Chapter 1 Melinda's history

"Do you think you are worthy to sit on the dining table with us? Who the hell do you think you are? Get the hell away from here. You will only be called by a maid when everyone in this house has eaten." Those were the words spoken by Melinda's grandmother.

Melinda Davids is a twenty four year old lady. She lost her mother when she was ten years old and her life has been a living hell ever since then.

The only thing she is grateful of about her family is that they did not deprive her of her right to education and which has helped her achieve a master's degree in apparel design.

Designing is in her blood, her mother was very good at it but she never got the chance to polish her talent because she got pregnant. She used to tell her that she wanted to be a designer that will be known world wide, but all her dreams were shattered when she got pregnant.

She had to leave school and look for a job so that she will be able to take care of them since her parents also had to resign from their jobs when they vacated the city in fear of being killed by her grandmother, that is her father's mother.

She loves designing outfits and everyone in this house wears what she has designed for them when attending functions. Of course she is not allowed to attend those functions.

Oh yes by the way she is also not allowed to say that she has designed those outfits they have worn but luckily enough none of them have ever thought of taking the praise for her work.

Her grandmother was spitting those words out of anger. You know what she is angry about, you will not believe it if you were told about it.

Her grandmother is angry at the fact that she decided to apply for a job, she was even called for a job interview without any of them knowing this.

She had two interviews that she had taken in this company, the first interview was a written interview and the second one was an oral interview, and it was just a few days after the written interview.

As for how her grandmother found out about this interview, she also wishes to see that person. The only thing she knows right now is that her body hurts so much from the beating she has received from her grandmother.

She stood up from the dinner table and dragged her feet to her bedroom, her body aches all over and she was also dying of hunger.

She only had a slice of bread in the morning. She did not eat all day because they first sent her in the morning to buy a few groceries that had finished from the kitchen. Then she also ran some few errands when she came back from the grocery store.

Her grandmother woke up in a very good mood today, she knows this because every time she wants to bake a chocolate cake it is because she is in a good mood.

When she left this house, everything was fine. They were all in a good mood. Her sisters and cousins were all happy that they will have chocolate cake today.

By the way just so you know her grandmother is the best chocolate cake baker in their society in such a way that every time there is an event, they ask her to prepare a few cakes for them.

She usually uses Melinda to bake the cakes,and she has mastered the recipe although she acts like she is reading the recipe every time they bake.

She has vowed that she will continue to act stupid for as long as she can because once they discover that she can now make it without reading the recipe book then she will be their slave forever.

Her grandmother always calls her an imbecile when she asks what she should add next when they are baking. She uses words like "you are too stupid to even master a simple cake recipe, are you even my son's daughter. My son was so smart that he excelled in everything he did. The only thing he did wrong was to impregnant that stupid mother of yours. You really take after your mother." She would curse her after that.

However, Melinda does not care whether she calls her stupid or not because she has learnt over the years that once they see that she has learnt to do something they always tell the helpers not to do it anymore because she was now able of doing it.

The only reason her grandmother makes her bake the cakes over and over is because they always come up well. They are always well risen, soft and crumble. Which makes people to always drool over the cakes every time they see them.

When she was eleven years old she was stupid enough to run to her grandmother and told her that she has grown up in such a way that she now knows how to do table setting.

From that day onwards the helpers were not allowed to set the table unless she was not around to do it, which hardly happens.

She grew up with her mother, her mother was apparently her father's first love but she was never accepted by her grandmother.

Her parents went to the same schools from kindergarten, they were high school sweethearts. Her mother gave her virginity to her father on their prom night and that was the day Melinda was conceived.

When her mother and her parents came to her father's parents to report that their daughter was pregnant. The Davids couple told her that she should abort the baby because their son was already betrothed to someone else.

Her father was not there on that day, her mother was heart broken. She persuaded her parents to move out of town in fear of her grandmother.

She feared that they might make her abort the baby by force, she knew how dangerous that woman was.

They left the city for the countryside, her mother thought it was a perfect place to hide. However, she had no idea that Mrs Davids had sent people to secretly follow them.

Her mother's mother died of a heart attack when Melinda was five years old because her father's mother had sent people to come take her by force.

Fortunately enough for her, her granny was there. Their intention was to steal her but they couldn't. The moment she fainted those people all left without giving them a hand. She remembers that day as if it was yesterday.

Her grandfather followed his sweetheart a few months after that. He could not live without his better half. Every day in the morning he would start at the grave yard before eating breakfast. He would also go back in the evening before sleeping. Then one day he just never woke up.

She remembers seeing her mother patting his cheeks and saying "dad wake up, I am sorry I will be a good girl from now on. Dad please do not leave me. Dad I found a good job that will make me take care for you and Melinda. Dad please not now not when I was just planning on how to spoil you as a way of showing my gratitude."

She watched her mother say those words repeatedly as she stood by the door. She knew from that day, that from now onwards it was just her and her mother. Little did she know that very soon she will also leave her too.

Her mother was a very devoted somebody who worked at a diner and was loved by lots of people in the small town.

They all helped out when preparing for the funeral. They never lacked a single cent for the funeral and her grandfather was buried with dignity.

When she was ten years old, thieves got into the diner and shot her mother. She was back at home with a nanny.

She remembers seeing a police car and two policemen coming out of it. They said a hell lot of things and none of them made sense. The only thing that dawned on her was that all the people she has known as her family have left her alone into this world.

The policemen were able to track her father and he came to get her. That was how she got to this house. She could tell that none of them were happy to see her. Only her father and grand father treated her well.

That life was short lived though because her grandfather was diagnosed with bone cancer a few months before she came and refused to receive any treatment.

Which made his cancer advance to the last stage and he died. Her grandmother called her father out of a meeting to tell him to rush to the hospital his father was dying.

Melinda's father never got the chance to see his dying father because he also got a car accident on the way to the hospital.

Melinda's grandmother blamed all of that on her, she still does not understand why she would blame her for that. She was not God, she did not make her grandfather to have cancer neither did she cause her father's accident. But still her grandmother blames all of this on her.

So yes that is the story of her life, some of these events happened so fast that she also could not catch a breath.

Her siblings did not like her because her grandmother used to tell them that their mother killed herself because of them (that is Melinda and her mother) her son used to secretly go to them and leave his wife behind.

Which was not true because the first time she saw her father was the day he picked her up from the police station.

She only knew that he was her father because her mother had a chain on her neck which had pictures of both her parents.

She has seen him on pictures but never in real life so why would her grandmother lie about this, only she knows.