"Goodnight, Femi," I said coldly, forcefully turning around to tuck myself into the duvet and switching off the table lamp beside me.

"Goodnight, Ireti," he responded in the same cold manner.

I found it funny and, in a way, weird—his first name rolling off my tongue, that is. “Femi.” I hadn't called him that in ages. It was always "My love," "Babe," or "Ajibade"—his surname—when I would tease him or on the few occasions we had disagreements. But it was never 'Femi.' A clear sign that whatever this was had begun straining our relationship.

Two weeks ago, his phone rang on this same bed at 3:00 am while I was doing skincare in the bathroom. I had absentmindedly skipped my routine that night, and whenever I did, it bugged me until I had to get up and get it done so I could sleep peacefully. Whenever this happened, I called it my near-morning routine.

Who would've known my near-morning routine would be the one thing to reveal my husband's lying, cheating ass to me?

On hearing his phone ring, I walked into the room startled, initially scared that it was bad news from home—the only plausible reason his phone should be ringing at 3:00 am while men slept.

To my astonishment, the caller ID read "Bianca." I stood despondent beside the ringing phone and a snoring Femi, seriously struggling to understand why an unknown woman—because to the best of my knowledge, we did not know a "Bianca"—would be calling him at that ungodly hour. After three missed calls, she left a text message saying, "Don't say I didn't try." This is why Femi and I are still in a weird position today.

I had contemplated waking him up that very moment, but I decided against it because I was a civil woman, and brought it up when we both properly woke up that morning. As I expected, he cooked up the most cliché story about Bianca being his newly assigned partner at work and denied any involvement with the said woman. "Partner at work" was code for side-chick. I had seen enough movies and read enough books to know that one for free. But being the good wife I was, I let it go. That was, of course, until the constant late returns from work, missing dinner, avoiding long conversations, hiding to take calls, and fifteen missed calls from Bianca at 3:00 am yesterday.

Call me crazy but “fifteen missed calls” was wild! I couldn't take it anymore. I confronted him and we ended up having our biggest fight yet. I called him a liar and a cheat—even though I had no evidence; he had called me jobless and a bore. He said that maybe if I still had my job, I wouldn't spend so much time concocting rubbish about him cheating.

"Me, jobless? Eh, Femi!" I screamed at him before taking a deep breath and saying the most aloof "Goodnight" I could muster up.

That night, I was determined to find evidence that Femi was breaking our marital vows and engaging in intercourse with Bianca. Yes, I called it “intercourse”. Adding “sexual” felt a bit too final and amidst my accusations, a tiny part of me hoped I wasn't right.

What I found was beyond me.

At 2:50 am, I snuck out of my side of the bed and picked up Femi's phone, moving around to run facial recognition so it could unlock. He was such a deep sleeper that I wondered why the woman bothered calling by 3; he definitely wasn't going to wake up to take the call.

I took the unlocked phone and tiptoed to our living room, sitting patiently on the sofa as I ran through his WhatsApp, Instagram, and Telegram messages. As I expected, I found nothing there—smart.

I was checking his iMessage when Bianca's call came in. I answered it and left it on the table, not saying a word.

“Femi, you finally pick up! You asked that we communicate by this time because of your wife, and you are always unavailable.” She paused for a millisecond, then continued ranting.

“Shola will pick up the gun and clean your prints tomorrow, but I swear to God, Femi, this is the last one I'm helping you clean up! Fix yourself! Fix whatever this is!” She said, hanging up before I could interrupt with the questions that flooded my mind.

Gun? Clean up? I didn't understand anything she said. She clearly had the wrong Femi or was delusional or something. Maybe this was why Femi had taken to ignoring her calls. Yes, a deluded woman who was obsessed with him and called him in the middle of the night to accuse him of rubbish. That made sense. He was probably threatening to call the police on her the next time she called. Yes.

With a surge of fear running through my bones, I quickly convinced myself that was the case and put his phone down, intending to go back to bed before I remembered the name Shola.

I decided to check for conversations with said Shola and found a series of them. The first message I saw when I opened WhatsApp was from Femi. He told Shola he had thrown the gun into one of his shoes where he was sure his wife wouldn't see it, and that he would bring it to him tomorrow. Shola responded, saying, “You and I both know taking care of the gun isn't the problem, Femi. We need to figure out why this is happening again. I thought it stopped ten years ago, eh? You're sleepwalking in the afternoon and killing people again. In broad daylight, Femi! That is the problem.”

Numb from what I had just seen, I put the phone down immediately and walked straight to the room to find the shoe, and in turn, the gun—the only way to confirm I wasn't hallucinating at this point.

After carefully taking down the three boxes of shoes before the very one he had supposedly hidden the gun in, I took a deep breath and opened the box.

At first, I didn't see the gun and almost broke out into a wide smile, but in the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a black object. I looked closely and right inside the shoe, I saw it.