NINETEEN : Getting rid of the ex-wife

⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚✧˚｡⋆

As Gershom was being relentlessly hounded by debt collectors, Yolanda was having the time of her life twelve thousand, two hundred and fifteen kilometres away.

For the past two months, aboard The Tasheni — a three-hundred-and-eighty-foot yacht gifted to her by Marion — she had made the Caribbean her home.

Marion had introduced her to a world she had only ever imagined. Snorkelling through vivid, colourful reefs. Lying on powdery white beaches after long swims in warm turquoise water. Excursions and yacht parties, attended throughout by well-trained staff who existed entirely to meet her needs.

When they were not aboard the yacht, they stayed in the finest hotels on land. Jamaica. Barbados. The Bahamas. The Cayman Islands. Now they were floating three miles off the coast of Aruba.

Everything Gershom had ever done for her looked pale from here.

It was why Marion’s phone call from home was so unwelcome.

‘Do you really have to go?’

Marion stepped out of the bathroom, drying his body with a white towel. He nodded as he crossed to the vanity, pumped moisturiser into his hands, and began working it evenly across his skin.

Yolanda watched him from the bed. Six months together and she still could not get enough of the sight of him.

She slid off the Egyptian cotton sheets and walked over, wrapping her arms around him from behind, resting her head against his back.

‘I do not want you to go.’

‘Neither do I.’ He turned and took her hand, the one that sported the large diamond ring, and pressed his lips to the back of it. ‘But some things cannot be put off any longer.’

‘I know.’ She traced her fingers down his arm and settled her hand against his chest, drawing slow circles with one nail. ‘I just hate the idea of being far away from you. What if that wife of yours causes trouble?’

‘She will not.’

‘You keep saying that. It has been months and she still will not release you.’

Marion chuckled. ‘She is playing tough. She knows how this ends. I have been very generous in what I am offering her — she will never want for anything.’

The thought of Fiona walking away with a significant sum of Marion’s money irritated Yolanda deeply. She would have preferred the woman to leave with nothing. She said none of this. She had been thinking, quietly, of a more permanent solution to the Fiona problem. Once the woman was gone, there would be no alimony. The money would stay where it belonged.

She plastered a soft, concerned smile onto her face. ‘I suppose she is just struggling to let go of the lifestyle she is used to.’

‘Do not concern yourself with her.’ He placed his palm gently against her stomach. A week had passed since the doctor confirmed it. ‘Concentrate on taking care of junior.’

‘Honey, you keep saying junior. Will you be disappointed if it is a girl?’

‘Not even slightly. A healthy baby is all that matters. If it bothers you, we can choose a name that works either way.’

‘Really?’

He nodded. ‘Skyler. Or Skylar.’

‘I like that. Baby Sky.’ She smiled. ‘Much better than junior.’

‘Sky it is.’ He stepped back from her and crossed the room to the chaise, reached into the breast pocket of his jacket, and produced an envelope. ‘This came today.’

Yolanda opened her mouth to ask, then saw the bank logo. Her eyes lit up. The dimples appeared.

‘Marion. You actually did it.’

She tore the envelope open. When the Visa Black Card was finally in her hands, she stared at it for a long moment.

‘I do not know what to say.’ She pressed her lips to his. When they pulled apart they were both breathless.

‘If you keep that up, I will miss my flight.’

She wrapped her arms around his neck and rose onto her toes. ‘Maybe that is the whole idea,’ she said softly into his ear.

He drew in a slow breath. ‘As much as I would love that, I cannot. I have to be on that flight.’

‘I hate that she gets to see you every day while I am out here.’

‘It will all be over soon.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’ He pulled her close for one more kiss. ‘Once Fiona hears the news, she will have no choice but to let me go. She knows how long I have wanted to be a father.’

‘Then Sky and I will be waiting for you. And I will give you as many children as you want.’

‘I like the sound of that.’

⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚✧˚｡⋆

‘Hey, what is wrong? Is that Gershom?’

Yolanda nodded at Betty’s question without looking up from her phone. Her fingers moved fast across the screen. The two were seated in the lobby of the Carlton Temba Hotel, waiting for Sofia to come down from her room. They had a spa appointment — facials and full-body massages — and a bikini fashion show on the beach that evening.

Two weeks had passed since Marion left Aruba. Yolanda had since moved from the yacht to the hotel, her room overlooking the sea. In a few days she would be flying to Dubai, then New York, then London, before coming back to the Caribbean.

‘How did he get your number?’ Betty asked, turning a page in her lifestyle magazine.

‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

‘Some men are impossible. Did he not get the message? He and that Fiona are exactly alike — both clinging on when they already know it is finished.’

‘He. Is. Driving. Me. Insane.’ Yolanda slammed the phone onto the empty seat beside her, ran a hand through her wavy Brazilian weave, and exhaled sharply.

‘What does he want?’

‘What else. Going on and on about trying to make things work. Pulling the Luthanda card every five minutes. It is exhausting.’

