I almost passed out. I didn’t expect that the lady would make such a stupid offer of assistance to mother. Left to her, she was simply doing my mother a favour, she couldn’t have known she was going to make my own life more miserable than it was already. It took every strength in me to restrain myself from reaching for her neck and strangle her to death!
“Oh, thank you, my dear, thank you very much, God bless you,” mother thanked her.
“Thank you, dear,” her friend too thanked her. I didn’t say anything. I was not grateful for what she did so I did not see any reason why I should say thank you to her. I just kept a straight face and keep staring into space.
I was not happy and I no longer cared if anyone noticed or not. They prepared some food and asked the mother to eat before leaving. They asked if I was hungry and offered me food but I declined to eat. I was not hungry, I was boiling inside.
While mother was eating, Aunty Florence asked why I was eating and not eating.
“Aunty, I have lost my appetite for food,” I said to her, looking straight into her eyes. “And it’s not because I’m here, but the truth is I have not been eating well since this whole madness started for me. Right now, I’m thinking, what exactly am I going to be doing here? Watch the pregnancy in my tum, my grow? How come nobody is willing to ask if this is what I want? How come nobody wants to know if this pregnancy will shatter my future or not? I did not go out of my way to sleep with the boy that got me pregnant, he drugged me and raped me because I told him I was not interested in sex. That could’ve happened to anybody, even somebody older than me! Why do I have to suffer forever for a mistake that can be amended? Why must carry this shame forever? This is not fair! This is just not fair!!” And the tears started to roll freely down my face.
“Will you shut your mouth there before I shut it for you?” mother yelled at me, half standing up from the dining table where she was eating. “What do you know? Do you know what your carelessness and recklessness have caused me? Do you know the pain and the shame I’m going through as your mother? No matter how long you lament, I have taken my final decision on the matter and nothing can change it, do you hear me?”
Aunty Florence looked at me for a long spell with pity in her eyes and then turned to mother. “Aunty, don’t you think this girl is making some sense? Don’t you think you should listen to her?”
Mother stood up, washed her hands and picked up her bag. “There is nothing to listen to. Thank you for the food. I will be in a few days time to check up on her, please take care of her for me.” That was the last thing she said before she flung the door open, eased herself out of the room and shut the door behind her without taking another look at me…..
The following days were very difficult ones for me. I felt hated. I felt isolated and alienated. I felt rejected by my own mother. I was being punished for something I didn’t do, but for something that happened to me without my consent. Rather than for my family to rally around me, and help me deal with this nightmare, I have been shamed and humiliated. I was being punished for the evil somebody did to me, it didn’t matter to them that I was already suffering inside…
I merely walked around the small house like a zombie. Aunty Florence’s friend tried to be nice to me a few times. She called me and spoke to me. But I could still feel, from the words she spoke, she was judging me.
“How did you meet the guy?’’ she asked me. I told her. I was probably telling that story for the umpteenth time in her house because her friend, Aunty Florence, had asked me a few times before.
“But why did you to his house? And you went without the company of a friend?” she asked. And again, for the umpteenth time, I explained the same way I had explained to her friend. She sighed. I was feeling frustrated and furious inside, but I kept a lid on it. I had to. She was not saying it out loud, but every word she uttered showed she was judging me, blaming me for what happened.
“Didn’t you get to meet any of his friends or members of the family?’ This time, I couldn’t contain the growing frustration inside of me. I let open the flood gates of my eyes and the tears came tumbling down my face. All of the pain I was bottling up inside came to the fore. I felt like a fool. I felt worthless, like a stray dog that had no one to care for it.
“But why are you crying? Did I say something that hurt you or something?” she asked me, a puzzled look on her face. She obviously had no idea how I felt and what she was doing to me probing and judging me the way she was doing.
“Its alright, ma, I am okay,” I told her, wiping the tears from my face with the back of my hand.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Yes, ma, I am,” I answered, looking away from her gaze.
Just then, her friend, Aunty Florence, walked in. She had stepped out to get some snacks.
“What’s going on here? Why is she crying?” she asked her friend.
“I don’t know. I think she just got overwhelmed by emotions. I was actually talking to her about what happened to her when she burst into tears,” she explained to her friend.
I almost screamed at her, telling her she was frustrating me with her attitude and the kind of questions she was asking me. But I controlled my anger. This was not the time to lose my cool or get overworked by emotions. This was the time to think.
I turned to Aunty Florence. “Aunty, please, can you do something for me?”
“And what could that be?” she returned, a puzzled look on her face. She was curious to know what was going on inside my head.
I went straight on my knees. It was time to take my own destiny in my own hands. “Please, ma, I beg you in God’s name, get me a drug that can flush this shame in my womb out of my system!”
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