Missteps – Chapter Eighty One

I wanted to scream, cry, shout do something but I couldn’t, we were sitting in front of a doctor so I had to compose mysef, I am certain my husband felt the same way, he asked the doctor if there was something that could be done to rectify the damage to the baby, what a stupid question I thought but when you are in that situation you just want solutions and quick fixes, the doctor told us it would be impossible to fix whatever was wrong with the baby at this moment once he or she is born I could take the baby to specialists and with new development’s being done everyday anything is possible.

I remembered when we finished high school there was a girl by the name of Lumka and her parents could not afford to take her to tertiary, even though her matric marks were very good she could not get a bursary or loan to help her continue with her studies so she found herself a job as a child minder, the child she was looking after was 12 years old and he had cerebral palsy, the child could not do anything for himself, he could not walk, speak or feed himself, she even had to attend school with him, he went to a school of disabled kids, his white rich parents did not care much about him they had basically given the child to Lumka and she used to tell us that while in class the kids would sometimes just shit on themselves because they can’t speak and tell you they need a toilet and she being the child minder had to clean after him when he messed himself in class, it was the hardest 2 years of Lumka’s life. To cut the story short after 2 years of doing all this hard labour the family was involved in a car accident and the boy and his mother died only the father survived, Lumka married the father and lived richly ever after.

But for me there was no happy ending, I was not about to kid myself about the responsibilities of taking care of brain damaged child, it would be mission impossible, I was not coping with a normal child right now, my parents were looking after him because both my husband and I worked crazy hours and travelled a lot. The doctor was still explaining about how the baby would be, he said we didn’t have much time though so we had to make a decision in less than 2 weeks, Mthobisi said we will get second, third and fourth opinion and we left. He asked if he should drop me back at work, after hearing such news I had no strength for work but I told him to drop me off so I could collect a bit of work and my laptop so I could work from home, we drove all the way to my office in silence. I went inside the office and told Cindy I was not feeling well and will be going home, she asked if it was the baby and tears just flowed down my face, she came and hugged me and asked if I would be okay to drive I told her I would be fine she said she could take me home, I told her not to worry my husband will drive behind me to make sure I’m okay, I could see the relieve in her face, she told to let her know when I got home and I don’t have to tell her what is wrong until I’m ready to share, she gave me tissue and told me to fix my make-up to avoid being asked a million questions by other staff members who will see my eyes and realise that I had been crying, this was also to save her own ass I knew because as soon as I walk off with tears on my face she will have 111 calls asking what is wrong with me. I fixed myself and walked out I passed a few people, thank goodness Cindy had told me to fix myself.

I found my husband and he had moved and parked next to my car, he told me he will drive behind me. We did a convoy home, I was sobbing all the way home, how on earth could I be blessed with such an amazing gift the one minute and the next minute be expected to get rid of it, life can be so unfair, what did I ever do to deserve such a terrible punishment. When we arrived home Mthobisi locked himself in his study and worked at least I assumed. I sat and watched tv, not that I was watching it, I was crying I put on the tv so my husband wouldn’t hear my sobs, I kept touching my stomach and remembering how soon I would have to get rid of that little precious life growing inside of me, this was the most painful thing that anyone could go through, my husband was mad at me and we were both dealing with this in our own way, me with tears and him with shutting me out, when things like this happen it is so easy for couples to just tear themselves away from each other instead of dealing with the issue together. As I was sitting there crying my eyes out there was a knock at the door, I was not sure if I heard right because first of all we stayed in a very secured golf estate where people have to get codes and shit to get inside so no one can just pop in unannounced, second of all we didn’t know anybody in the complex. I put the tv volume down just to make sure I was hearing correctly. There was definitely a knock, I wiped my face and went to open the door. Standing at the door was a black female in very I mean very, very short skirt, she was dark skinned and had the longest legs I had ever seen in a black woman, longer than She Rocks, I stood there amazed by her beauty whoever said dark chicks were not hot had obviously never meet this woman standing at my door. She must have said something because she was looking at me as if she’s expecting an answer; I cleared my throat and asked if I could help her with anything. She smiled and said she’s our neighbour and thought she should come and welcome us into the neighbourhood, what the fuck was this America, people don’t welcome each other to the neighbourhood in South Africa, I actually stepped outside to look at the house next door and the one across the street and just like I suspected they were still being built I pointed at the houses and looked at her and she quickly replied “oh no, I stayed on the next street, there is just so few people staying here I thought I should come and make friends” I have enough friends I thought and besides how are you my neighbour if you stay on the next street, but I didn’t want to seem rude so I asked her to come in, she had brought wine as a gift, how white is this girl I thought, I thanked her and she asked if we could open it and have a glass coz it’s a really good wine and it would be a shame not to taste it, I went to the kitchen and came back with one glass and a wine opener and gave both to her she asked if don’t I drink I smiled and said “I’m a born again Christian and only drink communion wine with no alcohol served by my pastor at church” there was an awkward silence for a few seconds she then did the uncomfortable laugh and apologized and said she had no idea, I stood there waiting for her to say she’d be leaving but she opened the wine and poured herself a glass, I was now beyond annoyed.

