HER GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT

Chapter 8: Family gathering

Packing was over with all that remained was washing the kids and driving them for approximately an hour to their grandparents place. Her plan was to get there in the evening Prepare a good meal for the family and get a chance to talk to Gideon. He was a retired influential trade union leader who had a lot of strings he could pull to benefit anyone he wanted. They were in a century where success was related to having a tall relative somewhere, impressive papers were not enough. In fact hundreds of thousands of graduates flooded the job market every year. Thirty percent of them were absorbed and the remaining seventy percent most of whom were women left to tarmac for five or so more years. It was sad that some of her male counterparts back at Tess international once demoralized a fresh graduate.

The lady was beautiful. The moment she walked in men became anxious and hyperactive. Some even stooping so low as to making some funny animal sounds like horny high-school boys under the influence of growth hormones. She couldn't do anything since they were her superiors and back then she had not found the courage she possessed then. Of all things one question a female colleague asked troubled her. It stuck in her skull for sometime. The guy openly asked her how many lecturers she had gone under the sheets with to gunner those scores. The statement had some bits of truth. In some cases the whole truth because the tertiary education system had become so unethical. It still was. She was in a university once she knew a thing or two about STDs. The iconic girl based sexually transmitted degrees earned by opening up their legs to promiscuous and insatiable lecturers. She felt their pain then. The pain of men who had to work twice as hard to stay above the water level and one of her agendas was engaging the girls in all the tertiary institutions on that issue. Educating them how to compete fairly with the men in order to gain their respect as equal and worthy competitors.

"Mum can I carry my bike?" Jake asked standing at the entrance of her bedroom door.

"Yes, your sisters too", She said rearranging clothes in a suitcase.

"Why can't she do it herself", Jake complained walking away.

He thought it was quiet enough. He almost froze when she responded.

"Because I did it for you when you were her age Jake", Ruth shouted to his retreating footsteps.

After handling jakes situation her mind drifted back to the student teacher relationship issue. She also knew that despite of lecturers preying on innocent_ although some willing University students most of them like her had earned their certificates. They were qualified to compete with boys and earn promotions instead of carrying on with the sleeping their way to the top shenanigans. The last bit had also made her days at work even harder. Her fellow employees and even the junior staff had connected the invisible and nonexistent dots to link her promotion and success at work with s*x. The rumors were getting out of hand so she talked to Ben who talked to Johnson about it. One warning during a board meeting is what it took to silence them. It even made them hate her more but at least her dignity and competence was still intact. As for Ben, he was just doing his job, one of the four Ps a man is supposed to give a woman. This was protection.

"Ready kids?” She asked walking out of her room.

"Yes mum", Jake and Mary answered happily.

She called Ben to let him know they were coming. He seemed happier. Maybe his father had talked some sense into him. She knew he both respected and feared him. Gideon was a strict disciplinarian every father was while she was growing up. As she drove across town she reminisced how mothers would not punish the kids instead promise them a thorough beating when their fathers came back in the evening. For naughty boys it made them look down on their mothers as weak. The evening punishment was used to show how superior men were when it comes to disciplinary matters and children feared them.

It was five in the evening when they arrived. Ben and the rest of his family were waiting outside. The aunties, uncles and close friends. They hugged talked happily. Family gatherings were not that common anyway. People had to use every chance they got. People lived very far from each other, miles away. After eating snacks the children went out to play in the field. The women went to the kitchen and men sat in a circle. A crate of bear in the middle. Two one liter bottles of Jameson Irish whiskey on a small table. It was the 21st century but none of them was willing to go against the wind. Kitchen was for women and women alone besides which kind of a man cooks when a wife is seated? Definitely not them. It was a sign of weakness. Seated there they continued barking orders laughing and drinking.

**************

When she asked for permission to go for community service at Jesus was a man ministries James had no objection. It was a perfect opportunity to meet Linda for a drink and catch up. She made breakfast and bade him goodbye. The moment she drove out in his car he called Linda to pick him up. She had missed him and she was also mad at him even though she got married first but she was hoping he was going to fight for her. Crazy as she was Linda expected James was not even going to attend the wedding. But he came in an expensive black suit. Took the front row and kept clapping like they never even had s*x in the first place. Coming alone did not bother her. The fact that he brought a date was what umbraged her. A date in her wedding! But she was divorced now and he was not officially married yet. There was a chance he was still into her. Snatching seemed a little bit easier to Linda than nurturing her own marriage which was doomed to fail in the first place.

Again you may wonder why she married him only to file for a divorce in less than a year. It was simple they did not have enough time to know each other well. It was an irrational decision that was based on trial and error. Linda thought that maybe showing James she had an option he could decide to notice her. Poor Linda had spent her entire life loving him until she didn't know what to offer in case he finally realized that he felt the same way.

