The Midnight Kiss: My Husband’s Secret With My Late Sister
I came home early from the market one evening and caught my husband on his knees, passionately kissing my late sister’s framed photograph while whispering, “Forgive me, my love.”
My legs stopped listening to me right there at the doorway. The basket of tomatoes and pepper I was carrying nearly slipped from my hands. There he was — Chinedu — in our sitting room, the one with the old brown sofa and the family pictures on the wall. The light from the bulb was dim, but I could see everything clearly. His eyes were closed. His lips pressed against the glass of the frame like he was trying to reach someone who was no longer there..
I stood frozen. My chest felt tight, like someone had tied a rope around it and started pulling. This was my house. Our house. And there was my husband, on his knees like a man praying, but the words coming out of his mouth were not prayers.
“Forgive me, my love,” he whispered again, so soft I almost missed it. The way he said it… it carried weight. Like a secret he had been keeping for years.
My sister Nkiruka’s face smiled back at him from inside that wooden frame. The same gentle smile she had in every photo. The same one I grew up seeing every morning when we shared a room as children. She had been gone for four years now, but in that moment it felt like she was standing right there between us.
I didn’t know when the basket finally dropped. The tomatoes rolled across the concrete floor. Chinedu’s head snapped up. His eyes met mine and for a second everything went completely still.
“Ada…” His voice cracked.
I tried to speak but nothing came out at first. My throat felt dry and tight. When the words finally pushed through, they came out sharp and broken.
“Chinedu, what is this? What are you doing?”
He stayed on his knees, the photograph still in his hands. He didn’t try to hide it. That somehow made it worse.
“It is not what you think,” he said quietly.
Not what I think? My own husband kissing my dead sister’s picture like a lover while I was out trying to sell provisions to feed us. How many other nights had this been happening? How many times had I come back tired from the market, warmed his food, and gone to sleep thinking everything was fine?
My mind started spinning. Did they have something together before she died? Was that why he agreed to marry me so quickly after her burial? Was I just the replacement? The younger sister who looked a little like her but could never be her?
Tears burned my eyes but I refused to let them fall. Not yet.
“Stand up,” I said. My voice sounded strange even to me. “Stand up and tell me the truth. Right now.”
He placed the frame gently on the side table, the same place it had sat since we moved into this house. Then he rose slowly, like an old man carrying too much weight. His shoulders were slumped. The man who usually stood tall in his mechanic workshop now looked small.
“Ada, please,” he started. “Some things… they are not easy to explain.”
