DOWN- Episode two

DOWN
 
Many are the plans in the mind of a man,
But it is the purpose of the Lord
That will stand.
-Proverbs 19:21 (ESV)
 
Episode two       
 
Modupe’s free spirit easily broke Lovette’s ice. She had started a talk with Lovette and somehow the talk veered to her experiences in relationships.
 
“Let me start from the very beginning.” She’d said “In the beginning was me, and me was in SS2 and me was with Junior. Junior sayeth unto me, Modupe I lovest thou, wouldest thou be my girlfriend? And I thought my mind, behold, he is a handsome bloke with swags, why shan’t I? Abeg this KJV thing no be for me. I don tire” Lovette chuckled from the chaise lounge on which she was sprawled supine in order to ease her breathing. “See ehn, Junior was an SS3 boy, man was hot and of course the girl was twice as nice,” she preened “and by that time I had my head in Harlequins and all those romance novels that convinced me I was totally ready for love.” Modupe dragged a hiss. “See ehn,” She seemed to have a penchant for the words ‘see ehn,’ “what I had with Junior cannot even count as a relationship. It was just two hormonal teenagers trying out what they thought they were ready for. Moving on to more serious things, in 200 level I had a relationship with Elvis, who was our departmental association’s PRO. Elvis wasn’t tall, dark and handsome but oh! He was sweet to the very core of his being, he knew the right things to do and say at every time and I had fallen for him before I could realize.”
 
Lovette’s phone started ringing. It was Andrew checking up on her, he’d soon be done from the office, he said he loved her, she replied ‘I know, and I love you too. Modupe and I are really having a swell time…. yeah… okay… bye.’ She dropped the call.
 
“Andrew says thank you for caring for his pregnant wife.” Dupe laughed. “Eh eh, so what happened with Elvis? He graduated and forgot about you?” Lovette asked.
 
“Oh no, I realized he had the same effect on every other lady he met. It was hard but I had to leave him when it became obvious that loyalty meant nothing to him. Then Chidiebube came along. Chidi had this eyes that peppered my spirit every day, add that to his converging chin that had wispy beards and his swarthy skin and be sure that I couldn’t say no. Err, I’m not so vain oh, but my sister that guy fine. See ehn, forget say hin no too tall, Ebube fayiiin!” The way she stressed the last word made Lovette giggle.
 
“I think the both of us have a common attraction for Igbo guys.”
 
“Abeg oh. I still don’t like Igbo men, Chidi was just an exception. But he was too insecure. Always trailing me with calls and when I could take no more, I asked him to get off my line and go marry a customer care agent who would have nothing else to do with her time but answer ‘where are you?’ phone calls. And that was it with our relationship. As karma would have it, my next boyfriend was going to break up with me.
 
“Feeding on all those novels and sappy, touchy-feely movies, I had a bloated and unrealistic concept of what love was and I kept pushing Olumide to fit into the picture of the perfect boyfriend I had in my head. I was trying to make the poor guy jump out of the pages of a fictional novel. Olumide was bearing with me for the sake of love but when my pressure exceeded his capacity, he buckled.”
 
“That makes four guys, yeah? Senior Junior,” Dupe gave her a friendly nudge and they laughed “Elvis, Ebube and now Olumide.” She ticked off the names on her fingers. “Chai, I only ever had Andrew as a lover.”
 
“Girl, you are lucky. Honestly, I envy you. You don’t have to compare your man with anyone, you don’t have to compare his looks with Chidiebube’s, or his gentility with Elvis’. You don’t have to compare his sex with any of the men you met before… well, that depends on if or not you met anyone before him.” Dupe smirked. “Did you?” Lovette was shy.
 
“No” Why was she ashamed?
 
“Osheyyyyy! Sister Lovette with 1 body count” Dupe reclined. “Oya your turn, tell me your love story. Take it from the top and spare no detail.”
 
“Err… it started with Toju, Toj-”
 
“I thought Andrew was the only one” Dupe said, eyes gleaming with mischief.
 
Lovette rolled her eyes. “Toju and I were never an item, I’m only talking about him cos you asked me to spare no detail.”
 
“okay. I’m all ears.”
 
“Yeah, so Toju and I worked as teachers in the children department of the church I attended while I served in Omu-Aran, Kwara state. We shared a passion for the children and bonded as friends, AS FRIENDS over the ministry.”
 
Dupe coughed. “Some churchy, ministerial romance brewing.”
 
