"Honey, tell her you'll talk to her later," Jerry whispered in my ear as I discussed with my best friend who was also my chief bridesmaid. "Let's just go." He wrapped his hand around my waist and tugged.

"We better listen to your husband," Joyce told me, smiling naughtily. "A newly wedded husband is like a starved lion. You can't afford to joke with either of them."

I laughed and kissed Jerry lightly on the lips, hugged Joyce and followed my husband into the waiting car.

As we moved, all who had come to grace the occasion waved and smiled at us.

In the car, I leaned on Jerry's shoulder and took my mind down memory lane.

I had met Jerry at my matriculation ceremony. He had come for a friend, stepped out to have a look at the environment and lost his way. At the time, I was standing underneath a tree, staring helplessly at the cut on my leg. In a hurry to get back to my hostel and get some drinks I'd left in my room. I had hit my leg against a thorn, causing a deep wound and was bleeding.

I cursed over and again, until Jerry approached me. He introduced himself as a student doctor at Imo State University and helped clean the wound.

By the time we were back from the hostel and heading back to the party, anyone would have thought we were longtime friends. Nine years later, we were married.

Finally, we arrived at Elegance Suites, where Jerry's father had booked rooms for our honeymoon. We were led to our room and served dinner, after we'd showered.

"Did you notice the photographer?" I asked, as I cleared up my plate. "I've never seen him before. What happened to Bryan?"

"Disappointed us," Jerry told me. He leaned over, held my chin and kissed me.

"So who's he?" I continued, refusing to be distracted as his hands moved all over my body.

"Someone Nancy brought." He carried me in his arms and laid me gently on the bed. Nancy was Jerry's sister.

As he undressed me, I still felt disturbed about the photographer, maybe because I wasn't expecting anyone else but Bryan. I wondered why he hadn't called me to let me know he wouldn't be coming. I was about asking Jerry if he was the one Bryan had called when my phone rang.

We ignored it until it rang the fourth time. "Baby, let me answer it," I told Jerry, pushing him a little off me. "It might be important."

The phone rang three more times before Jerry finally went off me, groaning, "ahhh! Who calls people on their wedding night!" He moved away to completely undress.

"It's my mother," I told him. Mom's voice came rushing out like an overflowing stream the second I answered the call. "It's your father, baby. He's having a heart attack. Please, bring your husband over."

"Mom! It's our honeymoon. Our honeymoon, Mom!"

"So your father should die because it's your honeymoon?"

"That's not what I'm saying and you know that, Mom. What I'm saying is that you should take him to a hospital."

"It's past 12 am. I can't get a bus or a cab, and you know I can't drive." I could tell that she was crying. "Baby, come on. You still have many more days with your husband."

I sighed as I dropped the phone. Jerry stood in front of me with his hands akimbo, staring at me inquisitively. I looked at him with pity, as he stood erect before me.

"Dad's having a heart attack. Mom wants us there." I left the bed and started dressing up. "It's our honeymoon. Did you remind them?"

"My mother isn't so daft. Besides, it's my father's life we're talking about. We can always have as many honeymoons as we want." I walked to him and kissed him. "Please, dress up, baby."

In less than five minutes, we were out of the room and in the lift. At the first floor, the lift got stuck. Smoke emitted from the door. An announcement was made for everyone to vacate the building through the stairs because the hotel had caught fire and the lift was stuck; efforts were being made at quenching the fire and rescuing those in the lift.

My heart sank into my stomach. I hit the door hard over and again, screaming at the top of my voice until Jerry held me. I slid off his arms onto the floor and wept.

The smell of smoke was becoming stronger and the heat was intensifying. I could hear voices outside but couldn't make out what they were saying.

"Crying isn't going to solve anything, baby," I heard Jerry say. "You heard them. They know we're here and they're doing everything they can to get us out of here."

"What about my father? It's either he dies or two of us die, or both." I burst into fresh tears. "Ahhh, for once, Kristy, be positive."

"Hello," a voice came from outside. "Are you in there?" "Yes!" I exclaimed. "Yes, please!" Jerry was oddly and annoyingly calm.

"A woman's in there," the person seemed to tell someone else.

"We're two in here," I corrected immediately. "I and my husband. Please, get us out. We're newly weds and we've not even had sex yet."

The instant the words were out of my lips, I covered my mouth with my hand and Jerry gave me a "Really?"look.

"You really can say wonders when you're tensed," he said.

"Madam and sir, congratulations to you both," the person on the other side continued. "We're doing all we can to open the lift and bring you out."

"What about the fire?" I asked. "Won't we roast before you get us out?"

"The fire fighters are here and making progress in stopping the fire." I sighed and rested my chin on my hand in resignation.

I said, "I've felt disturbed right from the moment I saw that new photographer. I knew things weren't alright." My phone rang. It was my mom.

"I should have known I had given birth to a whore who'd rather have her father die than sacrifice one night with her husband."

"Mom, it's not... How is Dad?"

"As if you care. You really are shameless, Kristy."

Mom hung up and I burst into fresh tears. With a confused look, Jerry asked, “what now?”

“Mom called me by my name,” I complained, through tears.

“And?” He still didn’t get it.

“It means she’s really mad at me. Maybe Dad’s already dead.” I cried louder.

“Kristy, please…”

My fists landed on his arms and chest violently, cutting him short. I yelled, “don’t call me by my name.”

I sat back and buried my head in between my laps. “I knew things weren’t alright right from when I saw that strange photographer. I had the feeling things were going to go wrong.”

“You’ve always had that feeling, baby.”

“Oh, don’t tell me that!” I snapped. “The guy is a baggage of bad luck. You can’t see that with short-sightedness.”

