…About 2 years ago, the two gentlemen had met in a hotel during breakfast. Maxwell, had gone there on a personal retreat to pray and seek God. His marriage was on the rocks and all his efforts to try and salvage it were not working, so he took time out and went to a different city about 100 miles away to be alone with God. This was his last day and he was watching the morning news when Boris who was on a work seminar asked if he could join him for breakfast. The unlikely pair started out on a dry conversation about the weather and hopped from one thing to the other and the talk never seemed to end.
Maxwell, kept asking him to go for his seminar, but Boris decided to stay and chat because he was so bored with the facilitators and his talk with Max was a breath of fresh air. Maxwell had a good appeal around him, that whenever anyone started chatting with him on any random topic, you just wanted to stay on and talk. He had this glue around him that was confident, nice and appealing. Boris just learnt that his new buddy Maxwell, was a Christian like himself and that his marriage was in a terrible crisis. He listened to Max as he poured out his heart. He was so moved by this guy’s predicament that he offered to pray with him and offer him some encouragement and that became the genesis of their friendship. They would exchange contacts and then plan to meet for coffee and golf. Anytime either of them was having a men’s church activity at their church, the other guy invited his buddy and that’s how their bond grew.
Borris was there for him during his divorce proceedings and basically just stood with him as a brother who needed a shoulder. He had even invited Max to come over for dinner so that he could meet his family but somehow, that never saw the light of the day. Something always came up and it gradually slipped through the cracks.
So, when Max met Melanie at the soccer club, she was a total stranger and he couldn’t connect her to Borris. Melanie never talked or addressed her husband by name when talking to Max. It was always, “My husband’ or ‘My hubby”, and this was very rare because he wasn’t a bad guy and there was nothing interesting to report so he was always mentioned in passing. Melanie knew that her husband has a male friend who has been going through a tough time but again, he somehow never mentioned his name because like most guys, he just gave her a skeleton of what was transpiring.
Back to Melanie and Casey’s lunch date…
“Honey, what will you do?”
“I don’t know, that’s why I came to you?”
At that moment Melanie’s phone which was on the table rang and both of them started at the screen, the caller ID read “Xelina”, Casey glanced at it and was about to retreat into her seat but one look at Melanie made her realize that the real caller was Maxwell, the mysterious hunk.
In a matter of seconds, Melanie went through an irrefragable composite of emotions. Her face became an amalgam of colour that could dull any rainbow in the sky. Her heart was beating faster than a tom-tom, she was hyperventilating and confused at the same time.
“Mel, are you okay?”, asked Casey.
That question jolted her back to reality and she turned white.
Then without warning, she wanted to pee.
“I will be right back!”, she grabbed her phone and went straight to the bathroom. She was waiting for her legs to catch up with her, as she scurried her tiny frame. The bathroom seemed like 10 miles away and the pressure to go was so intense. She burst into the bathroom, bumped into a huge lady who was on her way out and mumbled an apology, but the lady did not spare her some colourful adjectives.
Once in her cubicle, she couldn’t make up her mind on what to do first. The phone was still ringing, and she wanted to hear the muffin’s voice, but then the urge to go couldn’t wait and so she felt a warm familiar liquid come out of her and she decided to obey the call of nature, but as she fumbled to undress, her phone slipped out of her hands and dived straight into the toilet bowl. She froze in horror and her bladder succumbed to the pressure and just peed on herself.
A moment of temporary insanity engulfed her and she didn’t even realize that she pushed the flash button of the toilet cistern. The remaining fluid came generously out of her system into her short pants, down her legs, drenching her shoes and forming an imaginary continent on the bathroom floor. She could tell that something was wrong in those few seconds but all that happened too fast for her and so she just stood there uncoordinated and blank.
When she came to after about 30 seconds, she shouted,
“Oh my God!!”
She realized that she was wet and her phone was floating in the toilet bowl. She dipped her hand and grabbed and tried all the buttons, but it was dead.
“What I’m I gonna do? I have just peed on myself and my phone…”
She wondered what Maxwell, must be thinking, they hadn’t talked the whole morning and she ached and longed to talk to him. Now she was stuck in this toilet and made a mess of herself.
At that every moment, a lady walked in and before she could get on with her business, she noticed some fluid which she determined was urine because of the colour and the smell that was flowing from Mel’s cubicle. She walked over and knocked on the door.
“Excuse me, is someone in there?”
Silence
“Is everything okay?”
Mel just gasped, she couldn’t find her voice.
“I’m sorry, is there anything I can do to help?”
Mel nodded and managed to wheeze.
“It’s okay darling, just breathe and relax, I will help you…that is if you need my help”
She managed to calm her down and Melanie sent her to call her friend. Casey came into the bathroom and swung into action. She was able to clean up her friend and then went into her car and brought a shoal and her coat and took Mel into the car and they went to buy some clothes for her and a new phone.
