Me! Abimbade Folashade Adelakun is pregnant!! The joke of the century.
Ever since the Doctor broke the news, I have been like one in a trance.A dream I had long given up on after twenty years of marriage. Days of crying, depression, shame, guilt, questions and tears of why me?I shook my head sadly.I am pregnant at a time when I had given up all hope of ever carrying my child.
The nights, Segun would comfort and reassure me with words of encouragement and how I was worth more than ten children to him, but it was enough to make the longing go away. And now I was in a place where I despised him. I felt betrayed when I found out he had a child who was part of our lives and he never told me. I was still stewing in this hurt and pain, and now this one news we had both been looking forward to since we got married could not be shared.
My hands subconsciously went over my belly, as I tried to feel the new life I carried although there was nothing to show I was pregnant but the Doctors confirmation.
For a brief second it crossed my mind, what if the doctor was wrong? A dozen of gynaecologists had told me in my quest that they could not find any reason why I could not conceive. There was no gynaecologist within the radius of the country that did not have my file with some others in the United States and the United Kingdom. Always with the same result. “There is nothing wrong with you.”
In those early days, it was if the words sentenced me further down into a dungeon of doom. It could have been better if I had an ailment like a blocked fallopian tube or some diagnosis that we could find a solution, but with none, I had to wait for something close to a miracle I never knew what it was that could happen.
I tried the IVF severally to the point I was advised by the gynaecologist to stop concluding that my body kept rejecting it.
“Allow your body rest, and in its own time, you will conceive.” I scoffed at the Doctor, I needed a child and would do a many IVF’s as possible.IVF had to stop after several failed implants that did not yield my dream and millions of naira gone down the drain.
Oh, places my feet trod in the search for a child. I once visited a spiritualist recommended by a friend but took to my heels when he requested I had to have sex with him seven times as my anecdote to wash away the evil spell that had been cast on me, preventing me from conceiving a child.
I looked at the old greyed man with a brown set of broken teeth coloured by constant eating of kola nuts. My first impression of the man wrapped in a white cloth around his loins and red beads hanging on his neck and left wrist was a disaster waiting to happen. A blind man leading another blind man.
He sat there in his filthy hut, located in a deserted bush in one of the villages on the road to Abeokuta from Lagos. How my friend, a fellow learned colleague heard about this man is still a mystery. My friend told me I would not first or the last as people from all works of life with all kinds of problems streaming to him for a solution. He was so powerful that they all got their request granted.
I was desperate for a child but not so desperate to have sex with this creature. How could I possibly live with the thought? Seven days of such a horrible encounter was as good as a lifetime of torture and misery.I imagined that every time I had to have sex with Segun, It would be relieving the madness I had with him.
Sitting in the shamble of a makeshift shelter made of leaves and supported by wood dug into the ground, so filthy I had to hold my breath throughout my stay if that was possible but I think I did.I politely informed him, I needed to go home and prepare and would be back. Of course, I never went back.This experience ended my search ten years ago. I neither visited a gynaecologist nor the miracle baby providers. I long gave up.
There were times I thought of adoption, but I wanted kids out of my womb. I could not get the issue of adoption around my head. I settled as an avid giver to motherless babies homes and was responsible for the education of five children.They were all in different stages of secondary school now, and I started from their primary school.It was rewarding to hear of their excellent performance in school and know I was contributing to society by giving them an education that would make them better citizens.
I tried to think what it would be like having Lana in our lives but there was no point crying over spilt milk. Segun’s betrayal stung like the bite of a bee and stayed like a fish bone in your throat. The pain won’t go away, and the bone won’t go away, and you are as miserable as can be until you seek help.Like a snap, I had a light bulb moment! I needed help to get past the betrayal and not keep musing expecting it to go away naturally.
“Where have my favourite girls been?” was what I heard to bring me out of my reverie. The hiss died in my mouth. I had kept a professional attitude between Segun and me at work, and no one could have suspected that we were living apart except the news from the grapevine which you can’t do without in the office gossips.
I fumbled for my phone in my bag pretending to be so busy searching for the phone. Luckily a call came through, and I did not have to fake one.I signalled, I have to take this call and took a brisk walk to my office, closing my door and turning the lock. A good thing we did not operate the open glass office. There would have been no place to escape.
I have been avoiding any discussion with Segun that was not related to work. He knew it but was not giving up either. Sometimes I did feel like putting a knife through his heart so he could feel the pain he caused me. But on second thought that would be first-degree murder and after that, my surgeon in jail or the gallows. It was not worth it. No man was worth killing no matter the crime he committed.