Her phone rang again the moment she finished speaking. She looked at the screen, gritted her teeth, grabbed it, excused herself, and walked out. Betty watched her through the glass wall, gesturing animatedly.

Sofia appeared and dropped into the seat beside her.

‘What is going on with her?’

‘Take a guess.’

‘Gershom?’

‘Mm.’

‘She needs to close that chapter or she is going to lose Marion.’

‘She will get him to sign eventually. Anyway, what about you? That Tswana man of yours seems very taken.’

Sofia’s expression softened into something almost dreamy. She tucked a loose tendril of her Peruvian weave behind her ear.

About a month earlier, during one of the yacht parties, she had met Travis Mogae. Marion had introduced them — his former classmate, encountered by chance in Barbados. Marion had later told Sofia she was his gift to her, on top of the Bentley, for introducing him to Yolanda. The two had hit it off immediately.

Sofia did not believe in love. And yet.

He was everything — handsome, wealthy, and built like someone fitness magazines invented their standards around. He came from old money. His family owned a diamond mine in Angola. He was the youngest and richest man she had ever been with, and he came with no complications. Single, free, and entirely focused on her.

‘All I will say is that my days of flattering wrinkly, potbellied old men who cannot last more than one round are finished. And he is already talking about marriage.’

Betty stared at her. ‘It has only been a month.’

Sofia shrugged. ‘I feel like I have known him my whole life.’

‘This is extraordinary.’

Yolanda came back in, silent and tense.

‘What happened?’ Sofia asked.

‘I do not want to talk about it. Let us go.’

‘He will not stop until you go back to him,’ Sofia said.

‘That is never going to happen. My life is with Marion now.’

Sofia suggested she offer Gershom money in exchange for signing the divorce papers. With the state his finances were in, he would likely agree.

Betty shook her head. She looked at Yolanda steadily. ‘What are you really willing to do to get him out of your life for good?’

‘Anything. I cannot lose Marion or everything that comes with him.’

‘Anything?’

‘Yes.’

‘Even if it meant giving up what you hold most dear?’

Yolanda frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘As long as Luthanda exists, Gershom will never fully let you go.’

The sound that came out of Yolanda was somewhere between a gasp and a cry. She shook her head, her eyes fixed on Betty with something close to horror. ‘Are you out of your mind? She is my daughter.’

‘You said anything,’ Betty replied, entirely unbothered.

‘Anything but that!’ Yolanda hissed.

‘It is either that or you lose Marion,’ Sofia said quietly.

Yolanda turned to her. ‘Not you as well.’

‘It is a necessary calculation.’

‘This conversation never happened. I will not hear another word of it.’

‘Think about it. Gershom has nothing left. What kind of future does that child have staying with him? And Marion has wanted to be a father for nine years — do you honestly think that extends to raising another man’s child?’

Yolanda stared at both of them.

She had conceived Luthanda as a strategy. She knew that. But the girl was hers. Whatever she had done and whatever she was capable of, there was a line, and it ran directly through her daughter.

She was sickened that her friends had suggested it so casually.

Grabbing her purse, she stood and walked out without another word.

⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚✧˚｡⋆

‘Here, hold this.’

Joseph Chomba handed his youngest granddaughter the plastic bag of ice lollies as he reached into his pocket for the money to pay the vendor.

The one-year-old peered inside and pulled out a chocolate one.

‘Papa, open.’

Joseph smiled. He lifted her into his arms. ‘Just a few more minutes, my darling. We will open it at home.’

‘Ok.’

‘So what did you get up to with Granny Irene this morning? Did you have lots of fun at church?’

He stepped off the pavement to cross the road.

‘Well…’ Luthanda began, her small face scrunched in concentration as she tried to recall.

The car came fast.

Joseph turned sharply. Luthanda’s eyes went wide.

The impact threw him off his feet. His body hit the bonnet, rolled, and came down onto the asphalt with a sound that silenced everyone in earshot.

Bones. The sound of bones.

Blood on the road.

When his body had left the ground his arms went slack and the girl flew from his grip. Her scream cut through the air before she struck the pavement. A pool of blood formed slowly around her head. The screams of onlookers at the ice cream truck nearby merged into a single terrible sound.

The car had veered into the fence beside the road. The fence gave way on impact.

The driver heard the screaming. In the confusion, he put the car in reverse and left.

Joseph lay on the road in his own blood, staring at the small, still body of his granddaughter one metre away.

Tears blurred his vision along with the blood. He tried to move towards her. He could not move at all. He could not feel anything.

One metre. It might as well have been a mile.

‘Luth… Luth…da…’

His fingers reached towards her across the asphalt. His eyes were threatening to close and he fought them with everything he had left.

He did not want to lose sight of her.

He called her name and his voice would not come.

Please God. Let her be alive. Let her be alright.

His eyes closed.

The last thing he saw was the still, bloodied body of his youngest grandchild.

This was three weeks after the conversation Yolanda had had with her friends.

⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚✧˚｡⋆

© Ponda