“Well, Toju saw me as more than a friend or at least he wanted me to be, I never thought of it but when he proposed, it made perfect sense. Here was a man who was a God chaser like me, had a common ministry, we had a very good synergy as friends and I found his build and lisp attractive. What else? I had thought. When I took his proposal before God, I wasn’t seeking direction, I was giving thanks for the gift of Toju. While I prayed, a scripture dropped in my spirit. Halleluyah! Confirmation don show. Pfft.” She smiled ruefully. “The passage was 1 Samuel 16:6-7 I can never forget how I excitedly picked my easy to read Bible and flipped hurriedly. ‘When Jesse and his sons arrived, Samuel saw Eliab. Samuel thought, “Surely this is the man that the Lord has chosen!” But the Lord said to Samuel, “Eliab is tall and handsome. But don’t think about things like that. God does not look at the things people see. People look only at the outside of a person, but the Lord looks at his heart. Eliab is not the right man.”’ Lovette shook her head. “If I hadn’t known God’s voice unmistakably, I mean I had been hearing him since I gave my life to Christ, I would have thought that was the devil. But I knew it was the Lord. It was so clear; so painfully obvious that it was him, what he was saying was not the least ambiguous, I could not even claim I didn’t understand. Dupe, I wept. It was hard, very.”
 
“Hmmmm” Dupe sighed. She was touched deeply. Lovette’s story was moving, but beyond the story something stood out for her, biting at her from inside; Lovette said she’d been hearing God for a long time. God spoke clearly to her, she knew his voice. The memories of the many times she had to run from one prophet to another, from one mountain to the next church, seeking what God had to say about her son’s condition careened across her mind. Each prophet had a different story to tell, each one had a different solution, each left her more confused and pained. Her son was in his room, where she hid him away for the sake of shame and she still didn’t know what to do with him. Yet, right there in her room, Lovette claimed to have heard God speak so clearly to her?
 
Lovette continued with her story. “I decided not to delay the young man. The earlier he knew the truth, the earlier he would smart with the pain, start to heal and move on. I told him I wanted to see him, that I had my answer. He was so excited the day we met, the certainty in his eye made my insides hurt. He’d said, ‘before you say yes, Lovette, there’s something about my past I need you to know.’ He was willing to overt everything about his past before we even started out, he didn’t want to deceive me, how could the Lord not see that this was the right man for me? My heart had cried out. ‘My ways are not your ways, neither are my thoughts your thoughts. As the heaven are high above the earth so are my thoughts far from yours’ the Holy Spirit had said to me.” Lovette licked her lips and swallowed, she massaged her back and grimaced.
 
“Are you fine? Are you having contractions?” Dupe was already on her feet, eyes very concerned.
 
Lovette shook her head. “I’m fine”
 
“Are you sure?”
 
Lovette nodded. “So back to my story, I interrupted him ‘Toju, I’m not saying yes.’ So simple yet so disastrous. Toju dropped a tear but that was it.” She sighed.
 
“So whe-” Dupe was saying before Lovette screamed.
 
“Contraction?”
 
“I don’t kn- Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggh!” The shriek was ear piercing “Call my husband. Take me to the hospital.”
 
Dupe picked the load, assisted Lovette to her car and at the same time dialed ‘Hun’ on Lovette’s phone. The phone rang, he didn’t pick. They got into the car. Dupe called Andrew again, he didn’t pick. She sped out of the compound. Lovette screamed Dupe’s name.
 
“Dupe, Dupe, Dupe”
 
“Yes?” She turned to look at Lovette through the space between the driver’s and front passenger’s seats. “What is-” Dupe’s mouth fell open. She saw it, Lovette was bleeding, the blood was seeping through her gown and dousing the car seat already. She sped, dialled Andrew’s line again, the phone only rang.
 
 
****
 
Andrew stepped through the large sliding doors of the mall, holding shopping bags. He noted the sharp temperature switch between the air-conditioned interior of the mall and the sultry exterior. He sighed. His meeting with Bimpe had been.. well, it was surprising, nice and it set his mind astir.
 
Bimpe looked all prim and snatched, her poise and polish way finer than he remembered. She tapped on the handle of her cart with her fitted rose gold acrylic nails all through the time they talked, and as she did colours of the light spectrum from her diamond wedding ring reflected on his blue suit. Bimpe made sure to rub in her success, at every chance she got and she kept questioning to know where he stood.
 