How could I be angry with him and still be drawn to him? I wanted to harm him and wanted his arms around me. I wanted to be far away from him but still behold his face and bask in his presence. Hate won over love, and I was yet to figure out what to do.
He had a right to hear about our baby, but I could not give him the luxury of a happy feeling. No, I shook my head vehemently. Until I figured out what to do, I would not mention the child.I dropped on the sofa at work, tired of my mental battles and took a deep breath in and exhaled, hoping to let go the negative feelings and thoughts.
I settled into my comfortable work life with the additional responsibility of checking on Auntie Bimba more regularly than I should and taking on the role of a PA, from fielding her calls and directing the ones I felt were important to her to arranging her meals
I had seen her throw up three times in one week. I asked her if she had seen her Doctor which she just brushed aside that she was not ready to use drugs hoping the bug will go away.
Auntie Bimba had started locking herself in her office, but I was not put off. Whenever I heard the noise of the flush of a toilet, I guessed she had thrown up again. I started to get worried building theories in my head that perhaps she was suffering from anorexia or bulimia – the eating disorder where you throw up immediately after eating.
I discreetly found out her family doctor and booked an appointment for her on Monday without her knowledge. I would give a fuss if I were the one but no one could change my mind when I am convinced to take action.
Monday morning saw me informing Auntie Bimba doggedly that we were going to Dr Johnson’s office for an appointment I had booked for her.
“Auntie Bimba, it’s either we go now, or I march off to Uncle Segun’s office to inform him,” I threatened.
My threat worked, and we were off to the hospital together.
Mayflower Hospital was a walking distance from the firm, but I offered to drive her there. I went into the Doctor’s office with her. I still did not trust my Auntie to tell the Doctor what had been happening to her.
“I have never been sick in my life as far as I can remember,” blurted Auntie Bimba nervously.
“Calm down Mrs Adelakun. I can see you are doing well. You have no need to worry,”
“Mild headaches and pains that went without me having to use drugs. The feel of nausea will go, once what caused it in my system is flushed out generally,” Auntie Bimba continued as though she had not heard a word the Doctor said.
Doctor Johnson was a short man with piercing eyes behind glasses that rested above his nose. His angular shaped face had a welcoming look unlike the sharp lines around his mouth that eased up when he smiled.
The man did not have the typically calm, cool and collected look of a regular doctor or the kind that left you swooning with romantic thoughts of “the boy met the girl and lived happily ever after.”
Doctor Johnson had a charisma about him that exuded trust and trust was what we desperately needed now. Someone to genuinely tell us we had nothing to fear but a bug that will pass away and all the medical jargon with pills that will make you better.
The doctor asked questions bordering on if she had recently changed her diet, what new foods she had started taking, when last did she see her menstrual cycle? And dozens of other similar questions.
“I am hitting menopause Doctor; I really can’t remember but I suppose that should be menopause.”
“And who is this charming young lady we have here? Is she your daughter?” he asked referring to me.
“She is not my daughter she is my niece. Dr Johnson, have you forgotten Lana?” she asked.
Wasn’t he supposed to know me? He has been their family doctor for years. He should be aware of their family history. I thought to myself.
But with my birth mum surfacing from nowhere and me becoming Uncle Segun’s daughter, he was not far from the truth.
“You mean the little girl you brought in with a deep gash under her feet needing stitching twenty years ago and her screams were loud enough to pull down the walls of the hospital. How we struggled so hard to give her an injection with a dozen nurses trying their best to calm her down,” he reminisced letting out a chuckle.
“Some energy she had then for a girl of only six years,”
“One and only,” Auntie Bimba smiled at the memory.
I had no memory of what they were talking about, but I could relate with the gash under my left foot representing an ugly scar about half an inch long. I had stepped over a broken glass while on a visit to Uncle Segun’s place.
When I was younger, whenever Uncle Segun came to our house, I would cry to follow him back home, and most days, I had my way. The sleepovers diminished as I grew older, but the bond grew stronger
I was filled with nostalgia and wished I could be that innocent girl climbing into Uncle Segun’s lap at every opportunity. We talked about everything then from dreams to boys, fashion to marriage, and career to parenting.
