The Phone Call

“The universe sends us exactly what we are ready for at the exact time we need it in our lives.” The quote hung on the wall at the entrance to the expansive living room. She wondered why her husband had gotten the framed quote when they were decorating their home. Back then, he'd said he was ready, and the universe had sent her to him. She always smiled at the memory of their first meeting.

The incessant barking of the dogs outside brought her back to the reality of the situation. She kept staring at the phone in shock with tears streaming down her eyes; she turned to watch her six-year-old son and her three-year-old daughter as they slept peacefully in their beds. She envied them. She wished she could sleep peacefully too, like them, but she couldn't, no matter how hard she tried to. She kissed her kids, turned off the light, went back to her own room, and checked for the phone she had called. It was still there on the bedside shelf. That was where it had been for the past 36 months. Her own phone was still in her hand. She unlocked her phone, went through her call log, and dialed the number, and like always for the past three years, the phone on the bedside table would ring with that ringtone she had always loved. “Spanish Guitar” by Toni Braxton had been their favorite song that year, the year they met, and Lanre had assigned the song to her so that anytime she called him, Toni Braxton would remind him who his Spanish guitar was. Her phone was pressed tightly to her ear as she watched the other phone on the bedside table ring, and for the second time that night, she heard his voice as he picked the call, making goosebumps break out all over her body. Then, she cut the call as she sat on the floor of her room, watching the phone on the bedside table, not wanting to accept what was happening. The phone on the bedside table was her husband’s, but he had been dead for the past 36 months when she was just three months pregnant with Ethel, their daughter. But when she called his phone earlier that night to listen to his deep voice, which was a customized voicemail he had made back then when he’d promised an undying love to her, she was frozen with fright when the voice mail stopped midway, and he or whatever it was that spoke back picked the call with his signature line, “Hello, my sweet.” Words that had always made her smile whenever she heard them now filled her with dread. Trembling, she had flung her phone the first time that happened because she felt her mind playing tricks on her. She had been calling his phone every day for the past three years to listen to his voicemail; she knew he was gone, but she still missed him and needed him back. It's so easy to wish for death when nothing's wrong with you! Right now, she wished she could just be with him. As she sat on the floor, staring at his phone on the bedside table wondering what was happening to her, she wished she could go be with him.

His voice had been so clear like he was in the room with her when he said “Hello, my sweet” the second time she dialed his phone to be sure. She sobbed till her eyes were swollen; she missed him terribly. In between sobs, she would pick up her phone and dial his phone on the bedside table, and as soon as she heard “Hello, my sweet,” she would cut the call and continue sobbing. It never occurred to her that maybe he was trying to say something or maybe give her a message. Then, she fell asleep. It was past 1 AM in the morning.

By 6 AM, her phone rang; she heard the ringing from her subconscious as she weaved through webs of happy dreams to the reality of a ringing phone. Her alarm normally woke her up by 5:30, but apparently, she did not hear her alarm when it went off, and she wondered who was calling her so early in the morning. It’d better not be her mom calling again to check on her as she had always done for the past two weeks. She struggled through the layers of blankets and pillows as she reached for her phone to see who was calling her, then she bolted up, sleep immediately gone from her eyes. She was now fully awake. She looked at the bedside table; his phone was there, with the screen turned off, and she looked back at the ringing phone in her hand. He was calling her. Her late husband was calling her. How? From where? With what? With fear and trembling hands, she picked up the call and put the phone to her ear, and the voice came back, along with all the memories, and in just three words, “Hello, my sweet,” she knew Lanre was back. Then, she ended the call and threw the phone away. She started to believe that maybe missing him so much was starting to make her go crazy. It just wasn't possible, and she didn't even know how to broach the subject to her mom or to anyone for that matter. Her late husband was calling her.

