Story - THE MAN I MARRIED (Part 2)

‘Hello Folake, I am Mr Isaac Kure, the man…….’

I didn’t allow him finish his statement when I broke in, ‘I know sir, I already saved your number on my phone.’ He said authoritatively, ‘Kehinde David is currently serving at Zammani College in Malali, Kaduna. He teaches Mathematics, he is a graduate from OAU with a Bsc in Applied Mathematics. ‘Yes sir, I answered, he is the one, please any news about him?’ ‘Folake, hold on I will call you later, I need to attend to my boss now,’ then he hung up the call. One minute after he ended the call, I was still holding my phone to my ear hoping that he will call back to say something about Kenny.

My worry suddenly turned to fear in five minutes. Twenty minutes later I called Mr Isaac but no response. Maybe he’s yet to be done with his boss. One hour came and gone no call from Mr Isaac, two hours, three hours and then four hours.
I dialed his number again, it rang through but no response. I tried again but it was switched off. At this point, I knew I was going to fall sick for the suspense. I began to think of what next to do, should I take the risk and travel to Kaduna to see things myself? But why has Kenny not called me? This is three days now. Maybe he’s seeing another girl and choose to keep me off? But can Kenny abandon me for another girl? That is impossible, I assured myself.

I called Jonah, Kenny’s best friend to know if he has heard from Kenny. ‘This is almost a week now we’ve not spoken with Kenny, he said.’ ‘Okay, thank you Jonah’ I ended the call.’ I called Kenny’s mother, ‘good afternoon mummy, how is daddy and Seyi?’ ‘They are all fine my wife, she replied without any iota of fear in her voice. Ma, I have not been able to reach Kehinde for the past three days now. I have tried all means to reach him but all to no avail. Ma, have you heard from him lately?’ ‘Yes, he called yesterday and I even asked after you and he told me you are fine. ‘Okay ma, please can you send me the number he used in calling you? Okay, I will do that when Seyi is back from school.’

Seyi normally returns from school by 2:30pm or latest by 3pm. By 3:34pm I called Kenny’s mother again. ‘Mummy “mio ti ri nonba no” (I haven’t seen the number yet).’ ‘Yes, I didn’t send you the number because since Seyi came back from school we have been trying the number but it has been switched off. I wanted to call him to call you instead of sending the number to you. I was going to scold him for not calling you for the past three days having kept you worried. Let me talk to him first before you both talk. He must apologize to you and make it up to you.’ I kept mum but I felt like asking her to still send me the number so I can try it myself but that will look like I don’t trust her so I thanked her and ended the call.

By the following day my phone rang and I quickly ran to check my caller’s identity, it was Mr Isaac. In haste to pick the call the phone fell off my hand and got smashed on the tile floor, the battery went on separate way from the phone board. By the time I managed to put my phone together, the screen had gone blank and the soft touch stopped responding. What is this? I asked myself. Why must this happen at this time? This must be the handwork of Satan. When I remembered that I saved almost all my contacts on my phone and not on my sim card I wept. I removed my sim card, put it in Janet’s phone to see how many numbers I saved on my sim card, it was just three numbers. I quickly took my phone for repairs. Aunty, it is better to buy another phone than trying to fix this one. The screen alone is N35000 and if we fix it the chance of it working is 50/50. Moreover if we fix it and it doesn’t work, we can’t return the screen to the seller again.

One month came and went and I didn’t here anything from Kenny or anyone else. All his social media accounts had become dormant. I bought a small phone of N5000 to enable me make and receive calls. I expected a call from Kenny’s mother or Mr Isaac but none came. Life without Kenny was like a man alone in a jungle. I have never known what loneliness meant until this time. Nobody meant anything to me anymore, I lived as if people around me were not human beings. Then I remembered a phrase in Genesis “but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him”. A lot of guys came around during this period but none could fill the vacuum created by Kenny, I saw nothing in them that could make me give them a chance in my heart.

It’s now two months that I haven’t heard from Kenny. One afternoon I told Janet I will be traveling to Kaduna by the weekend and will be back by Sunday. Janet advised me not to go until I hear from Kenny or from someone close to him. I know that was a good advice but I knew in my mind that I will not take the advice. I had made up my mind and nothing was going to change it, not even the fear of what will befall me.

On Thursday evening I started putting my things together for the journey. I have never been to the north before all my life, so I needed to make a lot of calls. I spoke to Abdul, a Corper from Katsina state who is serving also in the same PPA with me. We made some few calls, got some contacts and he connected me to Ayuba, his cousin in Kaduna to pick me at Mando park and help me around town.