“Do you know Dr. Adejuyigbe Philemon?” She had asked
 
“No”
 
“Oh, he’s one of the board directors at Sure Insurance PLC, Ikoyi. He’s my husband, we have an adorable three-year-old daughter, Lily -Lilian actually.”
 
“Great,” Andrew said nodding.
 
“I see you’re married too,” She gestured to his ring “to who?” Was he imagining it, or was there an edge in her tone?
 
He spoke about his wife briefly, not trying to make a point. She went on to talk about her blooming career as a newscaster with a major TV station and ended with ‘how about you, what do you do now?’
 
“I work with Andella”
 
“Andella,” she nodded like an impressed supervisor “that’s cool. What do you work as?” She was so caught up in her mental comparison that she didn’t realize it was becoming all too obvious.
 
“I program” Andrew said simply, deciding against his initial urge to tell her he was the head of the programming department, that he was at the office today because the team of programmers could hardly survive in his absence, that even while he was pushing his masters in Hungary, he had been one of the best programmers, that many a company sought his employment, THAT SHE MISSED OUT ON A BIG DEAL! But he would not let the flesh get the best of him.
 
“I see,” She drawled “You did well to keep those programming dreams alive, didn’t you?”
 
“Well, God is faithful. You are also doing very well for yourself, I must reckon, being a newscaster with such station as Channels is no joke.”
 
She laughed, trying to be modest. Her laughter was schooled, too proper. Nothing like the Bimpe Andrew knew, the Bimpe whose laughter and smiles were warm, broad, unhindered.
 
They bantered a little longer then Bimpe said she had to run and she left but not before she reached into her clutch which had miniature prisms studding it and handed Andrew her complimentary card.
 
For all the perfectness Bimpe made apparent in her life, Andrew could not avoid noting the large difference between the Bimpe he knew and the one he had just met. There was something not clear but very obvious, there was a change. As she went on with her feats like a prospective employee will do with his resume before a panel of interviewers, Andrew waited for her to say something, anything about what he had known as her greatest dream from the three years of their relationship: raising children -asides her biological ones- for God. Did she still gather children from the neighbourhood every evening to teach them like she did when she was in Ebonyi? Was she still a children department teacher in church like she was before she broke off from him? He wondered. But the woman he had just met did not seem like one who would stoop low enough to reach a child’s gaze or soil her aristocratic fingers with a child’s poop.
 
Now as Andrew walked towards the parking lot, he was sure that Bimpe was not the same and this bothered him. The simple fact that she was trying so hard to prove that she was better off without him, made him know that she most likely was not.
 
He pushed thoughts of Bimpe asides and by default, his mind drifted to his wife. His wife!
 
His heart lurched. He had completely forgotten that he was expecting a baby. Instinctively, he felt his pocket and the only thing he felt was the smooth small bulge of Bimpe’s card. What about his phone?
 
He hurried to the car, unlocked it with the keyless remote, dumped the shopping bags in the back seat and then saw his phone on the front passenger’s seat. He’d forgotten it. He picked the phone and the moment he unlocked it, the first thing that caught his sight made him know that there was serious trouble. 7 missed calls from ‘Love’. His pulse jumped.
 
“Andrew you’re a fool! Who forsakes his pregnant wife for a rendezvous with an ex that didn’t deem him worth marrying? Who?” He chided himself as he sped through the mall gate ignoring the security officer who was demanding some money for watching over his car. Andrew sped on the highway and maneuvered sharp bends like a criminal in a Hollywood movie being assailed by the cops.
 
A flood of different possibilities of what was wrong with his wife gushed through his mind. Each thought being more morbid than the preceding one. Andrew was jostled out of his thoughts by the alarm bells that went off in his head and the adrenal surge in his body. A pedestrian a few miles away from his car was pelting across the road and if nothing was done, Andrew would run the boy over. With all the panic in him, he pressed the horn and the boy ran back to the curb, escaping being rammed by the whiskers. As Andrew’s car whipped past, the teenager made sure to scream ‘Were!’ loud enough for Andrew to hear and he splayed his fingers at him but Andrew was only seething with nervous energy. He’d almost run someone over. His fists were white around the steering.
 
Park this car before you actually hit someone!
 
Don’t park the car! Go get your wife!
 
His thoughts were loud in his head, distracting him. He didn’t stop driving, his right foot pressed the accelerator yet harder. He was not in the right frame to drive, granted. But then, he knew if he parked that car, he’d not be able to do as much as turn on the ignition for the next thirty minutes-
 
And by that time, Lovette would be dead!
That’s if she’s not dead already!
 
