Life style

A family friend heard about her. She was married and living in a single-room apartment with her husband, she offered her a space.

“It’s tight, but I can’t leave you like this. That place you are planning to go is dangerous. Stay with us until you deliver,” she said kindly.

She thanked her so much and moved a few of her things to her place. 

It wasn't as conducive as the big room she shared with her siblings in her father's house. But she was grateful to have somewhere to stay

So Hadassah stayed. She helped in the house, studied for her finals, and quietly bore her pain. On cold nights, when her baby kicked and the cramps came, she swallowed back tears. She smiled at her host always, never wanting to be a burden.

The day of labor came suddenly. And painfully. Her host rushed her to the clinic. Called her mother on the phone and told her to come. After hours of pain, sweat, and muffled screams, her daughter was born.

Tiny. Soft. Beautiful.

She named her Zara. It meant “blossom.” Because even in pain, something beautiful had bloomed.

Her mother came rushing to the hospital and was happy for her. 

Her father also came in his flowing Agbada and cap to congratulate her. 

Even at that, her father insisted he didn't want a single mom in his house.

However, her immediate siblings who saw and knew how much Hadassah struggled protested. 

 "She is like that because you married her off. Now you are throwing her away?" 

“How is that my fault? She brought him to me. Why couldn't she find out if he was a good man before he brought him to me"  

"She was 22, it's your duty to have done that as her father"  

"You are challenging my authority as your father?”  

"Father? Someone who could throw us away when we get into trouble and need them the most is not worthy to be called a father"   

He was stunned and angry. And then he called his wife on the phone, 

"bring her home, let her take the boys’ quarters, I don't want her in the main house"  

And that was how she unwillingly became a single mother against her wishes.  

Her family was a polygamous one, and her step-siblings threw insults at her at any given chance. 

Threw insults at their sides of the family because of her "they had failed, they can't keep a home"

Through all this, she would smile. But within, she was dying, always smiling. She needed to be strong, to pull through, for her child. For herself. 

She couldn't go down being tagged as a failure. She was going to put up a fight. She was going to prove everyone wrong. She would pull through. 

However, Zara was just three months old when the picture came. A friend had seen it on Instagram. 

It Jamal in a cream agbada. 

She saw him and the other woman in their wedding attire, smiling and it broke her heart.  

“Congrats to the latest couple in town,” the caption read.

Hadassah stared at the photo. Her hands trembled. The phone dropped.

She sat still all evening thinking and crying. 

By night, her thoughts turned dark.

Maybe she was a failure. 

Maybe Jamal was right. She should have ab0rted the baby.  

Everyone h8te her, including her own father and siblings. 

What was there to fight for? Nothing? She had nothing else to prove. 

Her daughter was sleeping peacefully on the one-sided bed she shared with her. She caressed her face and bade her a last kiss. 

“Grow up well and don't get f00led by any man. Don't trust anyone, even your own family” she whispered to her daughter's ear. 

She got up from the bed and ransacked her old handbag, looking for something. 

She found it. It was the leftover medications she was given at Zara's birth. 

She swallowed the pills. Too many of them. One after the other. The bitterness didn’t scare her. She just wanted the pain to stop.

Her body started getting weak, she lay down on the bed beside her daughter for d3ath to take her. 

In no time she started choking and losing her breath, and then, she went unconscious.

A few minutes later, Zara woke up from her sleep. She cried. Louder. Then louder.

Her sibling was passing by and wondered why her sister wasn't attending to her child. She rushed in and rushed out screaming at the scene beholding her. 

Hadassah was lying unconscious

 With her daughter, crying nonstop. 

“Mommy” she screamed, sitting on the floor outside the room where Hadassah was lying unconscious. 

“Mommy, she screamed louder” 

“What is it?” Her mother came out typing a wrapper and holding a spatula in her hand, she was turning Semo in the kitchen. 

“Hadassah, she's dead”