Mother agreed. She knew her sister was making sense. She knew she had to clear from father first if it was okay for her to ask her sister to take me to Lagos. And quite honestly, I was also very eager to see how that discussion would turn out. Would father, in spite of the anger and disappointment he was feeling inside, would he still agree for me to be taken away from under his roof?
It was the following day that the discussion took place. Father was seated in the living room, watching the news. Mother was pacing up and down, looking for the courage to go sit with her husband and open the discussion with him. I was watching her silently from a distance. She was nervous. She was fidgeting all over the place. I didn’t pity her one bit. She didn’t have to go through all that stress at all if she’d opted to do the right thing. And the right thing is that we should’ve gotten rid of the growing foetus inside me long ago.
Finally, she found the courage to go sit with father in the living room. She first sat down, quietly, for several minutes, pretending to be watching the news too. Am sure father must’ve found that strange. Mother rarely watched the news. She watched only when something tragic happened. The only time she watched television was when a drama was being shown.
‘Em, daddy Rosemary, we need to talk,” she finally found her voice.
“Talk? About what?” father barely looked in her direction. His gaze was fixed on the news he was watching. Ever since my pregnancy incident occurred, they have barely been talking, which is so unlike them. They were always close. Always talking with each other. It hurt me to see how my issue had made them drift apart.
“About our daughter, Rosemary…”She was barely done mentioning my name when father turned to her, his face stern and hostile. “I want to… want to let you know…let you know that I have come up with a solution to the problem,” she’d begun.
Father beamed her a smile that was clearly laced with sarcasm. “Oh, great! Finally, you have listened to the voice of reason, right? So, what is the solution you have come up with?” Mother cleared her throat. “My sister, Florence, came from Lagos yesterday. I told her what happened. She suggested…no, I suggested she should take Rosemary with her to Lagos…..”
“To go and do what?” father cut in, his voice was sharp and venomous.
Mother started to stutter and quiver. “To go…to go and.. and have the baby..” she finally let the words out.
Father was quiet. His face was livid with anger. He seemed to be struggling with the rage growing inside him.
“So, this is your plan all along,” father spat, his eyes rolling in palpable anger. “Rather than have her get rid of the pregnancy, you want to take her away from me and give to your childless sister and her husband to keep as their own? That will not happen!””
It was like something exploded in the room the moment father dropped those words. Aunty Florence’s childless situation was one subject that was spoken about in hushed tones in the house. It’s a subject that often brought tears to my mother’s eyes. It thoroughly pained her that her blood sister had been married for years and was yet to have a child of her own. For father to have used her situation to smite mum must’ve totally broken her inside.
“Yeeh! My God! Daddy, Rosemary!!” mother screamed. She was shocked, just s I was to her father say what he just said. “How could you say this? How could you?” “How could I say what?” father snarled at her, his eyes cold and unmoved by mother’ reaction.
“You just called my sister childless! You just called her barren!” mother was in tears now. Father was not impressed. He just had a cold, hostile on his face. I had never seen him look that way before. “And so?” he shot back at his wife. “Have I said something untrue?”
Mother couldn’t believe her ears. Even I couldn’t believe I was actually hearing father speak that way. “Daddy Rosemary, you called my sister barren just because I asked that you let our daughter go over to meet her in Lagos and spend time with her in Lagos till we are able to do something about her pregnancy?”
Father rose to his feet. “Listen, woman, these tears don’t make any difference to me. They don’t change anything,” father shot at her. “I did not insult your sister by saying she is childless, it’s the truth. She is childless and that’s why you want to send my daughter over to her. You must think I am daft, right? You said you want her to go over to your sister’s place till we are able to do something about her pregnancy, is your sister a doctor? And what else can we do about her pregnancy if she moves over to Lagos to stay with your sister? You want her to go there and keep the pregnancy till she delivers to you the grandchild you have been waiting for, right? Is that not your plan?”
Father was shouting at the top of his voice. His entire frame was quivering with anger. Mother was just staring at him, totally nonplussed. She too had probably never seen father gt this angry.
“Out of your own carelessness, your daughter got pregnant right under your nose. Rather than for you to be worried about how she will get rid of the pregnancy and move on with her life and face her education, you want her to keep the pregnancy and bring forth a child that will always be remembered as the flesh and blood of a rapist! And you expect me to be part of that madness?” He turned to me. “You, am taking you to see a doctor tomorrow, I want to get rid of that thing in your womb!”
