By ERIC  MARIWA

There I was, awkwardly staring at Agnes half asleep, petrified. I did what any man in such a situation would do.

I slammed the door at her.

A bird in hand, the English say, is worth two in the bush. Agnes was the bird in hand. The man instinct in me chose to keep the one in the house. What would I lose if I lost Susan?

Susan screamed hysterically as she rang the doorbell. I was clutching at every straw to keep Agnes out of this and the bell ringing would surely wake her up. The only way, I thought, was to switch off the power to the house. Agnes who had been woken up by the commotion and the sounds strolled into the living room and asked what was going on.

I gave her a cock and bull story: Mistaken identity.

“I think the man who used to stay here did not trouble himself to tell all her girlfriends.”

Aware of the human voices in the house and probably emboldened at the thought of another woman’s presence, Susan now banged the door, hard and calling out my name. This was getting nasty for me. I decided to take the bull by the horns. I opened the door and let her in.

“Who is this other woman?” Susan asked not hiding her feeling of anger.

“This is my friend Agnes,” I interjected almost immediately.

By this time, the neighbours had been attracted by the screams and the cries. At the back of my mind, I had decided not to wait for the issues to ripen. It was time to fix my life.

I had become weary of the band-aid solutions that had characterised my life where women were treated as conquests from which I walked away the next day or whom I strung along carrying others.

Past sins

It was time to steady the ship.  My life has been one of hits and misses. In that maelstrom, I felt, I had missed a lot.

Once everything had quietened, I asked both women to sit down.

In the midst of sobs and tears, I owned up to my past sins. Susan was inconsolable. Agnes just lapped up at the drama.

It was terribly heart-wrenching.

“It feels like someone has ripped my heart out…” Susan said.

In the end, Agnes became the arbiter. She counselled us to look to the future and consider what was really important for us; happiness and look for it.