Supermarket Girl – Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

They joined the local church and become regular worshippers there. Her husband sent her to school to finish law school and set her up in her first office. Gradually however, Ruth developed a mental condition accompanied by some unusual behaviours. She would sometimes leave the house and not return until late and when her husband asked where she had been she would say she went out for a walk. Her husband did not understand what was going on and started to think that Ruth was becoming an unruly wife.

Eventually Ruth’s husband discovered that his wife was mentally ill and sought medical help for her. She was however stubborn and refused to take her medication at times. In time, her husband decided that he could not tolerate Ruth’s illness without alcohol and went back to his old ways. In the midst of all this chaos Ruth had two more children, twins, a son and a daughter.

One day Ruth’s husband packed up his things and his children’s things and left her. That was actually the beginning of Ruth’s redemption.

For the first time, Ruth understood that something was terribly wrong with her. Before her husband’s departure, she thought that he was the one with the problem. Now that she had time to reflect, she recalled all the times that she had had relapses on account of not taking medication and how many different doctors her husband had taken her to so that she could be convinced that she needed to take her medication. She feared that she had exposed her children to the risk of being harmed by her but thanked God for His protection. She decided not to fight her husband but to take time to heal herself first.

She had closed down her office a long time ago when she decided that she would rather go back to school and study something different like psychology. After closing the office she had not quite decided on what she wanted to study. In any case, she was not well. Fortunately her husband was able to provide for the family during that period. Now that she was all alone with nothing but a house to live in, she did not know where to start.

Her parents bailed her out again and provided for her to get proper treatment for her condition. After a few weeks she telephoned her husband who agreed to let her see the children whenever she was able to. She visited them at least twice a week. When her doctor told her that she no longer needed counselling except when she felt it necessary, she felt confident to restart her office.

She borrowed some money from her parents and did so. Her parents introduced her to many clients and so her business picked up well from the beginning. Within a short time she had repaid her parents the amount she had borrowed and was making enough to live on and to cater for some of the children’s needs. She would do the grocery shopping for her children, for herself and for her parents. She was therefore a frequent visitor to the supermarket. Her mother baptized her ‘supermarket girl’ when she accompanied Ruth to the supermarket she frequented and saw how efficiently she did the shopping and how many of the attendants knew her.

In time, Ruth and her husband agreed that they were not suited for each other and arranged an amicable divorce. They agreed on shared custody of the children and each of them had the children living with them for extended periods of time while the other had visitation. True to his nature, Ruth’s ex-husband decided to emigrate to the West and left the children with Ruth. When he was settled, he travelled to visit the children or paid for them to go visit him.

It was during one of her supermarket visits that Ruth met that guy who called her names. She met a few other guys but she was reluctant to date anyone because she was not the kind to date a man who she would not be interested in getting married to. She had not met any such man much to her relief because she dreaded the idea of a second marriage.