Maybe Uncle Segun had been trying to tell me in different ways, who he was to me but I never got the message. He showed up for all Fathers’ day events at my school under the guise that my own Dad was busy and asked him to represent him. All my friends in University knew Uncle Segun because he was the one who came to visit me at school most of the time. It was either he was just in the area or my parents asked him to check on me to he wanted to be sure his best girl was doing okay.
It slowly dawned on me Uncle Segun had communicated in every way that I was the most important person to him, and not because I was his favourite niece as I was led to believe. It was because I was his child.
So lost was I in my thoughts that I did not hear the rest of the discussion between Doctor Johnson and my Aunt until she tapped me to get my attention.
“Doctor Johnson was commenting that you have grown into a promising young woman and how your parents must be proud of you,”
“Thank you, Doctor,” I smiled with nothing more to say.
“Now let’s look at you Mrs Adelakun,” boomed Dr Johnson.
“Bring it on Doctor. It is not some terminal disease, is it? ” asked Auntie Bimba visibly relaxed without the trepidation I sensed when we first came in.
Who would have thought a full grown woman to be afraid of the hospital, drugs and injection?
My Aunt’s blood and urine were taken for tests at the lab while we waited in the reception watching a Nollywood movie. The type where the mother – in-law had come to make her daughter-in-laws life miserable.
“Pray, you have a lovely mother-in-law like mine. I find these stories strange because I have not experienced any of that. While your grandma was alive, she was my best friend. I could not have wished for a better mother-in-law, but there are crazy ones out there”, she said with her lips pursed in dismay.
“I would stay out of her way if I were the lady,” I said pointing to the actress on the TV. She should avoid the woman like the plague and stop fighting her husband over his mother. Does she not know she is wedging a wall in her relationship with her husband?”
We should never wish…
Her words were cut short with the lab attendant calling her name for the result
I glanced at my watch. We had spent over three-quarter of an hour waiting.
“You are perfectly fine. Your blood count is superb, and there is no malaria.”
Auntie Bimba beamed at me with an “I told you I am okay look.”
“However, you would need to rest more and not exert yourself. Congratulations you are eight weeks pregnant!”
I could not contain my joy as I leapt from my seat and did a jig of joy.
After all these years my Aunt was finally pregnant with her first child.
She sat stunned and speechless.
Dr Johnson was laughing.
“You are pregnant!” he repeated.
I did not have the words to describe the joy I felt at the realisation of the miracle in our lives.
We left the hospital after picking up the necessary vitamins from the pharmacy. Auntie Bimba was still in a daze and more quiet.
Uncle Segun will be over the moon with this news; I commented as brought out my phone to call him.
“Don’t call him, Lana, I need to tell him myself, but more importantly I need to figure out what I want to do. Things have changed for us, and I can’t spring a pregnancy on him. Please promise me you would be quiet about this. It is a secret till I am ready to tell or it sells me out.
“You can’t hide a pregnancy can you?” She chuckled. The closest to a laugh since we found out she was pregnant.
I could not get it around my head how I was going to keep this piece of news to myself.
“Lana, please do not tell anyone about this,” she pleaded.
I hate what she wanted me to do, but I had to give in. It was not my place to break such news. It was for her to tell who she wanted and if she wanted to keep the news to herself, she had a limited time to hide, at most four more months and the secret is out for the whole world.
Bode
I tried Lana’s number again. The phone was off so I decided to drive back to her parent’s house.
She was getting into her car and looking very distraught. I stopped the car with the engine still running and rushed to her before she drove off.
She was crying hysterically.
“Give me the keys,” I commanded her.
She looked at me defiantly. One minute looking like she would drive off and the next switching off the engine and giving the keys to me meekly.
Wiping her eyes and sniffing away, she rested her head on the headrest, with her eyes closed.
“You are not in the best position to drive. You’ll be an accident waiting to happen, except you are contemplating suicide,” I said trying a small smile.
“At least it would put an end to the drama happening around me,” she retorted.
“Yeah,” I answered drily.
“Some drama in the last few hours,”
“Come,” I pulled her out of the car.
“I booked this place tonight for dinner for two to celebrate but who says we can’t still celebrate.”
She was staring at me bewildered.
“Yes crap happens, but we still have each other so who cares,” I said looking on the bright side.
She followed me with a look I was yet to decipher as I got her seated in the passenger’s seat and went around the car to the driver’s seat and drove off to the dinner venue.
Lana was silent all through the trip, but as soon as I parked, she blurted out, “We are first cousins!”
