This time when Veronica got back to the village she sat down inside the house and refused to say a word to passers by who greeted her from a distance. For a while she began to search her back. It was during rainy season and she knew she had to work at the farm the next day. She searched her back and found something to eat which she ate and the stood up to go get herself water to drink. There was no water in the house. For a while she felt she was stupid or foolish to have left the city to the village, to come down to the village to suffer. She did not know what to do. She remained there and looking from one side of the room she had entered to the other until she was certain she wouldn't be making any progress while standing there.
In Edu's compound he was seated and allowing things to work for him the best way they could. He could see that his mother was already fully well but she doesn't stop blaming him for being too greedy.
"You went to the city and just when I thought you had learnt your lessons you decided to fool yourself. What do you think will become the outcome of your actions? You should not have collected money from anyone. Now that you have lost the money what are you going to do about it? Are you going to go back to the city to beg Veronica to forgive you or you are going to remain here and continue to act like you don't know anything?"
"Mother please, I know that I made a terrible mistake and I know that if Veronica heard about it there is no way she is going to forgive me and even if she does forgive me she is never going to forget how I betrayed her. I know that this is my fault and I can't lie about it. I am just devastated right now mother" he wept.
******
Where Jude was with Shanty he was seeing picking on his food by Shanty and she knew why.
"I'm sorry babe that's all I was able to gather from this village. These villages are poor and we are poor too. You will have to manage it the way you are seeing it" she said and took her seat in front of him. She saw he was not ready to respond to her and then she sighed heavily and put both hands on the dirty table they were meant to eat on. "Can you atleast taste it and see if it is eatable?" she begged.
"Eat what? eat watery bitter leaf?" he asked angrily.
"I'm sorry if you see it that way" she said and stretched forth her hand and added, "Hand it here" He took up the plate of food and handed it over to her. She collected it and put it ontop of the food she already dished out for herself and began to eat it together. At that moment Jude got mad at her and he complained.
"What do you expect from me if I may ask? You have refused to eat it. I am only helping out" she said and continued to eat. At that moment Jude stood up and walked out of the room. Immediately he walked out Ofcouse she lost her appetite and dropped the spoon with which she was using to scoop the watery soup. She rested both hands on the desk and stood up grudgingly and then went outside. When he stood outside and saw that she wasn't coming out he made to go further away from the house but she called him name and he stopped. She walked up to him and stood beside him, actually behind him but almost beside him.
"I'm sorry for the words I spoke to you.Didnt know it was gonna hurt you that bad" she said and waited for him to say something but when his words were not forthcoming she cleared her throat and continued, "I understand and believe me I am ready to do whatever you want"
"Whatever I want? What do you think that I want and can you provide the things I want if I insist on them?" She was quite. "Leave me alone Shanty" he added.
"What do you want from me?!" she bursted in tears, "What do you want me to do, how do you want me to go about it; I really do not know what to say and how to go about making you feel good and better with me. What do you want from me and how do you want it?!" He was angry that she was shouting at him but when he turned and saw tears in her eyes he realised it was cry of frustration and he paused. "Tell me Jude" she had continued, Just tell me what you want me to do and maybe I can find a way to.makw it happen. We are in this situation together. There is no one amongst us who took a decision different from where and what we found about ourselves now. You promised to stand by us and you said you were going to always stand by us no matter what happens. I am here now not because there is anything that I hope on but because of my love for you. My love for you made me take this decision to be with you no matter what happens.You on the other hand keep making me regret us but you know what; I am not going to regret us and I am not going to fail us. I just felt it would have been better if both of us had decided to do more than we already did. You should be so much concerned with the way things are going now and think of a way to help me to make our stay here more easily and not to add salt in our injury by refusing to eat what you see" she said. He held her by the shoulders and looked directly into her eyes.
"I'm sorry Shanty, I am...I'm just sorry okay, I may have taken my time and everything to look away from the sacrifices you have been making for us but I won't shy away from the fact that I have been feeling the impact of that sacrifice. You have been doing well ever since we entered this village and I am so much appreciative of those sacrifices. Sorry too that I had to grow in a home where a mother doesn't act like one but did the same thing you did in there"
She began to wonder, "What did I do in there?"
"You decided that since I had refused to eat my own portion of the food you dished out for me you were going to eat it regardless of how I felt about you eating it. You ate it and didn't care to check if I needed to eat anything. This is really sad"
"I'm sorry, I didn't know you would think it that way. I only felt if you was not going to eat it it would only be better of me to eat it on your behalf and now let it waste. You know and I have told you countless times before now of how much I hate to see food waste. That was exactly what happened in there; I just didn't want to see the food waste. I'm so sorry" she held his hand and he felt stupid for the first time, acting like a baby boy. He believed he acted that way because he still believe he needed a mother to care for him since he never had a caring one.
"My mother was a very brilliant woman but she was a prostitute and she didn't care much about the potentials that she had. I on the other hand always felt if it was possible for me there could have been a way for me to make it out there and succumb to the very best things that make much sense to me. Having said this there is only one way for me to feel better and that way is to see that you have become so easily acting like a mother to me" She heard this and then hugged him. She was grateful of what she had done and it was almost as if there was nothing else that could have happened to anyone. He held her too both.of them remained like that in each other's arms until when she continued to speak to him.
"You know it is quite unfortunate that things are beginning to happen the way that they do and it is not always about which person had the best. Here there is only one way things can make alot of sense and there is only one way to better things in such a way that they would make much sense. Let us talk to these villagers that still see us as strangers. Let us talk to them and make them see us as their brother and sister and not some people that come to bring them terror in their land"
"You have a nice idea but also we should not forget that we are being chased by the one called Ken and if he catches us this time believe me he will ensure to cut off our heads. We need to be careful of a crowd and also we need to make sure that anyone that comes to especially anyone that first comes to us to make us friends, we need to make sure that we examine them the best way. We must not let this continue to be the best way to see people..Let us not forget also that we must not allow any of the villagers to know where we are staying in this village. We need to make sure that they don't know which house we are living in to avoid the enemy locating us and coming to attack us. Do you understand?" He nodded.
*******
Rose heard that her son was sick and she angrily questioned Ken in his house.
"You knew about his sickeness don't you?" she angrily asked him while he as seated on a sofa. He stood up and looked at her suspiciously.
"Who is sick?" he asked.
"Oh don't pretend like you do not know who I am talked about! I'm talking about my only child, my daughter. You knew she was sick right, yet you went on to make me feel special but you don't think I am worthy to know about my son's sickness. Let me ask you, do you say you love me?" he asked.
"Ofcourse I do love you and listen I am not going to pretend any further that I didn't know your son was sick because I knew and I also know he was being treated hence why I didn't bother to tell you about it. Listen I and boss knew what it meant to tell you about your son's sickness and that was why we insisted we were not going to tell you about it. You need to calm yourself and think..." he was still speaking when she left his presence, banging the door behind her as she walked out. He stood there, thinking of what next to do. He saw his phone was ringing and he saw it was Charles. His shoulders dropped in frustration for he knew why he was calling. He knew he was calling to know the outcome of the task given to him to eliminate Jude and his lover Shanty. He didn't pick it but then decided to pay him a visit in his house, to tell him he had been doing his best to track Jude and his lover Shanty down and to also ask if what next to do since Rose already found out about her son's sickeness.