She was one of the good ones… sweet, kind, hardworking, beautiful in and out. She was married to Marcus and we were neighbors.
Marcus was an ok guy but he was too laid back. He had a nonchalant behavior and had mastered the act of procrastination perfectly. Rather than take care of stuff, he would turn a blind eye because he trusted his wife to take care of his lapses and cover up for his inadequacies.
Now they had a refrigerator that had an obvious malfunction because of how it would shock anyone that tried to open it. The previous night was particularly bad when Marcus Jnr was thrown off as he opened the fridge. Maria worried that this was a disaster waiting to happen so she pleaded with Marcus to get an electrician to have it checked since she would not be able to do that until the weekend. Marcus on the other hand was off work for a few days so he had the luxury of time.
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Knowing the kind of husband she had, Maria called him several times to remind him about the electrician. Judging from his response she could tell that Marcus was just being Marcus. In order to avoid another incident, she asked him to turn off the refrigerator from source.
In his characteristic nonchalant manner, Marcus thought about how to leave the comfort of his bed and walk all the way down to the kitchen but he chose not to move. “I’ll tell the kids to do it when they return from school”, he said to himself.
Maria called again to ask if he had turned it off and he responded in the affirmative. Now that her family was ‘safe’, she could relax and attend to the files on her table.
When Maria walked into the house that evening, little did she know that her husband’s careless was about to hit its peak. She kissed the children as they rushed to hug her then she went straight to the kitchen, knocking off her shoes and bag on the way. Straight to the fridge she went because she perishable foods in there. She didn’t bother telling Marcus to move them to the deep freezer because she knew that would be too much work for him.
Marcus recalls walking into the kitchen and seeing his wife sprawled on the floor, eyes bulging out and foaming in her mouth. He knew instantly what had happened, that was when he ran to disconnect the fridge from its socket. He tried to administer CPR to Maria but she was unresponsive and her pulse was weak. Panic set in. Marcus was afraid.
All the way to the hospital, he cried hard and even made promises to be a better husband to her. I remember this incident because I was behind the wheel, driving fast and furious style, beating traffic lights and barely managing not to run into other road users. When I heard that loud shrill cry from the back seat, I knew that Maria was gone. She died in her husband’s arms just as I touched the hospital driveway. Nothing could be done.. she was Dead On Arrival.
And so the life of a budding young woman was suddenly cut short in its prime because of her husband’s careless.
