(Continued from last Saturday)

AT last, the enchantress had won Dayo! Yemi was still in the hospital, yet to recover from the shock when the marriage ceremony took place. There was a small TV in her ward. A marriage ceremony was being showed and she was drowsy and watching half-heartedly. But surprisingly she saw Dayo and a young lady heading for the altar. She could still remember she had seen the lady somewhere before. Yes, at Dayo’s office! She just couldn’t stand it anymore. It was like a nightmare. “No! No!! No!!!” she wailed,

“what’s happening to my world?” she screamed. The nurses came running and the TV was turned off. She was given some sleeping pills. She took it and slept off sadly.

When Yemi left the hospital, she was never the same again. The thought about Dayo’s betrayal haunted her. She had never loved anybody else in her life but Dayo. Just two weeks later she was now lean and haggard.

Her eyes were sunken and dull like a vulture’s. Yemi, the erstwhile bubbly girl with life and vigour now looked pale and worn out; Yemi, who had been plump, fresh and charming now looked so unkempt and her total bearing too sullen to behold. She couldn’t bear to love again. At times she would walk long distances barefooted like a deranged person, and would continue mumbling inaudible things to herself. She had been in the custody of her parents.

Dayo, now married, had no child for the past eight years after marriage. He couldn’t understand why he had not been blessed with a child after the marriage. Bimpe, his wife, too, didn’t understand why she hadn’t been blessed with a child; she had tried many medicine-men and sought modern medical aid for a solution, but all to no avail. She suffered one ailment after another. She believed she had wronged somebody, somewhere, in years past.

In the ninth year of marriage to Bimpe, Dayo was fed up and frustrated over his childless situation. He sought the advice of a man of God and he was told his wife, Bimpe, wrongfully married him and that he would see the joy of the Lord again only if he went back to his first love. Dayo went home that evening with a new consciousness and told Bimpe point-blank that he was no longer interested in the marriage.

It seemed the cloak covering his eyes had been lifted. He filed a divorce suit against Bimpe the following day, and after the separation he immediately asked Yemi’s hand in marriage. Yemi was now in her late thirties and still unmarried. The Lord approved of the reunion and she became pregnant a year later and was delivered of a bouncing baby boy that looked exactly like a carbon copy of Dayo. Thus, the new couple became happy ever after. Love has a manner of ruling human lives, and providence has a way of meting out judgment.