Divorcing Tony

AARON ANSAH-AGYEMAN

DIVORCING TONY

The courtroom was hushed, shocked, and immobilized.

Tony Siaw – that peculiarly peculiar man – tried to free his thighs and move back from the broken hulk of his beautiful wife, but she would not let him. She held his thighs tightly until he said and spoke in his calm voice which did nothing to belittle the seething pain in his heart.

“Realistically, you can’t continue holding my thighs forever, Liz. We should get this thing over with.”

She raised her tear-streaked face to his.

 

“I never cheated on you, my love,” Liz whispered painfully. “Yes, I was hurt when you told me you would no longer contribute to the F.U.F and that you did not want our children near Grandma Cecilia. That brought a great fight between us, and made me go to my parents. But I was so confused, Tony. I didn’t know all that you’ve just revealed, and I thought you never cared about me, or my parents, and that you didn’t love me. I was confused.”

“You have a right to feel confused in marriage, Liz, but you had no right to send a man to our matrimonial bed!” Tony said painfully.

 

“I didn’t mean to!” Liz shouted and scrambled to her feet, putting her hands across his shoulders. “When I was over there, they barraged me constantly with how great the family would have been if I had married Frank. He also came around almost every day telling me how he still loved me and how he had not been able to move on. It made me confused, especially when I thought you didn’t care. Two weeks ago, I wanted one of my dresses for my brother’s office party, and Frank offered to drive me over. I told him to stay in the car whilst I got the dress. Once in the bedroom, I just broke down and started crying because my heart was so bitter. Frank came in and started talking and before I knew what was happening, he was kissing me.”

 

Tony Siaw’s teeth grated as he moved away from her with narrowed eyes.

“And that was how you cheated,” he said with an expression so filled with pain that it made Liz’s heart thud with pain.

“No, no, no, my love!” she cried desperately. “You said you came in and saw us.”

“I did,” he said.

“Then you should have stayed longer!” Liz cried. “He kissed me, and it didn’t touch anything in me! It made me realize how much I loved you, and how much I had missed you. So, I stopped him, and I told him to let us leave. I guess that was the day I started seeing things differently. That was the day I called the car company and ordered a Mercedes for your birthday! That was the day I decided to come back to you, my love. Tony, I never cheated on you!”

 

“Cheating is not about sleeping with someone!” Tony cried as he moved away from her. “The moment you took another man to our bedroom, and he touched you, right there was the sanctity of our home broken! I came in, saw you, rushed out, and it was over for me! Over, do you understand?”

Judge Ivy Asante saw the passion of the two, and how Junior was standing in a stupor with tears on his face, and she sighed deeply and hammered her gavel sharply, drawing the attention of the feuding couple to her.

“Mr. Tony Siaw, you saw your wife in a moment of… infidelity, if I can put it that way, kissing her ex on your matrimonial bed. You left, but she said that moment of craziness cured her madness, and she resolved to love you again, and live with you.”

 

“Doesn’t change anything!” Tony hissed at the judge. “Doesn’t change anything, damn it! She was a married woman, in our bedroom, and she disrespected me, and God, and defiled our bed!”

“But she didn’t sleep with him!” the Judge cried with mounting fury. “Seeing your wife that way is no reason why you should take a prostitute to your bedroom and sleep with her as a form of what? A sort of sick payback? You have the nerve to condemn your wife for kissing her ex on your bed when you took a prostitute to the same bed and slept with her? You think you have more right to condemn her after your disgraceful act?”

“Oh, come off it!” Tony Siaw cried with disgust. “I never slept with her!”

“Mr. Tony Siaw!” Hassan cried with shock. “How can you lie like that? There are viral videos all around showing –”

 

“Just shut up over there, you koobi lawyer!” Tony said angrily. “Yes, I saw Liz kissing Frank on our bed. And Frank saw me in the doorway and smiled!”

“Tony!” Liz whispered with horror. “Frank saw you? Oh, dear Lord!”

“He did,” Tony said painfully. “And later that night, he called me and told me you wanted a divorce, but didn’t know how to tell me because you didn’t want to hurt me like my mother hurt my father.”

“Oh, God, no!” Liz cried with agony. “Why didn’t you ask me, Tony?”

“How many times did I call you and you never picked up before that?” he asked painfully.

“Oh, God, oh Lord, that was a mistake of mine, never giving us an opportunity to talk about our problems. I’m so sorry, my love. It will never happen again!”

 

“Now, let me get this clearer,” Judge Ivy said calmly. “Mr. Siaw, you went in, saw Liz’s ex kissing her, and the man sees you. You walk away, and in the night Mr. Frank Nsiah called you and informed you Liz wants a divorce, but doesn’t know how to broach it because she did not want to hurt you like your mom did your father.”

“That’s right, Your Honour,” Tony said painfully. “And he added that he had been sleeping with her.”

“Frank!” Liz said and swirled around, and her scathing eyes fixed on Frank’s guilt-ridden face as he sat in the audience. “How could you do that? How could you lie like that?”

And Frank stood up and pointed a trembling finger at Liz.

 

“Because you broke my fucking heart!” he screamed. “And because I still love you, and I can’t get over you, and I’ll do every bloody thing to have you back, Liz, you fucking witch!”

And with that, Frank Nsiah rushed to the aisle, and then walked to the bench and faced the judge with tears in his eyes.

“It was my idea, Your Honour,” he said in a voice that was filled with torture. “I set it all up after I convinced Tony that Liz still loved me, lied that we made love, and told him the only way Liz will give him a divorce was if he was unfaithful to her, because she still felt great guilt about leaving Tony.”

“My God!” Judge Ivy whispered. “How could you be so callous?”

Frank smiled sadly.