Andrew groaned. “Jesus! God, please have mercy. God, please.. I speak peace into my spirit, I speak peace into my wife’s condition…” As he drove he prayed in tongues, directing all his nervous energy into prayers, pulling strength from the Lord.
 
 
****
 
“Ma’am, are you her relation?” The lantern-jawed doctor questioned Modupe.
 
“No sir, what is the matter?” Dupe asked as fear made her hot and uncomfortable.
 
“We need someone to sign the undertaking for her, she needs to be wheeled to the theatre for an immediate caesera section.”
 
“I don’t want a c-s!” Lovette groaned in protest as she wept. “Where is my husband? Andrew where are you? Where are you now that I need you the most?” Her shoulders shook as she wailed. “I don’t want to die.”
 
“Madam, you wouldn’t die. We have to do this and immediately to save the child’s life. We don’t have time at all! The result of the ultrasound scan shows that the cause for the severe bleeding is a placenta abruption. That simply means that the placenta has been detached from the uterus and that spells danger for the child. If a c-section isn’t done immediately that child would die from lack of oxygen.” The doctor said with every sense of urgency.
 
Lovette wept harder. If there was anything she dreaded, it was a c-section. Was that not what was responsible for her mother’s death while she birthed Udoh, her younger brother? The doctor had been careless enough to lesion her epigastric artery and all that was done only sufficed to save Udoh’s life. Her mother’s demise had taken a hard toll.
 
 
 
Andrew burst into the hospital reception.
 
“Where is Lovette Okwanze?” He was breathless.
 
“Take the ramp, go to the first floor, she’s in the ultrasound room, it’s the second room by your right.” The receptionist said.
 
Andrew had dashed off before she was done talking. He rounded a corner and ran up the ramp.
 
The moment he entered the ultrasound room and Lovette saw him, she ran into his arms not minding the stain on her gown.
 
“Oh, Andrew where have you been?” She said, clinging to him “I’m so afraid.” Even he was. The doctor quickly gave Andrew heads up and urged him to persuade his wife to do the needful before it was too late. He succeeded, Lovette was wheeled to the theatre and he was shut out.
 
He waited in the waiting room for about half an hour before he heard the child cry. The period of his wait was stretched taut by fear, suspense, and thoughts. He busied himself with prayers and recounting God’s word as he fought off the voice of fear.
 
When he heard the baby cry, he released a long shaky sigh as uninhibited tears streamed down his face. He was grateful. At last, the victory was won… or so he thought.
 
After he heard the baby cry, no one came out to give him the good news. The theatre was still shut, the doctor was still in. Only a nurse came out and she seemed in a hurry to get an assignment done. He intercepted her but she scarcely said anything in answer to Andrew’s questions. This made Andrew worried. Something was wrong. Something was definitely wrong.
 
Was it with his wife? Or the baby? Or both of them?
 
The only thing the nurse said that Andrew had heard rang in his mind, sending ripples of joy across is severely troubled mind.
 
“Sir, you have a son”
Only she didn’t say what type of son.
 
Andrew let that comfort him. He had a son… Praise the Lord. But what of his wife?
 
Sweat beaded his brows so much that they rolled down to his thick lashes.
 
Lord, please don’t take my wife.. Please, Lord. I can’t do without her now. And then he heard it as gentle as a whisper calling through the night and as clearly as the jingle of a bell;
 
Lovette will live
 
That settled all his fears. He praised God with songs. All was well. Oh, how wrong he was.
 
 
Question for the week:
 
*What do you think might have changed with Adebimpe?
*Andrew forgot about his wife and was catching up with an ex, what does that make him?
*Do you think it is true that time changes people? Was it time that changed Adebimpe?
 
Thank you. Your readership is highly appreciated. And your participation in answering the question for the week would also highly be appreciated.
 
To answer the question, make a post on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, tag me –I would drop my handles now- and don’t forget the hashtags #CFCDown and #CFCDowntheconversation. Please participate, your opinion matters a great deal.
 
Instagram – @official_mophie
Facebook- Goodness Adegbola
Twitter- @AdegbolaMo
 
 
****
 
NEXT ON DOWN
 
As Andrew walked out of the ward to the waiting room, he whipped out his phone. Safari to the rescue. DOWN SYNDROME. He punched into the browser.
 
