Patron of matrimony episode 2

Patron of matrimony
Episode 2
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Truly, grandma was very old before she passed on, but Jolomi’s father would never wish her dead someday or any day. Like a needle showing ways to the thread, mama had been the sailor directing her son’s sh¡p as far as he had known what it was to be a man. The bond that existed between this mother and her son was so strong that the only force that was powerful enough to cut short the bond was this angel that took away breath unaware. Death, it came like rapture, intruded, broke the bond, and took away mama’s soul, but not the blemish her footprint had left on the sanctuary of her son’s home. Her son’s home was like a child. When a child is abused, the effect is eternal, unlike when the child is young, innocent, pure, filled with love and joy, and has no worries. His home had been abused. Grandma had truncated the joy Jolomi and her brother experienced in the earlier years and had broken their home that was initially a cocoon, a protective shed, a place of peace. If Jolomi had told anyone that there was fire on the surface of an ocean, she would have preferred them not to be skeptical about its credibility. She would just need to be asked to get them the ashes.
Home had become a dreadful place, home of terror, when grandma seemed not to fathom the camaraderie, the deep love and understanding between her son and his wife. Grandma had complained bitterly that Jolomi’s mother had taken away her son’s heart from her and soon she would find a solution to that.
Grandma could not find a way to disrupt the marital bliss, but was able to perpetrate her brutal plans through her maid to whom she persuaded father to get married. She had advised her son how wicked women were. Women could kill their husbands to enjoy their wealth alone and to enjoy the children’s cares when the time arose. Grandma was able to brainwash her son, flush away love and cares, and infuse the opposite. And now she was gone!
Jolomi began to put in places the torn mental picture of grandma, to remember what she looked like when she was alive, how she would lie to father how much Jolomi and her brother had been hurling insults on the new wife, and how her face would turn fiercer than a raging fire when she began with mother. It was exactly a month after Jolomi’s eleventh birthday, when grandma brought home her maid. Although the maid was not new to the family, the least they expected this time when she came with grandma was pregnancy. Grandma’s maid was pregnant and it was Jolomi’s father who was responsible. Grandma summoned Jolomi’s mother and her children, Jolomi and her brother. Grandma sat on the only couch the room occupied. Beside her were father and the maid. Grandma’s maid was short, anorexic, with a brutal 11 marked face. Her oversized buba pronounced vividly the two wells below her neck that could reserve water to use for years, and that made her outfit unwelcoming. Grandma raised her eye-brows to talk; her dark, fissured eyes deepened. Her sparse grey hair lay in wispy ringlets against her scalp. Her arms were frail, but her tongue was thunderous. Words were shooting out of her mouth and strikingly piercing into mother’s heart.
Grandma began, “See, this is your new wife. Your husband has gone to market and has brought home a beautiful maiden.”
Jolomi wondered what kind of market it was where they sold wives to men. She shifted on the wooden table she shared with her brother. Then stole a glance at mother to see her countenance, and to see what it felt like. Jolomi’s mother sank into a stupefied and drab moment. The news sharpened the ugly expression that peered out behind her beautiful face. Creases were forming on her forehead, as she squinted squarely into her husband’s eyes. She wondered if their eyes would ever speak the same language again. Father rested his head on his folded arms, facing down as though he was remorseful.
Grandma shot another bullet, “You will begin to live together as one,” Grandma called out as if they were far away and she warned sternly, “Jolomi, Bode, she must not report any of you to me, or else….” She swallowed her spittle.
Jolomi and her brother kept mute as if all were happening while in a trance. This time mother was jolted back to reality. It was real. Tears welled up in her eyes, like the heavy water hung onto the cloud, threatening to rain. Then the rain fell when Grandma shot her deadliest arrow.
“Mama Jolomi, your wife is pregnant.” The old woman said spitefully.
Tbc