 

“Love, Your Honour, love,” he said. “It can make you do the craziest of things.”

“And Mr. Siaw, you bought into that crap?” the judge asked.

“Why not?” Tony Siaw asked. “Why not, Your Honour? She moved out of the house, would not pick my calls or allow me to see my children, came to our home and kissed a man on our bed! What was I supposed to think? When Frank told me, she was coming to give me a birthday gift, I decided to give her the freedom she wanted without making her feel guilty about leaving me. I arranged with the prostitute, she came with her flesh-coloured dildo – excuse my language – we staged our act, Liz got a chance at her freedom. And that’s that.”

Frank Nsiah turned and smiled wanly at Liz.

 

“I’m relocating to the States, Liz,” he said painfully. “Be happy. Won’t see you again, probably, but I wish you all the best. Fought for your love as best as I could but, what you have is real. Love you, always will.”

Liz nodded with tears in her eyes, and watched as Frank walked lethargically down the aisle and out through a side door.

“Liz,” Judge Ivy Darteh said gravely.

“No, no, Your Honour!” Liz said desperately as she approached the bench. “I am going to gazette my name, because I’m Mrs. Liz Siaw, and I’m going to start over with my husband, and children, and be a wife to a man who has done nothing but love me. I’ll make my own decisions, love him, and wouldn’t be the puppet my mom and grandma wanted me to be. I don’t know how to do this, but I withdraw my divorce application, please, I beg of you!”

 

Judge Ivy smiled at her sadly and looked over at the calm-faced Tony Siaw.

“And Tony?”

“You heard my wife,” Tony said softly. “Finally, she is a wife.”

And Liz rushed to him, and put her arms around his neck, and tears drowned her.

“Oh, Tony!” she whispered. “You forgive me?”

“Only on one condition,” he said.

“Anything!” she whispered. “Oh, Tony, my love, anything!”

He smiled down at her face, kindly, warmly.

“We move to our new house, the one I built for you and the kids,” he whispered. “I don’t want to see the old bed again.”

 

And Liz drew her husband’s head down, and she kissed the breath out of him live on television.

“Alright, get out of my court,” Judge Ivy Asante Darteh said. “We’re done here.”

“Haaaaaaaaaaa!” Ceci shouted from Grace’s shoulder. “We finish? I wan go hooooome! Daddieeeeesh, let’s go hoooome!”

Junior nodded with tears in his eyes.
“Judge woman, no more divorce?” he asked hopefully. “No divorce?”

“Haaaaaaaaaa!” Ceci shouted. “Not wan vivores!”

“No divorce, my brave young man,” Ivy Asante Darteh said as she looked at Junior. “Only Peace Time, my dear. You’re my hero, Junior. Thank you very much!”

 

And as Junior nodded with tears of relief and joy on his face, Liz dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around her son as television cameras moved in on her

“Thank you, my son,” she whispered tremulously. “Thank you so much, you and Ceci!”

And much later, after the frenzied climax of screams, shouts, laughter, tears, interviews, Liz carried her children to her car and waited for her husband to sit beside her, but she saw him walking towards her family with a box in her hand.

Intrigued, Liz followed quickly.

Her parents, siblings, grandmother and Grace were all bunched together, looking at Tony with shamed faces when he stopped in front of Grace and smiled almost childishly.

“Gracie,” he said gently. “You’ve always been my friend, and always encouraged me to have faith in the love I had for Liz, and told me one day, she would be mine.”

Grace smiled with tears in her eyes.

 

“She’s always been yours, Tony,” she said softly. “She just needed to see.”

“Thank you, Auntie,” Liz said and linked her arm through Tony’s.

“So,” Tony said. “You remember that piece of land your sister sold?”

“Yeah,” Grace said. “To some diasporeans from Canada. They’ve built the most beautiful house on it, crazy house! Ohhh, love that house! Sandra has even regretted selling that land!”

“I know your mother always said you didn’t get anything from marrying a man of your heart and not of her choice,” Tony said with a broad smile. “And so, I bought that land, and built that house on it, all for you, Gracie. There’s a car parked in the garage of this house. It’s all yours, Gracie. Was waiting to hand this over on your birthday but I think now is about the right time. You’re still young and beautiful, Gracie, with a wonderful heart! Enjoy your life! Here, all the keys are here!”

And when Tony gave her the box, it fell through Grace’s hands, because her shock was that great, and she just stared at Tony with tears raining down her face.

 

And then, suddenly, Jake Baidoo stepped forward and shook Tony’s hand with a smile on her face.

“Well played, Tony,” he said. “Well played. Welcome to the family, and welcome to my house. Things are going to be a lot different from now.”

“You still ain’t getting my money in the fucking F.U.F,” Tony said, and this time Jake Baidoo and Liz’s brother’s laughed heartily.

“Daddieeeeeesh!” Ceci scream came from the open window of Liz’s car. “Am hot! Am hungryyyyyyyy! I wan go hoooooome!”

Tony Siaw turned from them and as he hurried towards the car Liz caught his hand. He looked down at her happy, beautiful face.

“I love you, Liz Siaw,” he said.

 

“Oh, Tony!” she whispered. “Let’s go home fast. I’m very wet somewhere!”

“Ashawo bibiooo!” Tony said and they laughed and increased their steps.

Author’s Note::

A judge I once saw in court made me so angry that I wanted to throw something at her head. I guess that urge to “cause commotion in court” inspired the Tony Siaw character.
Thanks for reading.

I want to thank Lawyer Kharisa Nyantie for her help with some of the legal procedures and ‘court culture’ captured in the courtroom. Deeply appreciated.

Aaron

 

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DIVORCING TONY :: CHAPTER 15

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