“Your uncle having a child with my aunt does not make us first cousins,” I argued.
“Although, technically we share the same cousin.”
“She is your cousin and my cousin as well, but we are not directly related,” I explained.
“I am that child they had,” whispered Lana afraid that if she said it loud it could mean acknowledging the truth.
I froze in time as my brain tried to analyse the implication of this revelation to her and our relationship. I felt like a huge rock had been thrown at me and pinned me to the ground. Our relationship had finally hit the brick wall. No love so strong could surmount this.
There had to be a way a little voice in me argued, and until we had exhausted all our options, we were not going to give into what society and tradition threw at us. Did not Abraham marry his father’s daughter and Lot’s daughters had children by him? We grew up in different circumstances. That should mean something.
“There must be a way,” I muttered as I revved the car expressing my anger at our helplessness.
“You are not driving away in that rage,” Lana rebuked me for someone who was contemplating near suicide some few minutes ago.
“Wouldn’t it be epic to both commit suicide and end the pain,” she teased as tears started a free falling spree like the Niagara falls which later turned to heart wrecking sobs.
“Sleep with me,” she said eyes wide with a faint burst of excitement at the idea.
“Once I am pregnant, all my family’s hesitancy will disappear, and my parents will jump start the marriage rites.What of it I was already pregnant? Why did we choose to wait till after the wedding?” She asked forlornly.
We had both agreed from the first time we were together to wait till after marriage to be intimate. Our honourable resolution stared us mockingly while taunting us to find a solution.
“ Lana, we can’t have waited this long and decide to make a rubbish of it all.
There must be a way out,” I said with a camouflaged assurance.
“Let me drop you at home,” I offered.
“I am not going back home.I have said that much to my parents oh not my parents,” she snickered.
” I am done with my family. Please do not insist. Family do not destroy your life, and Family do not keep secrets like this, hiding my identity, family do not rub you of knowing who you are. They had a long time to tell me not this way,” Lana said.
“Your Uncle Segun had been telling you in several ways all this while. You kept saying he was your favourite uncle but more of a father to you than your dad. Every milestone he was there,” I said the words mimicking her adoration for her uncle.
“That was before I found out, he was some selfish, conniving man.
“He did the best he could for you. Giving you a stable home with two parents and not taking you off to be cared by some step mother who might have been threatened by your existence, and made life miserable for you. However, family hurt us we still need them and are knitted intricately with them. Walking away does not make you not related to them, walking away won’t make the pain go away or less bearable. Rather, it would live in your head and stare at you every day. Take time if you need to but don’t walk away,” I advised hoping he would see that two wrongs do not make a right.
“Cousin,” I teased lightheartedly. A far cry from the feeling of despair that had engulfed me.
“I need a mind operation to start seeing you in that light,” she managed a small, sad smile that mirrored both our hearts.
And there in the car, I held her like my life depended on it. I held her and sobbed for what we may lose eventually.
“ I am not sleeping at my house tonight, and you can’t make me. I should call Peju,” she said picking her mobile phone.
“Oh God! It’s dead! Lana exclaimed.
” And you were running off in the night to nowhere with a dead phone. A good thing I came around, I said.
“My knight in shining armour,” she teased. It was sweet but heartbreaking to hear us make light our predicament.
“I might have to lose that title, I teased back but winced inwardly with pain as the reality of those words dawned on me.
“Do I take you home? Or Peju’s place?” I asked.
“Oh, not Peju she does not need my excitement right now. I think she is going through a difficult pregnancy. I have to keep this bit away from her. I had almost forgotten. I would never forgive myself if I were the reason she lost her babies after the fiasco I pulled at her wedding.
Maybe Peju’s mother in law today. She’s been scheduling meetings that I have been too busy to attend, and Peju might be there or a hotel for some few days while I get my head cleared, and what to do, Lana said unsure of herself.
“Peju’s mother in law’s place will be better. You need the advice of an older person to prevent you from making a mistake you will regret all your life like my aunt.
She missed the joy of seeing you grow up into the beautiful, intelligent and confident woman you have become.Talking about her, have you thought what you want to do?” I asked.
Lana started blankly at me. I could tell it was not something she had considered.
“That is too much for me right now. I have no clue what I want or should not want. I do not know who I am anymore,” said Lana bowing her head into her hands.
“No matter how bad a situation is there is always a bright side to it.Don’t give in to despair. Keep an open mind,” I advised.