I had barely finished the last sentence when the door clicked and opened. I dashed out immediately, leaving Jerry behind to thank our helpers properly.

The hotel had six floors and only the fifth and sixth floor seemed to have been affected by the fire. The fire had been put off but thick smoke was still oozing out of the building. The whole place stank of smoke and burnt things. It was also crowded with firefighters, pressmen, police officers and some other people I couldn’t recognize.

Jerry and I struggled through the crowd and we were finally able to drive out of the hotel. It was 4 am.

For a few minutes, no one said anything to the other. Then, disgusted with how slow he was driving, I asked if he could drive faster because of my father. He looked at me and did nothing. I reached out to increase the speed of the car but he quickly held my hand.

“Have you gone nuts?” he scolded. “You’re scared of other people hurting you but not of you hurting yourself.”

My face fell, tears welled up in my eyes and trickled down. At first, he didn’t notice it but when I started sobbing, he turned to look at me with his mouth wide open. “What now?”he asked.

“Dad’s probably dead by now.”

“So we should speed up to go raise him up? Even Jesus stayed four more days.”

I burst into fresh tears. He pleaded, “it’s 4am and it’s still dark and too early to drive too fast. Baby, please understand.”

“You say that because it’s not your father who’s sick,” I accused him.

He sighed and sped up. Just then, my phone rang. It was an unsaved number. I answered it and discovered it was a male caller. He introduced himself as Tony, the photographer at my wedding. I sat up immediately, my ears suddenly perked up.

“What do you want?” I asked him.

“Nothing really, Ma,” he replied, his voice a bit shaky. “It’s just that there’s… there’s a bit kind of problem. I don’t know how…how to put it.”

“Out with it!” I snapped, irritated.

“It’s just that…” A pause.

“Will you speak up or should I drop the phone?” I demanded.

“No, no, no, please don’t,ma. The thing is that all your wedding pictures, I mean the pictures I took at your wedding yesterday, they…they are all gone.”

“What!”

“I can’t find them, ma. I don’t know how they got deleted.”

“You better be joking, you bastard. I swear I’ll kill you. I knew from the onset that you’re a baggage full of…”

“Baby, baby, you don’t talk to a person like that, no matter what the problem is,” Jerry corrected, taking the phone from me. “Let me take over from here.”

Then he spoke calmly to the caller,” Hello, it’s her husband on the line now. Who’s this and what exactly is the problem?”

A pause and then his countenance changed. “What nonsense are you saying? So what should I do now? Another wedding? Like I should recreate another 31st of March, 2018, invite guests again and marry my wife again? You really are a sick idiot. You’re a fool, a bastard. I’ll kill you, I swear.”

He hung up, still fuming. “I swear I’ll kill that low-witted fool.”

“I said it first,” I reminded him. “So I’ll kill him first.”

Almost an hour later, we were at my parents’ house in Orlu. The compound was deadly quiet. The house was open and quiet too. My parents were nowhere to be found. I walked into all the rooms in the house, calling their names but there was no response.

I returned to the sitting room where Jerry stood waiting for me, fell at his feet and wept. “They’re not here. What could have happened?”

“Maybe your mom found a way of transporting him to a hospital.”

Instead of being relieved, I cried the more. Just then, from the kitchen, my parents came out smiling. My mom was carrying a big cake which she dropped on the dining table.

“Mom? Dad?” I called, not believing my eyes. Dad didn’t look a bit sick.

“April fools!” They both exclaimed.

Jerry looked as shocked as I. It was 1st of April and we hadn’t thought anyone was out to deceive us, especially not elderly people.

Dad continued, “your mother made a cake and thought we should deceive both of you into coming over to share it with us. Happy married life once again, my children.”

He and his wife moved over to the dining table, and sat down to cut the cake while I and my husband stood transfixed for a few minutes.

We ate the cake silently while my parents chattered on about meaningful nothings. They didn’t seem apologetic one bit.

It was some minutes to six am when my phone rang. It was Nancy, Jerry’s sister.

“Hello, dear beautiful sister-in-law. Trust you both had a wonderful night rest.” Her voice sounded melodic and enthusiastic.

“No, we did not, most thanks to you.”

“Whatever did I do?”

“Whatever didn’t you do? For a start, why would you change my photographer without telling me?”

“Oh, dear. Bryan called to say he wouldn’t make it. I didn’t want to bother you since I know how much you prefer Bryan. So, with my brother’s permission, I contacted Tony.”

“Aww,” I cooed, “that’s so thoughtful of you,” and yelled, “because your Tony guy lost all our pictures!”

At first, I thought my ears were playing tricks on me when I heard her laughing. But they were not.

“What’s so funny?” The question made her laugh even harder.

Jerry was fiddling with his keys, glancing at me from time to time. My parents had stopped chattering and were staring at me, curiously. I put the phone on speaker.

“He was such a great actor, wasn’t he?” Nancy was saying now, in between laughs. “I mean, we.” She laughed heartily. “Oh, my God. He got you even more than he said he did, both of you. Oh, no one does April fool more than I.”

“April fool?” Jerry and I reiterated.

“Sorry, big brother. I wasn’t the one who decided to fix a wedding on the last day of March. And for the record, I didn’t ask Bryan to not show up. I only brought in a friend I could play a prank with. It’s fun, isn’t it?” She giggled and hung up.

“Once beaten,” Mom started, “twice shy. Twice beaten …”

“Don’t, Mom,” I interrupted and she and Dad burst out laughing.

Jerry and I got up and started out towards the door.

Dad shouted, “happy April fool’s day, darlings.”

Ban Big Brother Naija – Onuesoke begs FG