He watched from a distance as people thronged around his house. He wondered why they were crying and why they were all in black. He watched as his wife and his three-year-old son came out of the house. They were surrounded by his mum, her mum, and other family members. He watched intently, wondering what was happening at his house and why he couldn't go there. Something kept holding him back from approaching his own house. He could hear people whispering, “he was so young,” “what will happen to his wife and children?” and “those armed robbers were really wicked.” He was still wondering why they were whispering and why everyone was crying when they started wailing as six men came out of a hearse carrying a coffin. Why would they bring a coffin to his house? He wondered who was in the coffin. Are they trying to scare Ese and Derek? He thought to himself as the six men carried the coffin to an already dug part of his compound. Who died? He watched Ese throw herself on the coffin, crying and calling his name. “Lanre, please come back.” Come back? Where did he go? He was standing right there. As he was watching what was happening at his house, he was shocked as two people walked right through him towards his house. They were also dressed in black. He wondered what that meant. Then, he turned back to watch as his mum carried sand from a shovel and poured it on the coffin that was now lowered in the ground. Ese too, fetched sand from the shovel and poured it onto the coffin. Little Derek also fetched sand after asking his mom why they wanted him to play with sand, but his mummy was still wailing as Derek fetched as much sand as his two chubby hands could fetch, and he poured it on the coffin. He tugged at his grandma’s dress asking again, “Grandma, where’s my daddy? Why is Mommy crying?” He also needed to know the answers to Derek’s question. Then, he strained to listen as he heard his mom tell Derek, “Daddy has gone to be with the Lord.” “Why didn’t he take me and Mom too to see the Lord? The Lord doesn’t want to see us?” Derek had asked, but my mum didn’t hear him as she and Ese’s mum were struggling to hold Ese back from jumping into the hole to be with the coffin. “Gone to be with the Lord” meant he was dead. But he wasn't with the Lord; he was right here across his house, looking at everything that was happening.

Then, some men started to shovel heaps of sand into the hole onto the coffin, and whatever force that held him back released him. He hurried over to his house—hurry wasn't the word—he floated towards his house, and he kept trying to avoid bumping into people, but no matter how he tried to, people kept walking right through him into the house. He couldn't do anything to avoid them. They were all crying and comforting his wife. Ese was sitting on the floor crying with her head placed on the knees of Lanre's mom while Ese’s mom carried Derek. Derek was crying too because his mom was crying, and he didn’t know why. Grandma gave him a piece of cake as he wiped his eyes and started to eat the cake, then Lanre floated towards his favorite part of the house, his study. That was when he remembered how he had died, for he felt some kind of strange force pull him to a particular spot in the study. The dog was barking now. Sheba was barking. She was Ese's dog. He looked around the study. They weren’t there. His dogs were always in the house. Adolph and Sheba took fourth place in his heart after Ese, Derek, and his mum. They were his loyal friends. Adolph was a three-year-old Boerboel while Sheba was a two-year-old German shepherd. Sheba was more intelligent than Adolph. The only difference between her and a human was that she couldn't speak, but she could do every other thing. Adolph, on the other hand, was a very territorial and protective mastiff and would die defending this house, and he had actually died doing just that.

I had gotten Adolph as a three-month-old puppy two weeks after Derek was born, and Sheba was a gift from my younger sister Stephanie. Everyone loved Sheba, even people that didn’t love dogs. She had this thing about her that made you feel like you were in the presence of an elderly woman. A few minutes with Sheba would make you believe that dogs were really man’s best friend. But on the night I was shot, the dogs were not in the house. Ese had made me lock them outside in their kennel because she had said she wanted us to have a romantic night after we’d both taken turns reading and tucking Derek into bed that night.