We were back at her house. I waited for her to go out but she just sat there.
“I can’t face them. Not tonight.
When I walked out, I did so with the intention of never coming back.”
“You want to come to my place?”
I asked.
“No, not anywhere near the woman they call my mother. I am still processing the new information.”
“What plans do you have?”
“I will sort myself out,” said Lana. I felt helpless at my loss to assuage her pain and confusion.
“Let me use your car. I will return it tomorrow,” she said.
I argued with her, how it was not safe to be driving around in her state. I offered to drop her at a hotel, but she insisted or either taking a cab or driving.
I had to release the car to her but on one condition. She charged the phone in the car and called me at whatever time of the night, should she need help.
I reluctantly handed her my car keys and prayed she would be safe or somewhere along the road she would change her mind and drive home.
A message came on my phone.
Happy introduction. I wish you a life filled with love, laughter and luxury. AA
It was such a sweet line I must have had this goofy grin on my face as the girls demanded I read the text out and I did.
“That is so cute,” Patience said with a dreamy look in her eyes wishing for a romantic guy to cross her path.
Patience and the rest of the girls here were among my closest circle of friends. Work and marriage have hindered the frequency of our hangouts, but family programs were a must, and our chat room was as potent as any physical meeting.
“Who is AA?” queried Deola. Deola has been my friend way back as teenagers. We never had those familiar girl friendship fights. We were comfortable with the times and seasons of our lives and adjusted with a sense of maturity that bonded us.
“AA is not Bode, but I will read his text so you won’t be disappointed,” I answered.
“AA?” Peju questioned.
“I thought I knew the names of most of your friends even if I can’t put faces to their names.”
“Andrew,” our boss I answered without a thought to it.
“Andrew?” Hadiza asked with a raised eyebrow.
“You naughty girl and I thought you were our perfect example. Getting engaged to one and stringing another,” said Hadiza with a triumphant look like one who had caught a thief.
The look on my face must have been tragic. Filled with shock and unbelief, I exclaimed, “My boss and I!
You are crazy Hadiza! I uttered, the whole time thinking how she could interpret a thoughtful text could in such a mean way.
She shrugged and was about to say something but changed her mind.
“If you decide to ditch Bode at the last minute,” Tope from my office chipped in, “I will be willing to take him off you.”
We all busted with laughter as this doused whatever tension was brewing.
Tope is a married woman with two sets of twins and a husband most girls only dreamed off in their fantasy land.
Telepathically, Tunde knocked on our door. He could not have chosen a right time to seek his wife.
“Who is there shouted out the girls? My room had to be sworn a no go area as we waited to be called out to the introduction meeting going on between Bode’s family and mine.
“I need my wife?” Came Tunde’s voice through the closed door.
“You had better take her now because she is queuing for someone else’s husband,” Hadiza shouted which resulted in another round of laughter.
Tunde started singing.
“Olomi, onitemi, oremi, ololufe, oju kan, sha lada ni Lola oluwa ko si oun ti o yawa,” a Yoruba love song by Tosin Martins.
We all clapped when he finished and pushed his wife out to him. His singing could earn him a seat on American Idols season 8.
“Can you read Bode’s text?” Hadiza asked not one to be easily distracted.
I snap open my phone to read the one he sent this morning.
“PJ, you are a fulfilment of my dreams. From the first day, I met you. You carved a special place in my heart without knowing it. Etched in the inside of me, that I saw you awake and in my dreams. I love you then, love you more now and will spend the rest of my life loving you. B.”
“I was there when they first met! Exclaimed Patience, with excitement like that of a little girl. The other girls shouted her down. She shrugged them off and continued. Contrary to her name, she was one of the very impatient people I had met, but I loved her to pieces as there was no pretence with her.
“I meant I was there when it was just about to start. The eyes Bode had then was all on Lana. They were friends with this his three other friends. What are their names again? Ayo, Gbenga and Dotun, but the fireworks between these two were visible to the blind except them,” she continued her story undaunted.
Now she had all the girls eating from her hand as they heard another bit of the Bode and Lana’s story they already knew in part but were still carried away with Patience compelling storytelling skill.
Lana has her walls and how she was out of the league of dating but when Bode asked it was a tough one to say no as she had always done in the past.
So she said the Yes that transformed Bode from an ordinary guy to a knight in shining armour blazing his sword to destroy anyone and anything that threatened Lana. Sadly, when the real threat came, it was from Lana herself, he had to surrender his sword in defeat and hope against all the odds that their love will win.
