Giving Love A Second Chance - Short Story

“Eyamba?” He called.

I didn’t respond. I wanted to scream, hit him – anything to dispel the raging emotions I was feeling. How could he come back after all this time and ask this of me. Just when I was picking up the pieces of my broken heart, just as I was getting my life back on track. In that moment I considered all the hurtful things I could say to him – to give him a taste of how I felt and what I thought of him and his stupid request. In a flash my mind went over the course of events that had led us to this place- the threshold of divorce; the death of our beautiful baby boy.

The night he left, I remember sitting at the dining table thinking about how much he had changed. About how in the 3 years we’d been married or in the 2 years we’d dated I’d never seen this side of my husband. It’d been 8 months since we lost our son and I still didn’t know what my husband was thinking or how he was feeling; in all that time I’d tried to reach out to him, but he treated me like the enemy, like it was my fault our little boy was gone. I knew I couldn’t stop trying, so I walked up to where he sat on the couch and stroked his head, like I used to do when we first got married.


“Hey baby, how are you doing?”

He looked at me with so much irritation I physically withdrew. This was not my husband; this was not the man I married.

“Nnena, you keep asking me that question like you actually expect to hear anything different from what I’ve been telling you.”

“You say you are fine, but I know….”

“Has it not occurred to you that after everything that’s happened you are the last person I would want to talk to?”

Tears welled up in my eyes

“What can I do? What do you want me to do?”

Turning away from me

“Nothing. The truth is I just can’t do this anymore”

My heart raced. “You can’t do what any more?”

Just like that, in just a few words the love of my life placed the final brick on the wall that he’d been building between us. He wanted a divorce.

It’s been 14 months since that night, now he sits here, telling me he’s had a change of heart and wants me back? He must be having a laugh. Maybe he started weeding when he left, or maybe crack cocaine, or maybe…..

“Eyamba.”

There he goes again. Eyamba is my middle name; he’s the only one that calls me that.

“Don’t call me that. You lost the right to call me Eyamba the day you decided to stop fighting for our marriage.”

I regretted the words the moment they came out of my mouth.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to sound so…”

“No, no, no you are right. I gave up that right when I gave up on you- on us. Please give me another chance." He stretched his hand across the table. "That’s all I ask, just 1 more chance.”

I don’t want a divorce, but I also don’t want the constant insecurity that comes with not knowing if he will throw me off the ship again when the next storm comes. I know I have to take all these fears and insecurities to God until my husband’s actions prove that I can trust him to stick around no matter what comes our way.

“We’ll see how it goes.”

I extended my hand across the table to put it in his over the untouched platter of chicken wings he’d ordered, and his audible sigh of relief brought a half smile to my face.