All this time Melanie was in a state of shock and then she burst out crying in the car while they were still in the parking lot. Casey just held her as she cried for a long time. She did not know what to do, she felt trapped in a marital web and on the outside was an illicit romantic affair ‘threatening’ to rescue her from her bored and lassitude state. Then her new phone rang and she shouted,
“Maxwell!!!!” as she grabbed it, but on looking at the caller ID, it was her kids’ school calling. She was late in picking them by half an hour.
“Oh no, no, no…..this is wrong!”, she hugged Casey and thanked her for everything and then drove like a mad woman to pick her kids.
She couldn’t wait to get home and then call Maxwell. She apologized to the teacher and to her kids and decided to buy them a treat on their way home. The kids were just delighted to see their mom and even happier to be getting take out pizza. Max was all over her mind and literally driving her crazy.
“Oh my God, I’m in love with another man”, she thought to herself. She smiled and wondered if this was for real or it was infatuation. She was however certain that no one had made her feel this way her entire life. No one had displayed a high cadre of modest decency towards with so much ease. Maxwell had hit the max!!
Her plans for the evening were quickly foiled when she got home. Unlike all the other days, Borris had decided to come home early after having lunch with Maxwell and was busy watching TV. “Why today of all days?!?!?!?”, She was caught up in between surprise, annoyance. He had just ruined everything!
She planted a dry kiss on her hubby and feigned a greeting,
“It’s good to see you sweerie”, she said in monotone
“Hi honey, I had lunch with my buddy and I decided not to go back to the office”,
“Oh that’s nice, Mel replied as she walked over to the kitchen table where there was a huge bouquet of roses with a card written, “TO MY LOVELY WIFE AND THE BEAUTIFUL MOTHER TO MY KIDS, THANK YOU FOR ALL THE SACRIFICE YOU MAKE FOR US, I LOVE YOU”
“These flowers are beautiful!”, she said as a sense of overwhelming guilt encroached her.
Borris stood up and went over to her, “You know it hit me today that I never really take the time to acknowledge you so much and so I decided to take the time off, come help out with the evening chores, get a babysitter and and then take you out to dinner”
“Owww, that’s nnnice, what’s the occasion?”
“Nothing, I’m just celebrating you, that’s all”
“Thank you honey”, Mel replied as she realized that her plan to talk to Max had just gone out of the window with this new development. She wondered why the change of heart in her husband. He isn’t the romantic, flowery, dinner type….but why now? She needed a moment with Casey, all this was throwing her into an emotional snafu.
Maxwell was unable to reach Melanie and so he just left her a voice message. He was also wrapped up in a muddled state. His talk with Boris hadn’t quite given him the direction that he needed. He knew the right thing to do was to walk away. He was clear and certain about it, but then Melanie was not just any lady that he could walk away from, she had touched a side of him that he never knew existed. She epitomized that kind of woman that he had always wanted as a wife even though she wasn’t born again. There was a certain finesse about her that melted him and made him want to be with her forever as his own. He knew very clearly that God did not approve of what he was doing but he was unable to embrace this sobering truth. Indeed, “…the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak…”
“Maybe I should just pack my bags and move to another city”, he thought to himself. That was not an option, Tafia his ex wife wouldn’t be for the idea because the court ruled that both of them will have joint custody of the kids. As he was thinking about all these things, his mother sent him a text.
“Sonny, I made your favourite potato pies, with honey glazed chicken wings. You wanna come for dinner? Wink, wink.”
He smiled and replied, “Yes Ma, I will come”
His mum never made potato pies during the week, that was one of her Sunday night meals and so she knew that it was her way of trying to get him to talk about the new lady in his life and maybe he needed that.
The meal was classic and delicious and as usual, they settled into their chit chat ritual by the fireplace.
“So last time you were about to tell me about your new love”, she began
“Mom, I think you need to start dating again”
“You got me a man?”
“No, but I don’t think you are actively looking for one?”
“I work at the hospital and I meet a lot of new people everyday. That’s a good shopping pool so don’t you worry about me. I will get me a man and when I do, you will be the first one to know about it, but we are not talking about me, we are…”
“Mom, I’m in love”, he interrupted
“Yes, tell me about it son,” she adjusted herself to get hear more.
“This lady is gorgeous, she is unique and beautiful, she is nice and tender, sweet and sensitive, I mean she has awoken the lost butterfly in me. I feel like a new man when I’m with her. She is not mean, she is patient and just lovable…” he stopped in mid sentence
“Keep going on”,
Silence
“But…”
“But what son?”
“She is married to another man”
“She is what???”
TO BE CONTINUED
TO BE CONTINUED