It was best I leave the village for Lagos. But I was not anything near as excited as mother was. In fact, if truth be told, I was not happy leaving the village because that was where my heart is. That was where my friends, my mates that I went to school with, lived. To leave the village to start a new life was not something I was looking forward to, but under the present circumstances, I had no choice. I had to leave.
“But you don’t look too happy about the news, Rosemary, “Aunty Florence said to me after she noticed I was not half as excited as my mother.
“No, Aunty, I am happy. I really am. Thank you very much for everything,” I said to her, looking slightly away from her gaze.
“Don’t mind her, she doesn’t know that all that I am doing is for her own good,” mother returned, giving me a sharp look.
“But how were you able to convince your husband to approve of her coming? Hope he wasn’t angry with you, my dear?” mother asked.
“No, he wasn’t angry at all,” Aunty Florence answered. “I told him we need someone who could help us with chores around the house and that I was sure Rosemary would be a good girl,” she replied.
“And what about the pregnancy, what did he say about that?” mother asked.
“To be honest with you, Aunty, I haven’t told him yet about it,” she replied, looking slightly away from mum. “I was sure that if I tell my husband he would not allow her to come with me to Lagos. So, I have hidden the truth from him for now. Will come up with a way to tell him later.”
“But, why now, he will find out sooner or later,” mother said, extremely bothered that Aunty Florence didn’t mention to her husband that I was pregnant.”
“Aunty, I know my husband, there is no way he will allow her into the house if he knew she was pregnant,” Aunty Florence replied. “Don’t worry, I will find a way of letting him know before he finds out himself,” she assured her.
“Okay, I hope so,” mother sighed heavily. “So, what’s the next step now?”
“Before we move on to the next step, I need you to warn Rosemary to be of good behaviour,” Aunty Florence interjected, her countenance changing into a more serious one. “My husband is a very strict person. He does not take nonsense. If you misbehave, he will only warn you once, the next time you do what he asked you not to do, he will send you packing straight away, is that okay by you?”
I nodded. “Yes, ma, it is,” I promptly answered. “I promise to be of good behaviour.”
“Florence, you too, you know your Rosemary very well, she’s a good girl., it’s this unfortunate incident that is making her look like she’s one badly brought up girl but she’s not. I can vouch for her any day, anytime, “mother put in a few good words for me.”
“Good!” she responded. “Now, this is what I think the next step should be… “
I adjusted myself on the seat, like one waiting to hear information that could make or mar her life. Well, in a way, what I was about to her could make or mar my life. The whole meeting was about my life, the very beginning of the next most dramatic phase of my life.
“We have to get Rosemary prepared,” Aunty Florence had begun. “She will need to buy a few things, personal stuff that she will need,” she explained. “And the next step, and I know you will not like this one, will be to inform her father that she will be going with me to Lagos!”
“Ah! But, Florence, you know he won’t agree to the idea,” mother responded. “Even now, as I speak to you, he is insisting I go and bring his daughter home from wherever I have taken her. He wants her home so that he can get a doctor to terminate the pregnancy.”
“Where did you now tell him Rosemary is?” Aunty Florence asked her.
“I told him she’s with my family, I did not tell her which of my family member she is staying with,”
“But, still, you cannot take his daughter away to Lagos and not let him know about it?” she insisted.
“Listen, Florence, we have gone over this before and I have told you to leave everything to me,” mother assured her. Aunty Florence was quiet. She clearly was not comfortable with the arrangement.
“I don’t like this, Aunty, it’s not right,” Aunty Florence complained. You could see it in her eyes that she was under big pressure to do her sister’s bidding. “I just hope this will not lead to any serious trouble later o, because I don’t want my husband’s problem at all.”
“I am assuring, Florence, there is no problem, or is Rosemary not my own child again? Did I steal her from somebody?”
Aunty was silent. She was weighing the situation in her mind all over again. Mother was silent. She was waiting quietly for Aunty Florence.
“It’s okay, so you will know how to handle her father, right?” Aunty Florence asked gain.
“I will only tell him she’s still with my family, that’s all. And by the time his anger comes down, we will talk about the situation and maybe then, he will have a change of heart and everything will return to normal again,” she guaranteed. There was a confidence with which she spoke that baffled me. You would think she had in her hands the entire script of my life and knew exactly how everything concerning my life will play out.
“Okay, then, so I will leave you to handle that end,” Aunty Florence returned. “I will be leaving for Lagos in a few days and she can go with me once everything is ready. Both of you can sit down and look through her things and see the things that she will need to buy so you can buy them for her. Very soon, she will need to start buying baby things and prepare for life as a young mother. At that point, tears welled up in my eyes. I tried to control myself and stop the tears from rolling down my face but it was a futile exercise. I just couldn’t stop them. To hear them talk about me becoming a mother totally shattered my heart. Me? Become a mother when my mates will be in the university? I stared up into space, hoping the heavens will come to my rescue. But nothing happened. Nobody came to rescue me. Deep inside of me, I cried even harder, still, I was left to my fate. This cross, I will have to carry all alone, all by myself. There was nothing I could do anymore, the die is cast now. I was about to take the very first step of the most dramatic days of my life…
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