I went to the other room dug out a Bible from some boxes and went back to the lady and told her that it was nice meeting her but it was prayer time and I would be reading the Bible and meditating on the word of God, instead of standing up and leaving with her stupid wine she asked if she could join me because she really needs prayers she’s going through a lot and blah blah blah, I took her bottle of wine and went to the door opened the door and showed her out I was honestly not in the mood for this, she looked at me and slowly walked out, as she was walking out my husband came downstairs he was on talking on the phone “yes, my wife and I will be there in 30 minutes” both the long legs lady and I turned around, she screamed “oh my gosh, Mthobisi is that you?” my husband’s eyes popped wide opened, I didn’t know if it was shock, surprise or confusion, he can be hard to read at times. I looked at her and said “how do you know my husband?” I don’t think any woman would be comfortable with her husband knowing beautiful woman, I must admit I was hoping and praying that he would not say she’s an ex-girlfriend because jealousy would have turned me green on the spot I would have been walking around looking like Hulk. My husband sensing my irritation and quickly replied “I have no idea who she is Lee” she quickly cut him off, “my husband was one of your clients, we meet years ago in some work function” she described where the function was and who the speakers were, Mthobisi said he remembered the function but could not place her, the more she explained the blanker my husband looked, he couldn’t remember her, the happiness that was in me for the fact that he could not remember such a striking woman. Eventually when she realised that she was not wining with her subtle reminder she said “I’m the one who was engaged to the white old man” “hahahhahahahhahahaha” my laugh just burst out I didn’t realise that I had laugh out loud, the reason why I laughed so much was when Mthobisi had come back from that function he had told me the story about this dark ugly gold digger girl who was with some white old man and everyone had just been talking about how desperate she looked on that old man’s arm. They were both staring at me, I apologized for laughing and told them I had just remembered something funny. The lady was now annoyed she thought I was laughing at the fact that she had said she was engaged to an old man, she grabbed her wine from my hand and walked out, “good riddance to bad rubbish” I said. Mthobisi looked at me and shook his head, he asked what I was doing with a Bible in my hand I walked away and didn’t respond; now he was talking to me after ignoring me for that long.
I went upstairs to our bedroom he was right behind me and said “we going” I turned around to look at him I told him I wasn’t going anywhere I was tired and wanted to sleep. He said “I’ve made an appointment we are going to terminate this pregnancy.” Tears just started flowing down my face, what the hell happened to second opinion, third and fourth besides this was my body and my decision I had never agreed to the stupid abortion in the first place.
I said “we are keeping this baby”
I screamed at him “if you want me to terminate this baby you will have to drag me out of the house kicking and screaming, I am not going anywhere, this baby is staying, I don’t care if it’s going to be disabled or not, you are not God, you don’t get to decide who lives and who dies, fuck you.” I had never ever sworn at my husband, I was mad as hell but the last part was really not necessary, he looked at me and calmly said “I’m giving you 5 minutes to calm the fuck down, you fucked up Lee, our baby is brain-dead because of you and your being irresponsible, this is what you wanted, you wanted him dead so now we going to kill him, I told you to stay at home but your had to go gallivanting, I hope you are proud of yourself.”