Their tragedy began when Lana started working and got this crazy idea of becoming a senior manager before thirty. She wanted to move her career faster than anyone she knew. Throwing herself and shelving everything else. Bode was caught in this battle and callously against her heart pleadings she focused on her career without turning back banishing him out of the Lana Kingdom.
Her heart betrayed her time and time again. And she found out that being closer to her goal without love was empty, and here we are today to celebrate the beginning of series of parties and get together in honour of Mr and Mrs Bode Coker.”
The girls were applauding her.
“We are all suckers for romance, sometimes we are lucky and other times maybe not, but love will find us, and that is life. Our romance might not be the storybook kind, but it does have a way of finding us,” I said with a conviction of one who saw the future.
“Why did you first walk away Lana?” Deola asked.
The one million dollar question I have tried to answer. In the beginning, I was sure I was doing the right thing but in the last six months of walking with my head in the clouds and my heart filled with so much love that I am afraid it would burst, I could not have been so wrong as to have thought I could live without Bode. These were my thoughts but to answer Deola, I would say my selfishness.
“Selfishness. I felt I knew what I wanted for my life then, and it did not include relationships even with love. My head spoke for my heart. I try not to live in regrets. I’ m almost where I want to be in my career.
I have seen marriages do work. Thanks to Peju here I throw a smile towards her direction. I have also witnessed a restored marriage, which planted a seed of hope in my heart. I had my fears and still do but I am ready to love without reservation,” I said leaving out the details of the restored marriage being that of my parent.
How many of us develop our perception and expectations of marriage from the marriages we see around, especially from our immediate families. I prayed in my heart that mine would be a good example for our children and not put a clog in the wheels for them or tarnish something meant to be beautiful but spoilt by two imperfect and lost people.
“Your marriage will be heaven on earth,” Deola said with a knowing and my heart leapt in agreement. It was my desire, and I was ready to give it my all to have just that.
Time must have passed. We talk just about just anything under the sun.
“What is taking them so long to call us out?” Peju asked.
“I hope your family is not asking for Airbus 380 as bride price,” joked Patience.
“If they did, Bode should be able to foot the bill with his developing IT solutions business,” replied Peju.
Bode had done well for himself in the years we were apart. He still worked with the bank but on negotiated hours. How Bode was able to secure such a deal was still beyond me. But it gave him time to nurture his business, and he had solutions and software developed for banking operations in and outside Nigeria. He was in money now, but that mattered less to me. It was his heart that I wanted sealed and delivered a hundred percent for the rest of our lives.
His money made no difference to me. I had mine and my career. I was comfortable and contented. Okay, I’ll be honest I could get the trips I wanted now without batting an eyelid or worrying about the immediate cost and long term effect on my bank account. However, one thing I am displeased about is moving to Banana Island where all the big boys live. I see too many people with fake lives on that axis. Living on the mainland is my desire, but hey! A girl has to go where the guy has a house so I get ready to live and adjust with my new neighbours and not have to turn up my nose or roll my eyes when I come across them.
Let me go and see what is happening outside, said Peju as she went out but met her husband, Phil by the door.
“No guys in here,” shouted the girls.
Please, he raised his hands in mock surrender. I could at least talk to my wife.
He took round Peju who was six months pregnant with a warm hug, how his hands were able to go round her still amazed me. Peju had tripled in size. My slim petite friend was as round as a hippo although she claimed she was more on looking like an elephant. If I was still analysing the hug, then he gave her a full kiss on her mouth!
“You guys should please go home,” teased Deola.
“That is my request to you ladies,” he said still holding his wife.
Peju here has been on her feet all day, and on Doctor’s orders has to take plenty of rest in her last trimester. She is not cooperative, but I think she has had enough for today,” said Phil gazing into Peju’s eyes with liquid love.
“I am very okay,” she argued lamely as her body gave her away as she struggled to stifle a yawn that betrayed her.
“Being pregnant does not make you an invalid,” she argued lamely as another yawn escaped from her.
We all laughed.
“Superwoman go home and rest. You have been yawning since Phil came. I wonder how we all missed it here,” I said.
“You have to go. I will give you the rest of the story tomorrow over the phone,” I urged Peju as Phil pleaded with his eyes knowing she will feel less guilty if I insisted she left.
Peju gave in, and I could see the relief on Phil’s face. He looked up to thank me, and I saw a bit of apprehension in his eyes as he smiled not those his confident ones.
