The only thing I can remember is that at that moment, I
blacked out. I woke up beside a very sad aunty Jennifer who
was seated on a chair with some people I guessed were her
colleagues, consoling her. She had even stopped crying. She
was just mute. I looked around and found myself laying on a
hospital bed with a drip placed on my wrist. Then, my eyes
went straight to the wall clock that hung on the wall directly
opposite me and saw I that it was almost 2:00pm. I was
about to get up when one of her colleagues asked me to lay
back while she goes to get the doctor. The doctor came into
the room and checked me up. He said I was discharged but
decided to spill the result of my blood test, they had
obtained when I passed out.
“Do you know that you’re pregnant?” the doctor asked,
looking down at me.
I looked around first and saw that everyone in the room
heard the doctor including aunty Jennifer who laughed
sarcastically before maintaining an expressionless face. The
people around her were just talking to her I guess trying to
console her. I thought I didn’t hear properly after the doctor
broke the news. First, uncle cheatmaster was dead, and
then me being pregnant. This had to be a dream.
“Pregnant? I’m pregnant?” I asked the doctor in a surprised
but sad low tone.
“Yes! Miss Meso, you’re one month pregnant. You haven’t
had any symptoms?” I shook my head in reply to the doctor
as I began to shed tears. How was I pregnant and didn’t
have any symptoms? I did miss my period but I thought it
was normal after I learnt about irregular periods. It didn’t
even cross my mind that I could be pregnant. I was
definitely pregnant for uncle cheatmaster. I cried even more
when I remembered that he was no more. There was
obviously no other explanation. I remember it was about a
month ago when uncle cheatmaster came to lie with me the
night we almost got caught. I didn’t want to believe my ears.
Not after uncle cheat already passed away. What would I
say to aunty Jennifer? How will I tell her that uncle Sam was
the father of my unborn child? What would I tell my sister,
my relatives? This would be too much to bear in just a day. I
thought about uncle cheat and I didn’t know whether to cry
that he had gotten me pregnant just before his death or to
cry that the man I once said I loved and couldn’t do without
was nothing but a corpse. I couldn’t understand what was
happening. Everything was too confusing. Was uncle cheat
really dead? Am I really pregnant? I couldn’t even say much
again so the doctor spoke to aunty Jennifer and I in his
office before we left the hospital. One of aunty Jennifer’s
colleagues drove us home. Even when I had just heard the
news of my pregnancy, the only thing I could think of while
seated in the car was uncle cheatmaster. I let down the
tears that I had been trying to control but hid it so that aunty
Jennifer who sat beside me wouldn’t see me. She didn’t
even say anything to me. Nothing about uncle cheatmaster
or even my pregnancy.
Nobody in the car even acted like they knew I was pregnant.
Neither did any of us mention uncle cheatmaster. I looked to
my right where aunty Jennifer sat and found her in a
worried state. Her face was swollen from crying a lot. I was
expecting her to ask me questions concerning the
pregnancy because we were both seated at the passenger’s
seat, behind. I was ready to lie to her that I was once raped
by a stranger but she didn’t say a single word as we drove
home. It even scared me because I thought she would have
guessed uncle cheatmaster as the father to my baby. When
we got home, we saw cars packed both outside and inside
the compound. Everyone was waiting for us to come back
because of the news of uncle cheatmaster, including his
families and friends, except my relatives who lived outside
Lagos and Esther.
As I got inside, I went straight to my room with tears still in
my eyes. I sat on my bed as I wept bitterly. At that moment,
some of my aunties and uncles walked into my room and
came to console me. They sat beside me and told me to
take heart even as they were trying to console themselves.
Everybody had a worried look. When the doctor had said he
survived, I didn’t know things were yet to get worse. I
thought he would live and things would be different after the
promise I made to God. Nobody couldn’t just believe that
uncle cheatmaster would leave this soon especially after
just getting married. I even heard aunty Jennifer from the
sitting room wailing and screaming on top of her lungs for
her husband to be brought back home. She shouted for a
while, then kept quiet before continuing with her
lamentation. She bitterly cursed and cursed the armed
robberswho had caused the accident.
My relatives who surrounded me thought I was mainly
crying for uncle cheatmaster but I was crying because of
the guilt that I felt, because of his death and because of the
baby in my womb. They didn’t even know I was pregnant
except aunty Jennifer and a few of her colleagues who still
hadn’t said a word about it. I wished I could turn time or
change a lot of things but it was too late. It was probably
when he was coming to pick me up, that he got attacked.
This thought caused me to blame myself for everything.
From his death to my pregnancy and the pain everyone was
going through.
I had a plan. I suddenly stopped crying, then wiped my tears
and told my relatives that I wanted to sleep so I could get
some privacy. Only one of them stayed with me for a while
before I was left completely alone. I told myself that I wasn’t
going to keep the baby so I decided to abort the baby on my
own. I even thought of committing suicide because I
believed it to be the best decision for myself. I didn’t want to
live to see the shame and disappointment that I would bring
to my family when everyone finds out that I was pregnant
for my dead uncle.
To leave the house, I had to pass through the back door so
no one could see me. I had already gathered all the money I
had saved from the times uncle cheatmaster gave me
money. I put them into my small shoulder bag, put on a
sandal and left my room. The back door was in the kitchen
and my room was on a corridor which was the closest room
to the kitchen. The kitchen wasn’t around the sitting room
where everyone was present so I was able to get out of the
house through the back door. I didn’t see Mohammed at the
gate so I ran out as fast as I could, making sure that I
wouldn’t get caught.
I managed to escape and walked as far as I could from the
house. It was dark after sunset and I had a scarf tied around
my head and face so no one could easily recognize me. I
was crying as I was walking. I finally got to the bus stop and
entered the first bus that stopped at my front. I didn’t even
want to know what kind of bus or where the bus was headed
to. I just wanted to be as far away as possible from
everyone I knew.
To be continued……
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