Today, You Will Break His Heart

You blink back the tears as he turned to look at you.
Today you would break the heart of the one man who meant the world to you.

"What is it my dear?" He asks.

"I said I have something to say." You respond.

He takes off his glasses and puts down his book. He does this when he wants to give his full attention to a conversation and you always smile as you wonder how taking off one's glasses will make them hear well. Today however you do not smile.
How can you when you know everything is about to change?

As you open your mouth to speak, you let your mind drift to the days when life was perfect. When he meant the world to you, and he was the man you revered more than anything else. Your relationship with him began after Mum died when you were 6 years old. She died while giving birth and you were told the child was a boy. He too didn't make it.

Although you were too young to understand, Daddy always reveled you with stories of Mum. How they met, how she was the Centre of his world and how she passed because of the negligence of his best friend. For the past 21 years he has never told the story without crying and when you ask he would say...

"I'm still mourning my heart. I lost it the day your Mum left. She was my heart, my happiness, the only thing that made sense in my life. I lost all that when she left but I thank God for you. You are the only thing that makes sense in my life now and I owe it to Ese to take care of you."
He would then add "You know Ese means "gift" right? Your Mum was indeed a gift."

They first met when he visited her school with his best friend who had gone to see his sister. She was an undergraduate, he was working with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and his best friend was a Medical Doctor.

You can almost visualize the scene because you have heard the story countless times.

He started it the same way, "I remember looking up to see her walking with my friend's sister towards our car. She was wearing a yellow flowery dress and white flip flops, her hair packed in a bun. She was the epitome of innocence and beauty. I remember because everything stopped till they got to the car and I couldn't hear a thing while we were being introduced. She wasn't the prettiest girl I had seen but my heart couldn't stop beating. It never stopped till we got married and till the day she left. The day she left was the day I lost my heart because it has never beat since then."

He would wipe his eyes as he told you of the day she left. He never used the word die.

Mum was supposed to be operated on because the baby was breached but Dad's best friend, Dr Okpako insisted on vaginal birth because he thought she could make it even against the advise of his other colleagues. She bled so much and was very weak by the time Dr Okpako decided to have a Caesarean Section done. She died with the baby.

Dad resigned from his job with the ministry and took up a teaching job just so he could take care of you. He never remarried.

Today as you watch him, you notice that he has aged slightly. He looks a little different from the man who made it his duty to dress you up for school everyday, played football with you and taught you to fight so you could defend yourself when you were being bullied at school.

He helped you bake pastries and sew aprons for Home-Economics practicals, taught you to swim, cleaned you up when you first noticed blood in your panties and gave you the sanitary pads he had bought in anticipation.

On the day of your Matriculation, he came with two buses filled with your relatives and more than enough for everyone to eat and drink.

On the day of your Convocation, he wrote a letter to you telling you how proud he was of you. Inside the envelope was the pearl earrings he had gifted your Mum when she had you. They are yours now.

When you got your job with the Advertising agency where you are now an executive, he gifted you a Car.

As you watch him today, you tremble as you think of how to break the news to him.

Frank has asked you to marry him.

You knew this would happen, you knew from that first day he let you take his space on the queue at the mall. He had seen you pushing your trolley full of items and gestured for you to take his place. When others on the queue protested, he went to stand at the rear taking your place. You had to wait outside till he came out so you could thank him.

That day you were convinced you had found the one that would take care of you.

When he told you his surname days after, you probed further and found out he is the son of Doctor Okpako, daddy's former best friend whose negligence cost your Mum's life.

You still agreed to date because you fell for him from that first day and when he asked to see your Dad you told him you wanted to be sure of his place in your life first.
He did all he could to assure you that you are first in his life and you fell harder for him.

He became your drug and addiction, and when he got on his knees and asked you to marry him, you snatched the ring and went on your knees too as you said yes. That day remains the best day of your life.

Today as you look at your Dad, you wonder how to break the news to him.

How do you tell him he's about to become family with the man against whom he has borne a grudge for over 20 years? How can you explain that in a world of over 7 billion people the one person you fell for is the son of his enemy? How can you claim to love a person and still break their heart?