It was after the guests left that I finally got to rest. Vin drew a bath and as we sat in the bathtub I decided to ask him about what Rachel had told me.
“Vin,”
“Yes love,”
“There’s a rumour going around that I made you and Mark fight,”
“Where did you hear this ‘rumour’?”
“It doesn’t matter where I heard it from, is it true?”
“Somehow,”
“What do you mean by somehow?”
“We got in a slight altercation, it was nothing serious,”
“You are not being completely honest with me,”
“We were at this party a few weeks ago. I think you were at your parents’ place. Mark got very drank and he charged at me like a mad bull saying that I stole you from him since he saw you first but I told him to control himself since Rachel was also there. I guess that made him angrier and he pounced on me. We exchanged a few blows before Jack and the guys separated us and Jack took him home.
I went to see him the next day to make amends since we’ve never gone that far in any of our previous disagreements but he said he meant every single word he said and that’s how it went down. Don’t worry about that, he’ll come back to his senses and I’ll be ready to get back to where we were. Let’s not talk about that,” he said kissing my neck and placing his hands on my belly. “What should we name her or him?”
“Let’s know the gender first then we can look for names,”
“Do you want to get married before or after the baby is born?”
“Let’s do it after the baby is born?”
“Why? Don’t you want the baby to come to an already set family?”
“We already are but planning a wedding can take a toll on someone,”
“Have you ever planned one?”
“I saw what some of my friends went through and it almost made one cancel the whole thing and she wasn’t pregnant. Now, imagine if she was,”
“That’s where I come in,”
“Babe, I know you. Your job will call for you and you’ll leave it all to me,”
“When have I left you in the middle of something to go work?”
“The time we decided to redecorate the bedroom and you said you’d be there the entire time but they called you to go scout at the Mombasa Cultural Festival after Ali got food poisoning and you left without even an objection. I had to do it all alone for the two weeks you were away. Or when we were to go see the real estate agent for the house your friend had informed you about, you left me talking to the agent after they called you to Uganda, we didn’t get the house. Or when…”
“Okay, okay I got your point love,but you know I don’t do it with ill intentions,”
“I know that babe, I understand your intentions, and that’s why I want to have the wedding when I’m in the right mind to handle it all incase something comes up and you have to leave,”
“As you wish,”
Living with Vin was what I had dreamt off when I was in my early twenties, a man who would spoil me, give me some good loving and travelled so I got time to myself and being pregnant made him spoil me more.
The pregnancy progressed well until one night on my seventh month, I was woken up by the baby stretching hard, it wasn’t what I had been used to, this one was painful.
Vin was away in Rwanda so I called the nearest person I knew and that was Mark since he lived in the apartment buildings side of the same neighbourhood.
In less than ten minutes he was there and helped me to his car. By the time we got there, the baby had stopped moving I knew something was wrong and the doctor confirmed it.
The umbilical cord had wrapped itself around the baby and chocked her. I couldn’t believe it.
Was I being punished for not wanting to be pregnant initially?
Mark consoled me until I couldn’t cry anymore and drifted off to sleep.
The following day, Vin got there just as they were inducing labour to get the baby out. He saw Mark in the room.
“What is he doing here?”
“He brought me here,”
“You can leave, I’m here now,”
“Bye Mel and I'm sorry for your loss” he said and left.
They gave me some shots and some supplement pills and I got discharged that same day.
Our drive home was a very silent one. I could tell Vin was angry and sad at the same time and things changed from that day.
I barely got to see him as he took on more jobs therefore he was never around and when he was, he would leave very early in the morning and come home late which would be similar to him leaving for his trips.
I went back to work sooner than the recovery time I was given because I couldn’t take the loneliness. I resumed doing accounts manually to give me the distraction I needed.
One Thursday afternoon, about three months after I had lost the baby, I got this excruciating headache and decided to go home for the day. I found Vin packing his clothes and I'd had enough.
“Are you leaving again?”
“I’m going to the U.S. for a few weeks,”
“When was I going to know about this?”
“I was going to call you once I got there,”
“No you weren’t,” he was silent but continued packing. “Vin, I’m sorry I lost the baby,” he was still silent. “Isn’t that why you are mad at me?”
“No,” he finally spoke.
“Then what is it?” I was almost raising my voice.
“It’s nothing,”
“It’s something, because I lost you when I lost the baby,”
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”
“A shell of you is here. Please tell me what I did wrong?”
“It’s not you,”
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“I’m mad at me. I’m angry that I wasn’t there and Mark of all people had to step in my place,”
“I called Mark because he was the only person I knew who lived the closest,”
“Don’t you think I know that? I wasn’t around for my own baby,”
“This is all about your ego, it’s not about losing the baby,”
“Fuck you, I don’t need this right now,” he said taking his suitcases and going downstairs. I followed him.
“Vin, if you walk out that fucking door, that'll be the end of us,” I told him.
“So be it,” he said and left. I watched him as put his suitcases in his car and then he drove off.
