Before Mrs. Akingbinle Eunice breezed out of my office she had slipped me a card across the table with her company name on the face and the supposed address where her husband got his cheating on, on the back.
I stood in front of the address —No 30, Laurence avenue, Lekki— in the evening with a small apprehension, perhaps the first of its kind. Watching people had never scared me. I am an infinitely patient man, I’ve been told. I could sit for hours, immobile, my eyes trained on an object, a face or my eyes peeled on a terrain, waiting to see something move out of place. That’s me. And some prerequisite abilities for my work.
Like I told you before, this is my address too. Perhaps my disquiet stems from the simple fact: that for the first time, I’m watching someone in my own block. I never bring my work home, but this feels exactly like hauling the office home with me. I sighed.
Number 30 is a four-story building, two flats on each floor, the middle is split in two and that’s where four flights of steps zigzagged to the top floor. The grey colored paint is peeling in some places.
It has a fence and metal gates, the one you could slip your hand through and open by yourself. I live on that top floor with the most precious women in my life; my wife, Ngozi and daughter Rachel, 5.
Life is warming up on the street; shops are putting on their generators, commuters are rushing home or loitering about. Big cars speed past, driven by bearded fine men. A cool breeze ruffles my trousers.
All the flats are occupied. And I know every one of my neighbors. Even though most don’t know me. If they knew what I do for a living they’d probably not like me.
Now there is a little confusion for me.
A cheating spouse, mostly the men, would rent an apartment but would only visit with the side woman. When the session ends, they ball. Except in instances where the guy rents the place permanently for the purpose of keeping the other woman. Or in other instances, the woman lives alone and the cheating man drops by to see her.
All my neighbors here are family people: father, mother, and children. They all live here and I have never seen strange fellows with strange women hanging from their elbows.
So who here is Mrs. Akingbinle Eunice’s husband?
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