Dating : Rain Baby

The patter of the rain on the roof brought me back. Uche was staring at me, hand on his chest, as though he had heard the most unexpected news.

“Is that really how you feel?” His voice was a whisper.

“Yes.” I replied.

We had gone over this several times, he knew this story by heart, and each time, Uche always managed to seem just as surprised.
I didn’t want to do it, I didn’t want to be put in the position to have to do it in the first place. When I found out, I thought I was going to die. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t think I would ever be. There were hardly any options, I had to.

A drop of water landed on my thigh. The ceiling had started to leak again. From the corner of my eye, I saw the palm tree in the middle of the compound bend over, almost like a person cramping from a belly ache.
Lightning struck and there was a temporary illumination. I noticed a small puddle by the door.

“The roof is leaking.”

“Oh.” Was all Uche said.

Slowly, he rose, tired and walked to the bathroom where he fetched a bucket. He returned, and moved the sofa where I sat, with me still on it positioning the bucket to catch the leak.

“Do you ever think of what he would be like?”

“She.” I said.

“How do you know that?” He asked, cocking his head to the side.

The question amused me. How do you know you are hungry? Or sad? If you think about it, you just know. The signs are there. Your tummy growls, your head hurts, your eyes water. It could be hunger, or sadness. You would know. That’s how I knew it would be her.

“She would have been bold, very strong, given me a lot of trouble. She would have loved to paint and dance but she would have hated cooking, the opposite of me. And if she was here, right now, she would have gone out to dance in the rain.”

“It’s really cold outside,” he laughed.

“She wouldn’t care.”

I got up and stumbled out of the living room. The power had been out for two hours, as soon as it started to smell like water and dust, everywhere went dark. I was thirsty, I had been talking for so long. 
My right foot touched water as I stepped into the kitchen. It felt like a flood. Lightning struck again, illuminating the kitchen and I saw that I had left the window open.

When I was younger, my mother threatened to kill me over and again because I always forgot to close things. I would leave doors and windows open, jars in the kitchen, pots of soup and one time, the big fridge in the living room.
She said if I couldn’t close things around the house then I definitely couldn’t close my legs. I didn’t understand why she would assume that just because I left the jar of jam open. I guess mothers just know. They always know.
When she was waiting with me for the malaria test I had gone to take at the hospital, she could not stop shaking her head and stealing glances at me. Then as if she couldn’t resist anymore, she reached out and squeezed my stomach. I was too shocked to react. I just pressed my lips together and shut my eyes tight, tasting the tears that had snuck into my mouth.
When the results came back, she said, on the very quiet ride back home that if I had learnt to close her pots of soup, I would have closed my legs too and not brought her disgrace.

I waded in the water that had covered the kitchen floor to the window and shut it. My chest felt tight. I leaned against the wall and felt it cool my head.

“Ene?” Uche was standing at the door.

His phone’s flashlight on as he came to stand next to me.

“Are you alright?” He asked, running his free hand against my forehead.

“My mother had me, why didn’t she let me have mine?” My voice was raspy, I didn’t even notice that I had started to cry.

“Don’t think about these things.”

“Why? It could have been different, why didn’t she let it be different?”

But I knew why she couldn’t let it be. Church. She was the women’s leader and everyone respected her. She had the perfect home, perfect children, perfect husband, perfect house. That was worth more than whatever I had in me, even my happiness. She would never be able to show her face in church again. Her own daughter, carrying the child of a barber?
I tried to explain to her that this wasn’t a child borne out of love. This was pain. I wanted to bring forth my pain, hold it in my hand, caress it, love it. I wanted to erase the violence that formed this pain and fix myself with the love I would give.
Everything I said was used against me. I had to lose it, especially now that I had said it was not a choice I made. So I prepared myself to carry a child that would not be mine. I practiced how I would cry when they gave her away for adoption. How I would gaze out of the car window and wave, a lone tear sliding down my face, just like in movies.
I didn’t understand why the next day I was at the hospital for another test. No blood was drawn this time and when we left, everything was different. My mother was chatty on the ride home, talking about how the devil could never succeed and how we would continue to triumph over trials and tribulations.

The kitchen was suddenly too bright. Power had been restored. The freezer shook then steadied and started its low hum. Uche reached out and powered it off.

“We have to clean this place. It’s wet.”

“She didn’t even ask me. I didn’t even know what had happened. I was so confused.”

When I woke up the next morning, my light blue sheets had turned crimson. I sat up and started to scream. My mom tore through the door screaming as well, asking what was wrong. I pointed at the bloody patch.

“That’s expected,” she said calmly.

Too calmly.
Bleeding during pregnancy could be a sign of miscarriage. I had read that, so I told her we needed to get to the hospital.

“You’re not pregnant anymore.” She stated with a finality.

Suddenly, everything hit me like a flash. The room with the bed and stirrups. Me changing into a blue paper dress. The syringe sliding into my skin. The numbness. My legs up in the stirrups. Cold metal on my skin, then inside me. Blood.

“You have to move past this Ene,” Uche had started to scoop the water on the floor into a bucket.

I joined him. When the bucket was full, I took it and emptied it into the kitchen sink. The rain had reduced to a drizzle. I stood by, watching Uche clean, eventually moving out of his way, into the living room.
When he was done, he came to join me.

“Why are you bringing all this up?”

He reached for my hand.

“I’m scared.” I answered.

“I understand, but why?”

“Because I want to be a good mother. I want to be the best mother”

“Ene you still have plenty of time. You’re young, twenty six. You are a good person, you will make a great mother.” He was trying his best to convince me.

“I don’t have time.” I whispered.

“What do you mean?”

I got up and walked to my bedroom. I rummaged through my wardrobe for the big brown envelope the doctor had given me with a smile. In it were lab tests, receipts and a small black and white photo. My entire body grew rigid when I opened the envelope in his office that was too warm. Then I started to laugh.

“How long have you known?” Uche asked me.
The envelope rested in his lap with all it’s contents strewn across the sofa.

“A while, I didn’t want to say anything.” I smiled shyly.

He reached out and hugged me, stroking my hair. Then he started to cry. I held his big body in my arms and comforted him. I felt tears threaten to escape from the corners of my eyes. But I knew it wasn’t because I was unhappy.

“Have you told the father?” He asked.

“Of course,” I answered laughing.

“And your mother?” He asked, carefully.

“Let’s not ruin things.” A sad smile played on my lips.

He looked at me and hugged me again, then he pulled back and held me by the shoulders, peering into my face.

“Everything will be different now, Ene, everything will change.”