I wondered if truly Peju was in danger with this pregnancy and he was trying to hide it from her. I made a mental note to call him tomorrow and discuss strategies to ensure she got the required rest. The baby meant a lot to Peju, I have figured.
Right from the moment, she found out she was pregnant. She had blossomed with an inner joy. The pregnancy was the next best thing in her life after marrying Phil. The scan revealed twins and you could have seen Peju that day. She was over the moon with joy as she called me to give me the Idowu breaking news as she called it.
She and Phil had no record of twins in their immediate families. It was not a dream they nurtured. The scan revealed they were same sexes, but Peju did not want to be disappointed as she pointed out that some scans could be wrong so she was having an open mind till they arrived.
Peju has also been in the best of health except for her cravings for isi- ewu, a goat head meat delicacy from the eastern part of the country that must not be prepared in her house because of the smell when boiling the meat.
“God, please keep Peju and the baby safe,” I whispered a prayer.
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Bode
“ Have they taken the gifts to the car?” My mother yelled in Yoruba to Risi one of her younger cousins who lived with us.
“Yes, Auntie,” she replied.
“What about Baba Bisola? Have you called him? Is he on his way?” she asked as she came out of her room tieing her headgear along the way.
The buzz around the house was an eight using a scale of 1- 10.
Baba Bisola is my mother’s only surviving sibling that I knew. He was her immediate elder brother. She had a twin sister I had never seen who lived abroad and had been coming home for as long as I could remember but never did.
Mother mentioned, she probably would be coming back this year. It was for me the usual hope and aspiration the family had a child who went to the white land and never came back. The only proof we had that she was alive were the birthday cards she sent to my mother every year with a gift.
The door bell rang
“Risi, get the door,” my mother yelled as I cringed my ears. She was jittery today checking everything over and over as if something might go wrong.
I went over to hug her.
“Mami,” as I fondly called her.
“You need to calm down. It is just the introduction, and we need you fit for the wedding.”
“Ha oko mi,” her favourite name for me.
It is not every day. I get to go to the introduction of my only son.
The first impression matters. The family we are going to has to know that you came from a well brought up family so everything must be done right.
“Mum,” I reverted to the way I called her in public
You are a judge and a respectable one. We don’t have to worry about the first impression. The perception in the community is one to be desired by many, I said.
My mum is a judge with a good heart, and the community knew if you had a problem, Mama Bode would have a solution. She was a woman filled with kindness that she would go without food to ensure the people under her care had food to eat.
When my father died, it almost killed my mother, but somewhere along the line, she found the strength to pick her life together. Finished law school and started practicing alongside the Ankara business, the sale of local fabrics. The trading paid her bills, but law gave her an outlet to live her life and find fulfilment.
My mother is a strict woman with a heart of gold. The discipline I went through as an only child raised suspicion to me then that I was not her child but adopted. The fear of Mami was the beginning of my wisdom. In my moment of fleeting juvenile delinquency, she was equal to the task.
I recollect a day. She caught me smoking with a group of boys around the corner of our street. She drove past like she did not see me. I rushed home not without putting tom-tom, the minty sweet in my mouth to dispel the smell.
I prostrated to greet her in the usual fashion I had been trained and offered to help with the bags she was carrying which she declined.
Olabode was the name she used when I had done something wrong
I was filled with trepidation almost peeing on myself with fear that she had found me out
“Olabode, you are reeling with the smell of smoke. Where did you go?”
“Nowhere Mami, maybe it is from Iya Kemi’s shop where I went to buy tom – tom,” I opened my mouth to reveal the sweet. The only truth to the story.
“Okay o! if you say so,” she said emphasising the o.
She took some change from her bag and handed it to me. Please buy a packet of that cigarette you and your friends were smoking with just now.
I stood there transfixed. Mami had found me out, and I had no clue why she was asking me to go and buy it. I did what any child would do I started crying how sorry I was and won’t do it again
“Odabe,” she said in Yoruba meaning, Itis all good that way
“But still go and buy the packet for me,” she ordered.
I left to buy it praying that God would send a helper in the person of a visitor or relation who would plead my case.
I came back with the pack of cigarette, and no one had arrived.
There was my mum, seated on a local stool, outside the house with a whip I had never seen in her hand.
“Go and get matches from the kitchen,” she instructed me.
I went in still wondering what she had in store for me. And back with the matchbox,
She handed cigarette box to me.
