*~LOVE~ BETRAYALS~&~TRIUMP; PART 2~*

           
               *~Inonge abandons Imasiku~*

Finally Inonge delivered; it was a big bouncing baby girl; suffice to say, she was happy.

 “Why is he here?” Inonge mumbled!

It was Sitali! He had come to see her newly born daughter.

“When I was pregnant this man abandoned me! He chose Sibeso over me, what is he here for?” Inonge wondered.

“You can see it,” Inonge handed the child to Sitali.

 He surveyed its face, “Oh it’s beautiful! It looks like my mother,” he giggled.

Inonge grinned as if she was happy, yet her inner being boiled up at a hundred degrees Celsius. They exchanged some few words, and Sitali was gone.

Three years later, Inonge’s daughter had grown; she was now called Imasiku.

Whenever Inonge looked at her, she felt sad
because soon she was to leave her under the care of Sitali and Sibeso her step mother.

 This plan was not new! ‘No!’ It has been there since the days of her pregnancy.

 “It’s time to abandon you as I focus on my marital pursuits, at least I did not abort you,” she muttered while looking at her daughter playing.

It wasn’t long enough, Inongwe fulfilled her plan; Imasiku as young three years, was left in the hands of Sitali and Sibeso her step mother.

A year later in Lusaka, Inonge got her luck, she met this old tycoon, who loved her and in no time they married.

Inonge’s body was highly deceptive, despite her having a child, she still looked as if she was sixteen; worse when she laughed; her smile disarmed men; this tycoon loved her to the bone.

Back to the village, Imasiku treaded a hard path; she was at least loved by her father, but when it came to her step mother; ‘Uh!’ It was a bomb!

She was mistreated a lot and sometimes a meal or two would be deprived from her. A child lacked peace and love. She was even segregated by her half brothers and sisters, enough to say, Sibeso was a snake.

Sometime when it was too much, Imasiku would visit the Zambezi  river and mourn her sorrows.

“Who should I hate between Sibeso and my own mother? I think my own mother deserves no love from me, it has been thirteen years ever since she left and she has not returned to check on me, ‘uh!’ this woman has no heart.”  Imasiku  reasoned.

She was now sixteen, and yet her mother had not visited.

When Sibeso mistreated her, sometimes Imasiku never threw a blame on her, many at times she’d say, “at least she has a heart to keep me in her house, unlike my own mother who can’t even visit to see how her daughter is fairing; weather am alive or dead, it’s not her business.” 

Imasiku still endured the tortures of her step mother. School wise, Imasiku became a grade seven drop out; Sibeso couldn’t allow her to attend classes, she kept her home to do her house chores.

When she turned 18, Imasiku picked up her egos, “Enough is enough; I must go and look for my mother!” she said.

She consulted here and there, and in less time, her mission was confirmed; Imasiku scheduled to hit Lusaka;

When she arrived, ‘oh my goodness!’ Lusaka appeared big, she looked north and south, east and west; the cars were busy hooting and the robots fast blinking, in a nutshell, It can be said that she was perplexed.

To settle her mind, she untacked a paper and began reading, “When you drop at Intercity, you will head to City market by the hand of any Good Samaritan. From City market you’ll board a bus that spins to Chawama………”

Though with all those instructions on a paper, it still took her a week to find her mother, had it not been for the police and the counselor of one of the Chawama wards, her mission would have been a flop.

Upon seeing her, Inonge shyly embraced her daughter.

After a day or so, Inonge sat with Imasiku as she began explaining. She narrated everything about how Sitali dumped her while she was  pregnant, and why she made a decision to abandon her at three, and how later on she married that tycoon.

As she spoke, tears ran down her cheeks; mother and daughter cried.

But what later pierced Imasiku even more was her mother’s last statement.

“dear daughter, I wish that I could keep you here with me, and believe me! I have been longing for that, but you see! The problem is that, your step father ; Mr. Banda, doesn’t know that I had a child before I married him. So please I beg you to go back to the village and save my marriage, Mr. Banda  travelled to Kitwe and he will be home in  two days’ time.”

That was how imasiku was rejected; tears flooded her face and as her mother produced money for her to use it as transport, Imasiku, slapped her on the face heavily and took her leave while crying and cursing herself.

Watch out for part 3…… {What happens to Imasiku as she chooses to hang around in the streets of Lusaka?}

 Feel free to drop your guess on what will happen to her, and thanks for the read!

Peter Santiago Phiri, @2018.
The voice in tales.