My wife had to travel for a project. She was going to be away for about a month. Her promotion at work depended on this trip and its outcome. We had two kids. The first was six years old, and the second was only two. She told me she couldn’t travel because of the kids.
I took it as the normal answer. We had kids she had to raise. If she travelled for a whole month, who was going to take care of the kids? I didn’t even bother to ask questions. To me, it was a done deal. I guess I even said to myself, “Thank you for declining.”
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But I watched her demeanour from that day. She walked with slouched shoulders. She sucked her lower lip in, something I’d never seen her do before. She spoke slowly and almost passively, like a drunk person who had lost her way. I would wake up at dawn, and she would already be awake. I know when she’s asleep. She usually snores softly and sleeps heavily, but my wife became restless in bed, tossing and turning until morning came.
I asked her, “When are you supposed to travel on that trip?”
“Next month,” she answered.
“Have you told them you’re not going?”
“No, I haven’t. I’m waiting until a week before the departure to tell them officially.”
“You’ll go. Just get yourself ready.”
I then walked away from her. When I turned back, she was looking at me with her upper lip tucked in. I smiled and walked away. She thought I was joking or teasing her until later that day when I repeated that she should get ready.
“But who’ll take care of the kids when I’m gone?”
“Are you the only parent they have? Neither of them is breastfeeding anymore. Just go. We’ll be fine.”
My mum had died a very long time ago, so I had no mother to rely on. Her mum died a few years after our marriage, so neither of us had our mothers. We had struggled through raising the children all by ourselves without any external help. She had done most of it herself, and I supported her whenever I could. Maybe that was why her default answer to the trip was no.
For the next month before she travelled, I went through intensive training—how to bathe them and cook their meals, how to care for them without taking my eyes off them, and how to understand their little habits and needs. I had done all those things before, but only when I could or when time allowed.
This time, I was going to do it regardless of how pressed I was for time.
She asked, “Are you sure about this?”
I answered, “We’ll survive.”
She would call in the morning and try to give me directions. I told her I wasn’t at war. I could handle it. Late in the afternoon, she would text me to remind me to pick them up. In the evening, she would stay on the phone with us until they fell asleep.
After doing it for one week, I said to myself, “Naaaa, I can’t combine this with work.”
I went to work and applied for emergency leave. Until my wife returned from her trip, my routine was simply to wake up, get them ready for school, and pick them up when they closed. It was easier that way. My weekend freedom came to an end unless I was going out with them. When I screamed, “Stop!” three times and they didn’t listen, I left them to sort things out among themselves, whatever they were doing.
The night my wife said she would be coming home the next morning, I breathed in deeply and exhaled loudly.
“Finally!” I whispered to myself.
When I hugged her on her return, it was so tight that she wondered if I was trying to suffocate her. She said she didn’t think I could do it. I told her it was easy peasy.
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Since she came home, I’ve never left the care of the kids to her alone. I bathe them while she prepares their meals. I dress them while she packs their bags with food. I take them to school, and she brings them home.
When she does the laundry, I do the folding. When she sleeps, I appreciate the fact that I have someone like her to do life with. Her trip went very well and was hugely successful. Last month, she got the promotion she had been waiting for for years. She’s a happy wife. I’m a content husband.
What more could I ever ask for?
Nothing but this peace, perfect peace.
—Obed
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