“I feel claustrophobic in here. My kids are driving me crazy. Omo, no how wey I no go comot this house.” Bode said.

He had scrambled for his phone almost as soon as it rang. It was Felix, his longtime friend and colleague at Lion Consulting.

“Hahaha, guy chill. The thing dey affect everybody, but how we go do na, it will soon be over.”

“I’m trying to oh, but mehn, I don tire. Not even with this woman wey de want attention all the time. Abeg I don tire jare.”

Felix rumbling laughter rang through the speaker.

As he hung up, Bode could hear his three kids screaming at one another again. He needed no one to tell him they were involved in yet another scuffle. If they were not arguing about what cartoon to watch, they were fighting whose turn it was to occupy the rocking sofa.

He sighed. He had suspected he would struggle to observe the 14 days stay-at-home directive from the government, but he had underestimated the level of struggle.

He was choking. He needed to breathe. He would take his chances with the stern-looking mobile police and soldiers on the roads rather than continue like this.

“What do you mean you’re going out?” Rosie asked

She was wearing the green flowery dress that had become her home uniform.

He remembered he had got it for her on his first and only trip to Cancun.

That was in the early days of their marriage. It seemed like a lifetime ago these days.

“Do you realise you’ll be endangering your life and by extension the lives of I and the children by doing that. Not to talk of the probability of getting arrested. Abeg I cannot go and be bailing anybody oh.”

“Stop with the melodrama, woman. It’s evening already and I just want to take a short drive. I need some air and the cars need to be warmed.” Bode said.

He was already on his way out of their three-bedroom bungalow. He could hear Rosie’s further complaints but he would deal with that later.

He needed to make that call. The call he could never make at home.

He loved his wife… or did he still?

He wasn’t sure anymore. What he was sure of was the loss of spark in their marriage.

The lockdown had revealed that much. She didn’t excite him anymore.

She was still beautiful and smart, but they weren’t the chummy couple they used to be. Besides, the secret he had been keeping for so long was becoming more and more difficult to hide.

He was getting tired of the charade and the lockdown was making him even warier.

Rosie watched her husband of nine years climb into his Ford Explorer. The kettle whistled and she turned to go to the kitchen to make the children’s custard.

As she walked back to the living room and made to adjust the curtains, Bode’s slim frame caught her eye. He was leaning against the car. He appeared to be face-timing someone and the grin on his face only heightened her suspicions.

It wasn’t the first time she would happen upon him making clandestine calls, but she hadn’t to broach the subject with him.

She didn’t intend to.

She wasn’t going to be one of those wives who monitored their husband’s every move.

Men cheat, she had accepted it.

Most of her friends had admitted that their husband had had an affair at some point in their marriage. Some of them even knew their husband’s mistress, and in an extreme case, Bella had gotten herself kicked out of her matrimonial because she dared to assault the Unilag babe her husband was seeing.

Today, the side chick was the wife.

She wasn’t going to make the same mistake.

The rear of the SUV exiting the gate coincided with Adele’s Hello from her phone.

It had to be Ama, she promised to talk to the wig supplier Rosie wanted to partner with.

She picked the call without looking at the caller identity.

“Hello”

It was a female voice, but not Ama’s.

“Hello,” Rosie responded.

“Am I speaking with Mrs Adim?”

“Yes please, who’s on the line?”

“Mrs Adim, you don’t know me, but we have a mutual challenge we need to figure out a way to solve.”

Rosie’s brows merged into a furrow. She switched her Samsung S9 to her left ear.

“What do you mean? Who are you?”

“Mrs Adim, my name is Dumebi Abehi…our husbands are lovers.”