The Madam Who Scalded Her Blessing

The Madam Who Scalded Her Blessing

I am dictating this story to my nurse because I can no longer use my hands.

My fingers are raw meat.

If you are a wicked Madam who treats her help like animals, read this and repent.

My name is Mrs. Shade Adewale. I live in a duplex in Magodo Phase 2. My husband, Chief Femi Adewale, is a clearing and forwarding agent. We were very rich. I say were because wealth, like water, can quietly drain away.

I have changed six housemaids in one year. I don’t tolerate nonsense.

If you sleep late, I slap you.

If you steal meat, I lock you in the toilet.

I told myself I was disciplining them. I didn’t know I was digging my grave with manicured nails.

Last month, my husband brought a new girl from the village.

Her name was Chidinma.

From the first day, something was wrong. She was too beautiful to be a housemaid. Her skin glowed like she drank moonlight. Her hair was long and heavy. She hardly spoke. She worked quietly, tirelessly, as if she was not tired of living.

What angered me most was my husband’s behavior.

He never shouted at her. Never insulted her. Sometimes I caught him staring at her not with desire but with fear.

“Why are you afraid of a common servant?” I asked him once.

“You won’t understand, Shade,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “Just treat her well. Please.”

That was when hatred entered my heart.

I increased her work. Midnight laundry. Toothbrush scrubbing of the compound. Extra errands. No rest.

She never complained.

She just looked at me with eyes that reminded me of water deep, calm, and dangerous.

Then came last Tuesday.

I was hosting a dinner for my friends. I ordered Chidinma to bring out my Versace china the plates we bought in Italy for $3,000. I watched her carefully, already angry, already waiting.

As she walked to the table, her foot slipped.

CRASH.

The plates shattered.

Something ugly rose inside me. I didn’t think. I was holding a kettle of boiling water.

“You useless girl!” I screamed.

I poured it on her back.

I expected screams. Rolling. Begging.

But Chidinma didn’t make a sound.

Steam rose from her clothes. Slowly, she turned to face me.

She was smiling.

“Thank you, Madam,” she said her voice sounding like many voices speaking at once.

“I have been waiting for you to break the covenant.”

My heart froze. “What covenant?”

“The covenant of patience,” she said calmly. “Your husband begged me to serve you for seven years so he could rise above men. He promised you would treat me like a sister.”

She touched the place where the water hit her.

Her skin was perfect.

“But you used fire to release me.”

She walked out of the house. No bags. No shoes. Just into the night.

When my husband returned and saw the broken plates and the empty room, he collapsed.

“Shade, you have finished us!” he cried.

“That was not a human being. That was Mami Wata. She brought the wealth!”

I slapped him and called him mad.

That night, I slept.

By morning, hell had moved into my body.

My arm burned. A patch of skin peeled off onto the bedsheet. Underneath was pink flesh. I touched my face my cheek came off in my hand.

I screamed until my voice broke.

Hospitals failed. Doctors were confused. “Third degree burns,” they said, “but there’s no fire.”

Meanwhile, contracts vanished. ₦500 million gone. Accounts frozen. Calls unanswered.

Every night in the hospital, she comes.

Chidinma.

Standing at the foot of my bed. Holding a kettle. Smiling.

“Madam, do you want tea?” she asks.

Three nights ago, I begged.

“Please,” I cried. “What do you want?”

She finally spoke softly.

“I wanted nothing,” she said. “I was patient. Your husband borrowed grace. You poured fire on it.”

She leaned close.

“But mercy still exists.”

The next morning, my husband sold our house. Our cars. Everything. He took the money and built a shelter for abused house helps feeding them, housing them, paying them.

On the seventh day, my skin stopped peeling.

The doctors called it a miracle.

I call it forgiveness I did not deserve.

I am scarred forever. My beauty is gone. My pride is buried. I now clean my own house. I greet workers first.

And sometimes very early in the morning I hear humming near my window.

I bow my head.

Because I know now:

Some servants are not sent to serve you.

They are sent to test you.

And not every punishment comes with fire.

The End.