Adolph didn’t really bark—he was more of an “attack first, bark later” kind of dog—but that night, I chose to ignore him because Ese had just told me we were expecting a girl. I was busy carrying her in my arms around the living room and kissing her all over her face when three masked men broke into the living room with guns, disrupting our celebration. They ordered us to lie down on the floor, and we complied. Then, one of them asked for the exact amount of money I had in the house, $55,000. That was my cut from a contract I and three other people executed. I played dumb, telling them I didn’t have that kind of money. I was already planning on going to deposit the money the next day, purchase a property in Derek’s name, and also get a car for Ese since her birthday was in a week. Even Ese didn’t know I brought this money home. She only knew we had been paid for the contract but didn’t know how much it was, so how did these masked guys know about it? I wrapped my arms around Ese while we laid flat on the floor. “Don’t make us go through the stress of ransacking this house for that money; you won’t like the outcome, Lanre.” I had to look up when I heard my name. These people really knew me, and that was when I knew how the night was going to end. “Baby, these are not robbers. They’re assassins,” Ese whispered to me, confirming my fears.

I whispered to her that she should talk to the family lawyer tomorrow and our daughter should be called Ethel. She looked at me, confused, not knowing why I was telling her those things. I kept ignoring the masked men as they continued barking orders, and they were acting confused, wondering who should do the deed. Then, the biggest among the three came towards us, grabbed Ese, and placed a gun to her head. I watched my wife pee on herself as she placed her hands on her tummy. “Please, don’t hurt my wife. I will give you the money, so you can leave me and my family in peace.” I pled with them as I kissed my wife while one of the three men shoved me towards the direction of the study, and the other two remained in the living room with my wife. The study was where I’d taken the money when I got back home, and I had planned to tell Ese about it later that night after she told me we were expecting a girl. I got the briefcase from under the table where I had kept it, and the masked man collected it from me, opened it, took a wad of bills, and placed it in his pocket. That was when I saw his wristwatch. He was the only person I knew that wore a blue Casio G-SHOCK. I remembered it because I was the one that got it for him as a gift. “Arinze, why are you doing this? Who sent you? You’re my banker.” I turned to lunge at him, and he fired the two shots that stole me forever from my wife, from Derek, and from the miracle of watching my daughter being born into this cruel world.

The other men rushed into the study while Ese screamed as she saw me laying on the floor, struggling to breathe but coughing up blood. I was choking on my own blood because a bullet tore through my carotid artery while another shattered my clavicle. “What happened? Why did you shoot him? That wasn't the arrangement.” “What was the arrangement then? We were supposed to shoot him; moreover, he recognized me and called me by my name,” my killer responded. “What should we do to her?” he asked the other two with his gun pointed at Ese’s head while she was screaming and pleading with me not to go. Before they could make a decision, Adolph rushed in from nowhere and attacked the man that shot me before he was about to pull the trigger on Ese. Another shot was fired, and Adolph whimpered as he collapsed on the floor beside me. I looked at my wife as she cried over me while Adolph dragged himself in pain and came to lay his head on my leg as the men grabbed the briefcase and hurriedly ran out of the house. The one that was badly bitten left a blood trail that disappeared at the gate where their car was parked. Ese kept screaming as I breathed my last, and she cradled my head in her hands. Shakily, she laid one hand upon my chest. She realized only then that she was waiting for a heartbeat. My heart would never beat again. Adolph also stretched and gave an inaudible groan as he died too, on his master’s lap.

It was just past 9 PM, but nobody came. Apparently, no one heard the gunshot, and no matter how hard and how loud Ese screamed for help, no one came. “Lanre! Lanre! Please, don’t go. Please, Lanre, don’t go." She kept shaking me as I had a blank stare, the gaze of death. My blood and Adolph’s pooled around her. Sheba came in, went over to me, licked my face, went across me, licked Adolph's too, then she ran over to where we normally kept our phones, grabbed one, held it in her mouth, and brought it to Ese. She used her head to nudge Ese on the shoulder, and Ese collected the phone from her mouth and called the first number she remembered, mine. My phone rang, and then she realized that I would never pick my calls again. She then called her mom and told her to hurry. That was when she fainted,and Sheba laid down beside her, whimpering, facing the open door, daring anyone to come into the house. Sheba had been locked up in her kennel when the masked men came into the house. Adolph was chained in the backyard because he normally got released at night around 8 PM. No one would ever know how Sheba came out of her cage or how Adolph broke free of his chains.