TADE AND SHADE, 1983-1997

Life as a married woman was good. A new bride was supposed to miss her family, but not Folashade. Her parents-in-law treated her better than her own parents. Her father-in-law never walked around like a grouchy, retired army and her mother-in-law was not a weakling who took every of her misery out on her kids.

Life as a couple was not much different from before they were married, except for her mother-in-law's loving corrections on how a wife should behave and talk to her husband.

"Folashade, It is not right for you to greet your husband while standing"

"Folashade it is not right for you to call your husband by his name."

"Maami please also tell her it is not right to serve me food while standing" Tade joked during one of the corrections, enjoying and laughing at the frown on her face.

"Then you should be ready to eat the food from the floor, goat!" Shade replied in annoyance.

"Haa Folashade! That's not how you should talk to your husband!" her mother-in-law exclaimed.

"Maami please tell him not to put his dirty mouth in our business next time." The poor woman was dumbfounded when she heard that. How is she going to deal with this two with their antics towards each other?

The only thing Shade didn't like about being married was how Tade can move around freely and do whatever he wanted while her own movement was restricted? No hunting, no wrestling, and no climbing of trees. Just the boring stuff that a housewife does all day.

If she said she wants to go out, her mother-in-law would start again with the same sermon of 'Folashade, don't you know that you're now a married woman!?'

Their relationship had gone back to what it was after their wedding night disaster. There was no sex again and Tade never demanded to have his right as her husband. So it was a wonder when her mother-in-law told her she was pregnant a week after Tade left for school.

Tade didn't return home until eight months after a whole session had ended, because he had gotten a part-time job at a poultry. Imagine is surprise when he came back and saw her huge pregnant belly.

It was in the evening. Shade was about to go out for a stroll when Tade walked into the fenced compound.

"Eeh! Folashade what happen to you? He exclaimed in shock. "Did you swallowed a whole, big watermelon!?" He asked again, his eyes huge in wonder.

"I'm having a baby, *ode! So with all your education, you couldn't tell that I'm pregnant."

"Me ode!?" He asked with his hand on his chest and chuckled . "So is that now what is making you to be wobbling around the place like that pregnant goat?" He asked mockingly, looking towards a goat in the compound who was also heavily pregnant.

"Yee! Tade, you called me a goat!? As if this was not your doing!" Shade shouted. Before Tade knew what was happening, She had bent and pulled both his legs from under him, making him fall flat on his back. She's finally found an opportunity to make good use of all the experiences gathered from all those years of wrestling playfully with the boys at the village square.

Before he could recover, she immediately sat on him and started slapping him with both her hands from left to right and right to left. While Tade was begging and calling for his parents to come out.

"Maami!... Daddy!... Shade please get up, you know you're pregnant!"

"Who are you calling a goat? Say sorry! Say you are sorry right now!..."

"Okay, I'm sorry! I am very, very sorry ma! Please don't cause injury to yourself and the baby! Please it was a slip of tongue. You are not a goat..."

When the people in the house rushed out because of the noise, they met the husband lying on his back, defending his face from being hit by the slaps reigning down none stop on him.

"Tade you are back!" His father exclaimed when he came out of the house and saw him lying on his back, pleading with Shade.

"You just came back and both of you had found enough reason to fight already!" His mother exclaimed too.

"He called me a pregnant goat, maami!" Shade said feigning annoyance and almost at the brink of squeezing fake tears out of her eyes. "As if it was not his fault that I am like this!" She grumbled

"That was after she called me ode first," Tade said and couldn't help but laughed when he saw how hard she was trying to squeeze the tears out.

"Folashade, you are almost giving birth, why are you acting like a boy!" Tade's mother said and consoled her. "It's okay. You are not a pregnant goat. Maybe he's high on palm wine.

"Don't mind the fool. Oya gets up from on top of him." His father added while they helped her up.

"You think because I'm pregnant I cannot still beat you ehn?" She glared at Tade who just kept on laughing while dusting his clothes away.

"Both of you are going to be parents soon, is this how you two would be acting in front of your children, ehn?" Tade's father said, shaking his head at them.

*++*

Labour came during the middle of the night a month after. Tade was immediately sent to get the circumciser who also doubled as the midwife. The midwife tried all she could, all the while chanting spiritual stuff and whatnot.

It was almost dawn when the midwife said she had done all she could. Shade's case was a difficult one, that they should quickly take her to the government hospital.

They quickly got a wagon drawn by the village chief's horse. They filled it with cloths and feathered pillows so she would be comfortable during the journey to the next village where the government hospital was located.

The ride was bumpy and the pain excruciating. Shade was already weak by the time they got to the hospital and the doctor confirmed the baby was already in distress.

It was an emergency. Forceps were used to speed up delivery which resulted in Shade having a third-degree tear. The baby was named Mathew.

*~~*

When Tade graduated, Shade was pregnant with their third child. He came to the village one festive period and took them along with him to Kano, where he was then working as the manager of a poultry farm. A few months later, Shade delivered via caesarian section, after another long and difficult labor.

At twenty-eight years old, when baby Luke turned two, Shade got an admission to study business administration. When she graduated, she started helping her husband at the accounting department of his own poultry farm.