Mother-in-law's careless chat spurs transformation

By Iponima Mtabinwa

Twelve years had gone by since I last met and chatted with my mother-in-law, Lavender. Like the flower plant she derives her name from, she has defied the vagaries of nature and managed to maintain a youthful look.

Her neat hair, manicured nails, supple lips and trim figure cut her age by nearly 20 years, giving her the looks of a woman in her early 40s. Her high education level completed the profile of a modern woman on the fast lane.

Perhaps it is her education that made her want to run my house and encouraged Absconditta to keep me in check or henpeck me. But they got their arithmetic wrong.

My mother-in-law did not know her scandalous gossip was being recorded.

When Blessing turned five, my mother-in-law led a delegation of three women and a herd of my sisters-in-law over to 'show' how birthdays are celebrated. I call my sisters-in-law a herd because they think and act like sheep. None of them was married and were content to be ticks on their high-achieving parents. In their assessment, I was a nondescript, even dullard, who needed to be led by the hand.

Anticipating a verbal tirade

As soon as they arrived, I excused myself and stepped out. As fate would have it, I forgot to pause a 180-minute tape that was running in the cassette-recorder. I was dubbing music.

The drama that followed cut Lavender to size. I returned after three hours, anticipating a verbal tirade from the visitors. Upon witching on the 'music' I had been dubbing prior to my exit, what started playing was an animated gossip. My mother in-law was the host of the 'talk show'.

"The man can't even afford a pair of underpants. I have to buy and give them to Absconditta," she told the women. I'm not sure if Absconditta was present during this session.

After sometime a sister-in-law added: "I'm not sure if these children are his; I don't think he can father somebody."

As the tape-recorder reeled on, there was deathly silence in the house. Lavender's gaze was fixed on the floor. Absconditta was wrapped in humiliation.

But no one switched off the machine. "You know very well that your father was not the only man in my life. However, I allowed him to father all of you . . ." There was a pause, then hushed giggles.

High-powered delegation

Unable to stand more embarrassment, my mother-in-law picked her handbag, commanded her high-powered delegation to follow her out. Absconditta nearly jumped out of her skin. Her world had caved in.

The incident was a turning point in our marriage. My marriage with Absconditta had hit the nadir after the birth of Innocent, our second child.

Divorce looked the only way out and we had resigned ourselves to this eventuality.

Any married man will confirm that women lose their sense of good looks when they start bearing children. Blessing, our first-born literally snuffed out Absconditta's romance instinct.

Cooled to frigidity

Emotionally, my wife had cooled to frigidity. Only Blessing whirred into activity. Beyond that, her sense of the surrounding, gaze, and reaction to my presence was virtually corpse-like.

This emotional collapse affected her sense of beauty. When she was breastfeeding, milk spilled on her clothes, but she never bothered to change her clothing.

The result was a permanent repulsive odour about her. In the company of my friends and their wives, Absconditta was any husband's embarrassment. In a word, she was dirty, clumsy and lacked any etiquette whatever.

The transformation after her first birth was drastic, the arrival of our second born worsened the situation. The bedroom was in perpetual mess, reeking of the baby's urine and stool. Our bed took weeks to be made.

"You cannot run away from it," George, my cousin often reminded me of my commitment to my wife.

Lavender's mischief in my house stung Absconditta back into life. It was her life on the edge. The transformation that followed would elicit every man's envy. Abs was back in her element!

— ipomtabingwa@gmail.com

 The Standard