"That was fast", James said getting the door for her.

"I was just around, how are you James", she asked holding him in a tight embrace.

His scent still had an effect on her. She dernly inhaled it patting him on the back forgetting that they were still at the door and the neighbors were watching. Anita might not have already acquired friends but it was not worth the risk. There was always someone watching who could have sold him out.

"Okay okay that's enough let's get in and I missed you too", James said breaking off.

She surveyed the room first. Looking at the pictures of James and Anita hanging on the wall. James went to the bedroom to change. Soft Rnb music was playing in the console. Linda took a seat her eyes glued on the picture. It could have been her in those pictures if only she could have had the courage to tell him how she felt. It was the 21st century damn in it even girls proposed to other girls and even to men. But she couldn't do it. Fear of going against the wind of cultural and societal beliefs. The rules of socialization that neither her nor anyone else knew who drafted them were controlling her. And James was dumb as a stump. Handsome but with the brain size of a dinosaur. He couldn't read between the lines and recognize the signals she was sending. It was all her fault. Linda was still tied up with the fear of being regarded as desperate or easy going. Her friends had warned her that boys do not like being outshined. That boys loved hard to get girls and that's exactly what she did. She played hard to get and James was snatched from her. Getting married was her trying to prove that she could still have been happy even if it were not with him. But she was just in denial.

"How's this for a drink with a friend?" He asked walking stylishly.

"You sexy devil!" She said admiring his blue suit.

"I'll assume that means `smoking hot`" He said grabbing the keys from the console.

"Good to go?"

"Yap let's go have some fun", James said happily locking his door.

He admired her walking towards the car. She was something he always wanted and he delayed, let her slip through his fingers because of ignorance and it was not going to happen again.

*********

Ruth woke up to the sound of children playing in the living room. The previous night had been busy and tiresome. Preparing meals and serving the whole extended family was no joke. She wished she had Maya around to bring her tea in bed and take care of her morning duties. Her mother in law had not said a word about the housekeeper that Ben hired for them. The best case scenario was getting fired. Ruth knew how un-accommodating Veronica could be. They had lived with her once before Ben moved out to live in the city. And her unwelcoming behavior had not changed.

"Where is your wife Ben don't tell me she is still asleep there's so much work to be done", she heard Veronica complain.

"Let me send a child to wake her up", Ben answered politely, "Jake!" He called out.

"Morning dad", Jake said running towards him.

"Morning go get your mum to help in the kitchen", He said rummaging his hands through his hair.

Jake ran off through the corridor to her mother's room. He knocked twice and only came in when he was asked to. There was no need of letting the kid say the words again. Ruth cut him the slack of repeating what she had already heard.

"Morning sweetheart tell your dad am coming", she said still lying in bed.

A few minutes after Jake left her door was knocked again. She mumbled a weak "come in" and continued resting. It was Ben and he was not happy. His male ego had been scratched and that was enough to get him fuming with anger which might not have been necessary if they were at their own place. But in presence of his family Ruth had made him look like he came second after her and denied him his chance to brag to his dad how a man he was. Combined with their _quitting her job scuffle he had more than enough reasons to confront her.

"What’s wrong with you?" Ben asked closing the door behind him.

"Good morning love", she said getting up from the bed to kiss him but he stopped her.

"I asked you a question Ruth what are you trying to prove? That you don't listen to me and am not a man enough?"

"I didn't say any of that stuff I said am coming and I was going to come", She said his hands in hers.

He broke free his hands on his head. Clicked and mumbled something about wondering what had gotten into her. Ruth was left standing aghast in the middle of the room in her night dress. She didn't know what else to say. Ben was changing the niceties and verbal webs of politeness over the phone were all fake. He was so deep into showing dominion over her that he even forgot she was his wife and not a servant. Which was not good. Definitely something she didn't wish for her daughter.

"Now you listen to me hunnie, get in there I want you in the kitchen in five minutes", He ordered his eyes red with anger. Breathing heavily like he had just won a marathon in record time.

"So you're not even going to ask how am feeling or how've been since you ditched us aren't you?" She inquired looking at him straight in the eye. Ben was speechless, "Answer me Benjamin chestnut!" She shouted arms akimbo.

"Don't make this harder than it already is get in that bathroom right now!" Ben shouted pushing her to the bathroom.

"Or what Ben? You going to slap me? Beat me up to teach me a lesson?” She dared him resisting his push.

"If I have to. Get in that bathroom right now I don't have time for this nonsense", He said this time pointing.