Page 64 of Jade: Chance Are

“Naseer, I have a lot of work.”

“You can bring your work but I’m not waiting any longer to meet them. I’ve already missed years of their lives. Not anymore.”

“Okay, let’s go to bed.” I take her hand and we head to her bedroom. She changes to her sleepwear. “Jade, what did you do with your wedding ring,” I ask.

“It’s back home in a drawer” she answers as I pull her to me.

I soon toss the sleepwear not sure why she bothers to put that one. “I love you Mariam Jadesola Raimlat.” She laughs.

“I love you Naseer Arthur Raimlat,” she says making me smile.

We make love all night. My wife is back to her old self. The alarm wakes us in the morning. I watch her get ready for her day. I love this woman. She leaves with the driver and two bodyguards driving behind her car. I know she wants to argue about bodyguards, she also knows, she won’t win that argument with me.

I got ready and headed to visit my father. He’s quiet when he sees me.

We sit in silence. I’m not going to be the first to speak after a long awkward silence. He finally speaks.

“I’m sorry son, I was wrong. I admit that I went too far.” Now that’s the understatement of the century.

“Why?” My question was calm, but it was dripping with the intensity of anger that was about to explode.

“When you have children, you will realize that you always want what’s best for your children. All I did was try to give you what I thought was best.”

“No, Dad, the crown on my head was what’s best for you. I told you several times I didn’t want the crown, but you refused to listen, you thought it was best to eliminate my wife, the mother of my children.”

“Wife? Children?” His incredulous look says it all. He missed the crucial angle that became his downfall.

“Yes, Dad, wife, and children. I married Mariam before she graduated college. She always thought you would never accept her, we used to fight about what the future held for us. I didn’t see it, but she did, looking back now, guess she was right all along.

I married her to let her know our future was together, I just kept our nuptial quiet because I wanted to have a grand wedding after she graduated, only I returned to an empty house and my wife just gone, now I’m glad we kept it quiet because you probably would have killed her.”

“I had no plans to kill her.”

“Yet, you set it up for someone to give her food that could kill her.”

“I just wanted to scare her; I didn’t think she could die from food allergy.”

“I find that hard to believe, considering I told you a while back that she is severely allergic to avocado, she’s the reason I gave up eating avocado despite how much I love eating avocado, well you did achieve one goal. You scared her, bravo mission accomplished.” I give a sad clap. “To think the first time Jade told me about her allergy, she mentioned how her dad thought someone could use it to harm her. I thought it was paranoia but guess I was clueless because I unknowingly gave you the perfect secret to killing my Jade.”

“I honestly didn’t remember her allergy was that serious.”

“Again, I find it hard to believe that you of all people didn’t remember. How did you find out she was in Rhanaz, is the real question?”

“Princess Nadra told me when I ran into her at a gathering. I was asking her about you two and she’d responded saying you barely notice her because of Mariam. I asked, what she meant. She then gave me the details of Mariam working at LaBelle plus the fact you’d moved your office to LaBelle to be close to her. I was upset, Mariam had defied me and come close to you after I’d paid her to go away. I wanted to speak with her to remind her of our agreement, I noticed you had a bodyguard on her.”

“So, you decided to find another way to reach her because you knew, I’ll know if you got close to her.”

“Yes, but please believe me. I just wanted to scare her.”

“Like I said, you did achieve the goal of fear, she’s still terrified of you, it’s a long road to crush that fear.”

“Please, son, can I at least speak with your mother?”

“I’m not controlling that, she’s the one not wanting to speak to you right now.”

“I have given her a choice that she can be here with you but if she chooses you, she can’t see my children.”

“When did you have children?”