We don’t talk about number 4.
I’m only aware of it because I saw a note in my father’s car and read it like the nosy child that I was. After pondering over the word for all day, I burst into my mother’s room in my ruffled uniform and asked.
“Mummy, what is a miscarriage and why did Daddy say you have it?”
“Where is it? Can I see it?” I continued smiling from ear to ear.
The expression on my mother’s face shifts from astonishment to confusion as she drops the cloth she was folding and pulls me further into her room, shutting the door behind her.
“Where did you hear that word?” she whispered.
Not sure why she was whispering, I lowered my voice when I asked, “Is it a bad thing?” my bravado faltering.
She must have sensed my apprehension. She cleared her throat and tried to compose herself.
“No, it’s not. I was just surprised. Who told you about it?” she prodded.
“I saw it in Daddy’s car.”
Once again, I watched the expression on her face change from astonishment to confusion to understanding. She shifts her already-folded clothes to make room and pats the space on the bed.
“Sit down…”
I do so with hesitation, my short legs causing me to stumble.
“Did you ask anybody else what you just asked me?”
I want to say that I asked Philomena, but my mother’s furrowed brows make me change my mind, and I quickly answer in the negative.
“Good!” her face flushed with relief.
“Something bad happened to mummy…” I interrupt my mother. She’s not done talking as I burst into tears.
My mother immediately puts me on her lap and attempts to pacify me whilst I stay wailing. When there are no tears left inside of me; just whimpers, I look up at my mother who’s rocking me in her arms the whole time.
“Will you go to a far place like Philomena’s mummy?” I sniffle.
My friend, Philomena had lost her mother the year before and as a six-year-old child who didn’t understand the gravity or finality of death, I believed she had gone to a far place. I didn’t want my mummy to go too.
“No, not like that,” my mother reassured me.
“Then how? Are you injured?” I ask, scanning her body for visible wounds.
“Are you sick? Is Daddy taking you to the hospital?”
My mother chuckles, her humorous laugh making the room a bit brighter. “Calm down, which question do you want me to answer first?”
“Everything” I mumble, my face buried in my mothers’ arms.
“Okay, well, I’m not sick or injured. I had to go to the hospital, but I’m fine now”
“Why did you go to the hospital?” I squeeze my small face. Hospitals have wicked women with big chooku-chooku.
“You know how mummy was pregnant with Kambili and Sochi?”
“Yes, I remember!” My eyes light up immediately.
“Well, mummy was pregnant again.” She said.
I sit up in her arms, excited at the prospect of having yet another sibling to dot on. “Is mummy bringing another baby for me?”
“No, the baby -”
“Is the baby still inside you? Is it painful?” I did not notice the tears brimming at the corners of my mother’s eyes.
“CHIKAMSO!” she snapped.
“Sorry mummy,” I smile sheepishly, still oblivious to her dour demeanor.
“Mummy lost the baby,” her voice barely a soft whisper.
“I don’t understand?” I tilt my head sideways.
“Did the doctor throw it away? Or did you give it to somebody?”
“No,” she smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Mummy did something bad so Jesus took the baby back.”
“What did mummy do?”
“Mummy didn’t want the baby,” my mother sighs deeply before continuing. “My dear, I don’t know but it happens like that sometimes.”
“I’m sorry, Mummy. Jesus will give you another one,” I affirm, still puzzled by the details.
“Thank you, my darling” she says as she hugs me. She kisses my forehead and asks me not to tell my father because “it is our little secret.”
Eager to have a secret with my mother, I nod my head in understanding as she pulls off my clothes in preparation to bath me.
Written by Tovia Inokoba
Read the continuation on Tales & Whispers Website, Click here
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