In the first part of these tales yesterday, Mike revealed how his wife had finally found out his cheating ways thanks to a phone call, from a side-dish that she picked as Mike was in the bathroom. In the second part, Mike tries to make his case. Did he succeed?
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She wore the face of a warrior ready for battle. Clutching my phone as if her life depended on it, wifey gave me that cold stare, the one you give a child when you catch them messing up.
"So who is this Irene who is sweet sweeting you?" she asked in a tone reminiscent of Ssebutinde, the nonsense justice who led a number of probes.
"She is a workmate, I said with a straight face but my voice was cracking.
"Why would a workmate call you sweet?" she shot back.
"Because I am. At least that is what people at my workplace say. I am the go to guy at office. People find me helpful and some ladies call me Sweet Mike," I said confidently as a I tried to build by story.
"Okay," she said. I am going to call her back and put the phone in loud mode. Then you are going to speak to her. Tell her anything. I will know whether she is a workmate or your lover.
This caught me unaware. I knew I was in deep shit!
Wifey dialled the number as thoughts raced through my mind.
Then Irene picked.
Hi Mukwano, nga Mukyalawo mukambwe? she started, meaning that wifey was tough.
She was unaware that wifey was listening in.
"Irene, why did you call me at this time of the night. Is there anything urgent at work that I must handle?" I replied hoping that she would realise that I was in a fix and then play along.
But she did not get the drift.
"Work? which work? Mukwano, I miss you and now I am broke. You know I can't see you because of this coronavirus. Send me some mobile money," she said, delivering the killer blow.
There were not more excuses I could give to wifey. She had heard it straight from the horse's mouth. She threw my phone down and told me not to get close to her. Go find
That night I slept in the couch in the sitting room. It was a very long night and honestly, I did not know what the next day held.
One thing for sure was that this lockdown was going to be hell for me.
I knew that wifey would now deny me her "goods" as a punishment.
Day three of the lockdown found me in some sort of cold war with wifey. On that day, she walked past me several times, not acknowledging that I existed. To her I was like that flower vase in the sitting room, worthless.
Even when I tried to be good to her, she did not reciprocate. Thrice I tried to catch her attention but she remained silent. What was she planning?
In the meantime, I sought solace in the TV.
As this cold war played out, our housemaid, Fatuma, noticed quietly.
Fatuma is not beautiful by any measure yet she is not that ugly. She is tall and a round face like that of a football.
If she smiled, like she often did when playing with our daughter, you could think that she was on the verge of crying.
She has squinted eyes (what Baganda call ndali) and when you made eye contact with her, it was really hard to tell whether she was looking at you. .
With wifey in silent mode, I now suddenly started seeing Fatuma's hidden beauty. She was workaholic. Now that wifey was no longer serving me food, Fatuma took over the role. She also suddenly started asking me if there is anything she can do for me.
For the two years she had worked for us, I had never really struck up any conversation with her. In fact in her early days, I thought she was dumb. All of a sudden, she was in a talkative mood but I knew this was a tricky situation.
Wifey would be watching me closely.
I pretended that I did not want to talk to her but I started closely watching Fatuma.
Clearly, she was also trying to trap me. She know that this was an opportune moment now that I was not on talking terms with wifey.
Once, she wriggled her waist vigorously in front of me as she cleaned the centre table in the sitting room. I found that act provocative but like a toothless man, I could only yearn for meat but could not bite.
Was wifey using her to bait me and confirm that I was a cheat all along?
I honestly did not know.
Since I was now sleeping alone in the couch in the sitting room, I developed other ideas. I came up with a plan.