As he surfed the different articles and pictures, the words jumped at him.
FREQUENCY: ONE OUT OF ONE THOUSAND
And Lord, you chose me to be that lucky one?
MENTAL RETARDATION. POOR SPEECH. SLOW GROWTH. ADULT HAS IQ= A NINE YEAR OLD’S. Oh, wow! EPILEPTIC SEIZURES. ACTH. SPEECH THERAPY. OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY. DUODENAL ATRESIA. HAPPY. STERILE
 
****
 
Aiku Mojoyin Elizabeth made her way to a ward crammed with victims of an accident. She rounded a corner. One brief glance at the distressed, suited man, sitting on a chair by the corridor and she knew by her hellish instincts that he would be needing her ‘help’. Her blood warmed, her heart pumped she wanted to have a word with him, she decided against it and decided to do her homework first.
 
Mojoyin used her position as a matron to gain access into Lovette’s file and the file of her newborn. Once again, her instincts did not fail. Now she was sure, now she could have a talk with Andrew.
 
Mojoyin started practicing as a nurse and midwife at the age of 21. She loved her job, particularly when she had to function as a midwife. Each child she helped in birthing was like a golden star appended to her shoulder, and she had many stars. She was trusted, she hardly ever had to deliver a stillborn and when she did, it was because the child died before labour.
 
Four years of purposeful and fulfilling service later, she would run into Monte, a hunk with piercing dark eyes at the hospital reception and a year later she would be dancing with him at her wedding reception. Life was beautiful with Monte, her job added colour to her living. The joy jounced when she had her first stillborn. Being a professional with years and years of polished practice, she knew what to do and when to do the right things so it was a shock, but she took it well. She was extra careful with her next pregnancy but she still had a stillborn. Birthing a dead child was traumatizing for every thinkable reason, firstly the labour pains were worse when she tried pushing because the child could not engage his head in moving out of the birth canal and then the depression that followed, it was horrid.
 
After the third stillborn in a row, Mojoyin woke from the effect the anaesthesia that was administered before the CS was carried out on her and told the doctor in a fit of frustration and resignation to carry out a hysterectomy on her.
 
The doctor wanted her husband’s consent first but Mojoyin wanted it done immediately. She said she knew what she wanted and she was sure her husband would not have a problem with it. She did not tell her husband this and when Monte found out, he could not stand Mojoyin any longer. Her decision to take out her womb without telling her husband and letting him find out from outside cost her her marriage.
 
She was left miserable, depressed, and hopeless. She craved death, madness, any escape from the avalanche of anguish she was lost in, but nothing helped. She had lost her man, three children and the hope of ever having another, it was too much for her. Why did God ever let her go through so much? What was her sin? She burrowed into her job, hoping to find the enthusiasm that came with the stress. She wanted the pleasure that made her pulse rise as she ran down hallways, trundling stretchers, as she arranged intravenous lines, administered injections, went on ward rounds or kept up with her patient’s recovery. Most of all, she wanted that surreal feel of accomplishment that came with guiding another neonate out of a birth canal, receiving them into the world. But all of that had slipped through the back door. Everything in her job became bland, she had never felt so wan about anything, and the worst was when she was posted to maternity wards. Seeing babies made her insides freeze with pain, the glee on the mother’s face as her newborn nursed made her seethe with ineffable wrath. She became withdrawn, a loner, she pushed back anyone who dared come near with the thick walls of barbed wire she built around herself, only one thing was allowed through those walls; thoughts, dark thoughts, morbid thoughts. Thoughts of babies dying, dying slowly, gruesomely, dying in their mother’s arms, dying under the tires of a speeding car, dying with head crushed by a pounding pestle.
 
Initially the thoughts came as suggestions, she pushed them back, she got bored, welcomed the thoughts, she engaged them once, then again and again till they became her daily bread, till they became what woke her in the morning, what she dreamed of at night, what numbed the pain she would have felt while working in the day, as she received babies from a labouring mother, her heart willed them to die, she engaged those thoughts until they became her obsession. And when a patient had a stillborn or whenever a baby died, she was glad.
 
Then she realized having children die accidentally was never really hard. A little delay during the labour and the child got too exhausted to survive, a little more force while receiving the slicked head and it became dismembered from the body, administer a little dose of a drug and the baby went still. Accidents. Achievements. This became the new star on her shoulder, her new reason to live, ‘her purpose’. This was her way of fighting God for all the unfair things he did to her. She would send as many children as she could back to God, as soon as he sent them down to earth. Her payback to God, her service to the Devil.
 
Now 54 years old, Mojoyin had had years of practicing her new passion and she had several black stars to her shoulders.