Two months after I moved in with my aunt, I met Coleman, a man who was looking for his spot in the world just as I was. Maybe, it’s the similarities of our stories that bonded us together. He had completed the university for four years and didn’t have a proper job so he resorted to giving extra classes to kids in the community. I had moved in with my aunt to help her take care of her ailing husband because I didn’t have a job of my own after school.

After many discussions about our lives and how unemployment was dealing with us, we fell in love with each other and started sneaking in the dark to see each other. Coleman was living with his parents who didn’t allow the visitation of a lady. Coleman was sharing a room with his junior sister. He could visit me in my aunt’s place only when my aunt had gone to work and the kids had gone to school, leaving me and the sick husband. The man was bedridden so we could use the whole house without his knowledge.

Our first sex happened in the hall. An hour of intensive pleasure that left the two of us panting and breaking down as if we’d brought down a mountain. It happened every day when my aunt and the kids were away. I would cook for him, serve him my aunt’s expensive drink. I would do everything for him to feel at home with me. Love, when it’s this new, is everything and more. For a year, this was our daily routine. Two lovers who didn’t have a job, we chose this life to keep us entertained and glued to each other.

My period delayed so I bought test kits to check if I was pregnant. The two lines on the strip flickered and turned tomato red so I wouldn’t have any doubt about my pregnancy. I called Coleman; “I’m pregnant. You’re going to be a father very soon.”

Maybe he thought I was joking so he laughed. When he realized it wasn’t a joke, his voice got stern. I could imagine his body firm. “No, you can’t have a baby. Not in this situation the two of us are in.”

He was right. We didn’t have a job. He was sharing a room with his junior sister. I wanted so much to keep the baby but I couldn’t. One morning, we went into a facility and arranged for the baby growing in me to be taken out. I cried when the doctor and the nurse walked in. The doctor told me it wasn’t going to hurt. I answered, “It’s already hurting me.” We made that baby out of love. Why couldn’t the same love push us to keep it?

A few minutes later, I woke up in a corner room of the hospital. The operation was done. I was still crying because I knew for the rest of my life, I was going to remember this child I didn’t give a chance to see the world. I walked out of the hospital with regrets in my stride and pain in my heart. Coleman was there to hold my hands and help me walk out of the hospital.

I swore I was never going to go through that process again so whenever we had sex, I asked for protection. When it was impromptu that he didn’t have a condom, I took medicine. When a year later, my menses delayed for four days, I didn’t think much of it because the last one we did, we used protection. Seven days later, I couldn’t stand it but test and see what was delaying my menses. I was pregnant again.

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I leaned against the bathroom wall and cried until I heard a knock on the door. It was my aunt. She realized I’d been inside the bathroom for ages so she knocked to ask if everything was alright. I cleaned my face with water and wiped it off with a towel to musk off my crying face. My aunt is a woman. She knew something was wrong but no matter how hard she persuaded me, I told her everything was right.

I called Coleman. “I’m pregnant.”

He screamed, “How? How is that possible?”

We met the next day when the house was empty.

He didn’t have to say it. I saw it in his pleading eyes. He was begging me to get rid of it. In his eyes, he was saying, “You know our situation. We can’t have it” but when he opened his mouth he asked, “What are we going to do?” Without hesitation, I answered, “We are going to have it.” He screamed, “Noooo we can’t.”

I’d come close to grace once and I let it go. I couldn’t let this one go because I didn’t know how many I had left inside of me. I was approaching thirty. I was a woman who could bear and raise a child regardless of the perceived suffering. A child that had fought against spermicide and won ought to see the light of the world. So when Coleman screamed no, I said yes in my head.

I called my elder sister and told her I needed a place to live for a while. My aunt broke down when I said I was leaving. She asked why. I didn’t give her a reason. She gave me money. For an unemployed female who had never earned anything after school, that was a lot of money. Coleman didn’t know I was leaving. The morning before I left, he came begging me not to have it. I told him I wasn’t going to change my mind. He got angry and stormed off. Hours later, I was on a bus travelling to my sister to begin a new life.

I didn’t hear from Coleman again until two weeks later. When he called he was angry that I didn’t call him. He was shouting and spreading himself in the sky like dark fumes. I told him, “I’ve left. I left the day you came around. I’m here with my sister. We are going to have this one.” He responded, “It’s your own cup of tea if you won’t listen to me.” After he cut the call, he refused to pick up my calls until I decided to stop calling him.

My mom was disappointed in me when she learned that I didn’t have a father for my child. My dad questioned my intelligence and called me a waste of investment. Even my elder sister advised me to get rid of it. “What if they are all right? My mom, my dad, my sister, Coleman. What if it’s not the right time to have a baby?”

My mom was on my side at the dawn when my water broke. She was by my side when I opened my eyes minutes after I’d delivered. She told me, almost in whispers, “It’s a girl” as if the many scans I did didn’t tell me. She asked who I was going to name her after. I asked her, “Would you like to have your name on her? She touched the cheek of the sleeping baby and answered, “Why not? She’s my granddaughter.”

It’s hard at first, I learned. It gets harder while going through it but once the baby is around, the aura changes from acrimony to love that spreads and covers everyone. I called Coleman and told him his baby was in. I asked when he would come around. He wasn’t sure but he didn’t sound mad at me.

We called her Enima, just like my mom wanted. Caring for a baby without a job is the hardest thing any single mom can go through. Most times I was depressed. I felt wrong and everyone right. At night when she cried and there was no one to help, I broke down and cried. But when she started growing, pride sprouted in my heart. When she crawled, when she said Mama for the first time, when she walked the first time into my open arms, I forgot every pain I was going through. Everything felt right again—I was right.

She’s four years now and I’m no longer unemployed. It means I give her the world in my hands. Coleman is working too. His family is now aware of us. They came to claim her. They wanted to rename her but I said no, “She already has a name.”

On Enima’s third birthday, Coleman came around. After the fun and eating of cake, he asked what was happening between us. He asked if we could do it again like we used to. I shook my head. He said, “I’m talking about marriage.” I answered, “No I’m not ready.”

He asked me to think about it but a year later, my answer is still no. Not because I hate him or despise what he did to me. I want to move away from the memories of the past pain, from all the nos he said to me. The one we let go, it still hurts. When I keep him around, I’ll keep those memories around too. I’m not desperate for a man. I have a baby. That’s enough company. That’s a lifetime of companionship— my own cup of tea.

—Enima’s Mom

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