Tamba's phone rang by 6am that morning, a call from his ex-wife to inform him that their son juinor was dead.
He wasn't expecting the news but it didn't surprise him either, with the kind of life that boy lived death was inevitable, he felt guilty for not feeling guilty, he was convinced within him it was for the best.
His ex-wife called again, he needed to be present before they would proceed with the last offices, more details when he arrived. She was with him when he passed on.
His marriage to Edna wasn't the bed of roses he had hoped it'd be but they had some moments. He loved her, he still loves her but that woman was just too headstrong to be reasoned with. All these years he had silently prayed for God to teach her a lesson so she and the children would realize he had been right all along and now the boy was dead; maybe this was it.
Their children had chosen her over him, it had not surprised him really, it was expected of her to engulf them in her toxicity which she did but it pained him that they didn't try to be with him or see things from his angle. Juinor was in his last secondary school year when he and Edna finally separated, he never returned home from his boarding school instead he went straight to Edna's.
In the early days of their marriage he was without a job, it was the love that brought and held them together. She worked multiple jobs to keep them afloat while he did whatever he could find, that arrangement worked fine until the family and their expenses got bigger, first with Dorathy then juinor. Love turns sour when money runs out, the same fierceness and intensity with which she used to love him she used in hating him, she termed him a lazy boy.
When he finally got a job it was a big one and it kept him out often, he was away for weeks and months at a time but the money flowed in. It didn't take long for his absence at home to become a normality, he promised to always be around for birthdays and Christmas but that didn't work out.
It shocked him when she asked him to resign so he could be home more - it was his joblessness that strained their relationship in the first place, he still remember the senseless way she ranted after he asked if she and the children would eat his presence. It was at that point the tiny thread that held things together broke, from then onwards it was just fights and fights, screams and screams with plenty of name calling.
She left him after he found out she slept with her boss, first for a raise then several casual sex afterwards. During that argument she flipped the tables as usual, she found it absurd that his biggest problem was that she had sex with someone else rather than the fact that she was emotionally wrecked to the point of looking for solace elsewhere when she had a husband.
All he wanted her to say was, 'She was sorry.'
When they first separated he used to imagine she was having sex with other guys so he would head out to meet multiple women to match and pass whatever amount of sex she was having. He blamed her for pushing him away, for poisoning the mind of the children against him and he hated the children for allowing themselves to be fooled by their mother, for not attempting to try things out with him.
He reached out to her after she left but in her usual manner she maintained innocence and demanded he got help before reaching out to her or the children ever again. So he quitted his job and moved back home, he bought new cars and drove around often so she would hear news of how well he was doing alone.
He only heard about his children from friends and family, bad report about Junior or Dorathy earned a nod of approval from him, he wanted Edna to break so she'd call him back.
Maybe this was it.
So that morning as he parked his car outside and walked into the ICU where his boy had passed on, he stopped severally to correct his steps; to tune down his swagger and wipe the smirky smile off his face, he expected Edna to cower up to him broken, yapping about how the costly her mistake had been but the only thing that broke when the doctor pulled down the sheets from Junior's face was his soul.
The boy's body was still warm, his lips slightly parted as in a painful smile and his eyes half opened, he looked alive, just asleep. Junior was just seventeen; his precious baby boy, thick red liquid from the large hole on his ribcage was dried on his skin and the bedsheets. He shook the boy's body violently to be sure but no response still. At that moment all the bones in his body lost shape, his legs became wobbly and he sank down beside the bed in loud sobs.
Edna who had been at a corner of the room was now crying loudly, after gathering himself together he moved to her and took her frail figure in his arms, it was evident life had had its way with her but it did her beauty no harm.
His childishness struck him for the first time, his pride and ego had stolen his family, his time and now his son have been stolen forever.
He began thinking of the different ways he could have made things right and save Junior's life. He imagined in his head the different scenarios that would have played out if he acted like a man should and gotten his family back together, none of them ended with Junior dying from a bullet wound.
He was victorious after all, Edna was in the arms crying, he was the man after all but he didn't feel triumphant; the victory was too expensive. He was returning king to a broken kingdom.
