keep my promise to the girls to still spend as much time as I possibly could with them.
I was moving out because I could no longer deal with Diane and her deviousness, but I was determined that my relationship with our children would continue to remain a priority.
JULIE
Once David had left for the house, I returned to the real world with a thud; there were our bags from Jinja to unpack, laundry from the short holiday to get into the wash, and with us having been away for a few days, the entire apartment needed to be dusted and freshened up.
Besides that, Junior needed to be attended to, and even though David had not specified what time he would be back, I wanted to have a meal ready for him, whenever he returned.
The holiday was definitely over, I thought to myself wryly, as I began unpacking our bags. As sad as I was about the holiday being over, another part of me was excited about what came next, and yet another part of me was nervous about that too.
It was hard to describe how I felt, because I was feeling so many different things; I was obviously delighted that David was moving in with me, as that meant that we could finally be a proper family, which was all I had ever wanted since we had Junior.
At the same time, I worried about what effect moving in together would have on my relationship with David; everyone said the ‘honeymoon’ stage ended when you started living with someone, and started seeing all the small flaws and character traits that you never had the chance to notice before, and I worried about this happening.
I knew, for instance, that he was very particular about everything around him being clean and orderly, and although that was hard to maintain when you had a toddler in the home, I always pushed myself to ensure the apartment was spic and span when he arrived; would I be able to maintain that with him living in the apartment full-time, especially when there were all the other things like cooking, laundry, and Junior’s care to attend to, not to mention the management of the Katosi site?
And what about what came after the day’s work was done? When Junior was asleep, dinner eaten and the dishes done and packed away? David was a great lover, and I loved making love to him, but would we be able to maintain that spark and chemistry when we shared the same bed every night?
Finally, there was the ever-present fear of how his wife would react; she had waged a war against me from the start of my relationship with David; what would she do now that he had moved in with me?
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