“Take one, light and start smoking,” she commanded.
My mother must have gone mad but the fear to voice my thoughts in the light of what was happening prevented me from saying a word.
What was so exciting back there with my group of friends held no attraction.
“Ogbeni,” she called out to me, meaning Mr. when she calls me that I knew it was in deeper trouble than Olabode. She walked over to close our gate. My prayer for helper dashed to pieces before my feet.
That gate would remain closed till she was through with me.
I had to clue whether she was going to use the whip on me or not. She had never beaten me before, but I had taken a few slaps and corporal punishment.
My imagination of the effect of the whip on my body left me bowling.
I had seen it used on my peers at school. I had never been a recipient either because getting punished in school was tantamount to getting punished two days in a row at home or I was lucky not to get into any trouble.
I could not put the cigarette to my mouth. I was shaking.
“You will smoke the whole park today,” she threatened.
“You want to smoke? you will smoke today,” she asked and answered the question while I gazed at her hoping I was in a bad dream.
The first cigarette was with fits of coughing, the second I was gasping for breath still, Mami did not stop or bat an eyelid she meant I was to finish the pack.
I did not go beyond the third when I must have slumped or so I thought.
Mami just poured water on me, woke, me up in my state and offered me to continue where we stopped.
I cried and begged and promised never to go near it.
I never touched a cigarette in my life after that incidence, and I could not stand the smell.
Suffice to say I learnt my lesson that day.
That was Mami for you. You can only imagine what she was like in the courtroom. Stories that filtered had it that Mami was a man and not a woman. Her strength, resilience and discipline were worth emulating You could never give her a bribe. Her colleagues would advise you not to try.
Risi got to the door, opened it, but she was standing there with no one coming in although we could hear a voice.
“Risi who is there? Let the person come in. We were still expecting Baba Bisola,” said Mami.
I saw Risi moved to the side of the door to allow the person walk in.
The woman before me was a replica of my mother.! She was a little hesitant at first but continued to where we sat.
Mami was transfixed for a few seconds then what followed next was like something from a movie. They were crying and hugging wiping their tears and crying all over again.
I don t know if we would have ever left the house for my introduction if my Uncle, Baba Bisola had not shown up.
He took a look at my aunt with disgust and spoke to my mum,
“Mama Bode, we have to start going what is before us is bigger than a prodigal daughter coming home,” he hissed the words with disgust.
Right now was not the moment to get all the story out but they had days to catch up, and we all moved out of the house.
My mother asked her sister to come along if she was not tired. She declined that she would rest. It had been a stressful journey.
“ What is she coming to do? To spread her bad luck to others?” asked Baba Bisola visibly annoyed.
“Egbon!” my mother exclaimed
“We do not throw the baby and the water away, At least you will hear her out she must have a story,” she said.
“Don’t we all, 28 long years? How many deaths did she come home? She thinks we need her money. Thank God we have enough of our own,” if you don’t want to go for your son’s introduction but sit here and waste your time with her. I can be going to my house.
“Oti o – meaning no. Egbon, please give us thirty minutes to prepare. We will be out soon,” my mum persuaded him.
He grumbled of how wrong it was for her to go with them. Someone they had not seen in twenty-eight years and she was off to a family function.
My mother and Aunt came out dressed alike. I could not tell the difference until I looked into their eyes. There was a spark in my mothers that wasn’t in that of my Aunts.I was glad to be able to tell the difference.
Mami has been buying two of every wear she had for years. It was her usual fashion that when her twin came back home finally she would need them.
She was often scoffed at by my uncle – Baba Bisola why she even bothered.
Today, her dreams finally came true.
We got into the cars. My mum and her twin sister in one. Baba Bisola, Risi and I in the other while I drove.
I was glad when we got to Lana’s house as Baba Bisola fumed all through the journey as to why they were allowing a total stranger to a family gathering.
I did not know what happened in the past, but whatever it was, it must have been bad to get Baba Bisola riled up that way.
They would sort it out when they talked. They were adults.
My family issues were all forgotten as we got into the house for the introduction. I could not wait to see Lana.
I had booked a restaurant later this evening to celebrate this milestone alone with her.
Having her back in my life was a dream I refused to give up. How I survived the last five years without her is still a mystery to me because now I can’t get enough of just catching a glimpse of her and getting lost in those eyes filled with love and a promise of a thousand better tomorrows.
Bode
21stcenturybelle 