CHAPTER THREE
*
“Daddy please “ She begged. She had left the streets, cried in the arms of Tonia and thought of a million things I could do. Tonia and her Aunt couldn’t take me in, her aunt was a retired nurse, they weren’t exactly well to do, no friend wanted another pregnant friend to feed, and parents would frown to have their kids around her. She couldn’t run away, the money she had might last her what? a couple of hours or a couple of days least, she lived off her family, she hadn’t even found a job since she graduated.
Tonia suggests going for abortion again “My father will kill me” she had told her, tears dropping down her eyes
“Well he might. He’ll be angry for awhile, but the kid is gone and in a couple of months all will be forgotten” Tonia had said “Let’s go. The boy Sean didn’t even want to listen to you, or know whether what you say was true. I mean it took you a month to remember and I am sure you both were so drunk and stoned that night that the events just suppressed in your minds, I can’t believe he just left like that’’ Tonia says
they had gone back to the O’Connor’s house, it was only the maid at home, she told them that Sean wasn’t coming back, he was relocating out of the city to another, his parents were out of town and wouldn’t be back for months and there was no way she was giving a stranger their contact details.
‘’my father will kill me” Megan cried again as they left
“Abort the baby!!’’ Tonia persisted
Megan shook her head “i have to go home first, I can’t , not without their permission, I can’t. they will kill me, disown me ..i can’t !” she repeats
*
Megan comes back home to find her mother crying , her father pacing, he turns and asks her, his eyes bloodshot.
“Where is he??’’
“I am sorry daddy, please” she went on my knees and begged , Tonia sighs falling to her knees to beg too. Megan told her father what happened, she told him the boy left.
Her mother gasps, a fresh flow of tears gushes down her face, her father was beyond furious ‘’How could you be so careless and bring this shame upon yourself? how, it’s because of her right..this wayward friend you have?’’ he points to Tonia, coming towards her.
“Daddy , I am sorry, it’s my fault. Mummy please, scream and shout at me just don’t..dont..send me away “ Megan bursts out crying
“You are a disgrace!!!’’ her father spat. “A disgrace, how do I look at the congregation of people in church, how do I talk in public and be able to counsel families and people’s children and not able to tame my daughter and make sure she leaves right? You have ruined me Megan, you have soiled my reputation and everything I have built over the years, you are a disgrace, a DISGRACE!!!’’ he spat again
“I am sorry father” but he turns away “Mum, mum please “ Megan crawls to her mother but she turns away, crying into her handkerchief..
Broken, she lays on the floor and cried.
“You get out of my house, get out now!!!’’ Father thunders at Tonia, she gets up and runs outside. Megan knew she wouldn’t leave alone unless she was sure she was save, she could feel her standing behind the closed door
‘’This is what you will do Megan, good thing you are no longer a child, you will get married and you will give birth to their child in the confines of a home and you will leave my house to your husband’s. You will not abort because my faith is against killing an innocent child but you will bear the consequences of you carelessness”
"Father what are you saying?’’ shock vibrates through Megan’s body
“You heard me, we would find you someone who wouldn’t mind marrying you carrying another’s man spawn, and you will mend your ways and your life, but not under my roof” he says walking away
“Mother , I can’t marry a total stranger, not one I do not love or know “
“You should have thought about that when you decided to indulge your youthful exuberance and decided not to think of nobody but yourself. Your actions doesn’t only affect you but it affects all of us, your father’s reputation and prestige is on the line, what about me? How do I raise my head up, how do I teach people’s children and yet I couldn’t handle mine? You have done a bad thing and it is sad you have brought an innocent child to suffer for it. You will marry Megan and save your shame, because single mothers with a man who didn’t want to know if he got the girl pregnant and had left to God knows were and isn’t returning, is as good as a girl having a bastard child, and you will be called names and worse how do you cope? who would want to marry and love you? You see? It is for your own good! so you will settle, you will marry and I am sure your father will find you a good man, you will do what your father has said, you have to. Atleast we want to secure your future and the future of that child, you have no choice Megan”
‘No mother no please don’t make me” she cried grabbing her mother’s hand, she pulls it away, she shakes her head from side to side, No! this wasn’t happening
Her father comes out, looks at her and without saying another word he leaves. she was not allowed to go out nor were friends allowed to see her, especially Tonia. No one else knew she was pregnant except Her parents, Tonia and the boy who left.
Then the fights began, and her morning sicknesses became worse. Megan rejected the suitors whom her father brought, they were old men who already had been married once or twice or who had children or was widowed and didn’t mind a young girl with something cooking in the oven. But she did.
No matter how bad her situation was, she didn’t want to settle, she didn’t want to settle for a life she didn’t want.
She and her father fought more, her mother got tired of it all. One day during their fights , she told them she was going to abort it and they told her that if she did, she should consider herself disowned, they wouldn’t have a daughter who was a murderer.
One day, tired of it all she decided to sneak out of the house to do it, while she waited her turn, she saw a girl coming out of the theater screaming and crying in pains, as the fear tickles her toes up to her spine, she grabs her bag and ran, she didn’t look back.
She was three months now, slightly showing and her father had given her an ultimatum, marry now or leave and never come back.
She stood at the door, holding her stomach, not knowing what to do. It took her a few days to make up her mind. And when she did, she drops a letter telling her parents how sorry she was, for the pains, humiliations and all that she had caused them, and that she knew they meant well and they loved her and that she loved them back..but she told them that she knew she was careless and it was her mistake, HERS alone, so she would take full responsibility for it and she would not settle for more mistakes , to be forced into an unhappy home with a man whom she didn’t know nor loved and to bring up her child in that home, was something she wouldn’t do.
She was a single mum, and she would take responsibility for her mistake.
she looks back at the house she grew up in, the love and happiness they all shared, with tears in her eyes and her heart shattering, and with the little money she I had saved , she carries her bag, and left in the early hours of the next morning.
She didn’t know where she was going to or what she was going to do or how she was going to survive. She just knew she had to live, and she had to survive.
And she did.
*
Sean pulls over and stops as someone waves him , crossing the road and jumping into the car
“Dude, nice to have you here men” Sean smiles at his friend Zackary who he invited over for the weekend
“Glad to be here bro, damn, it’s been too damn long, three months. Wow. By the way, sweet ride Sean “
“Thanks, perks of the job and yes miss, I you too” he laughs shaking his friend before speding off
While they caught up for the three months they had been apart during long weekend, they decided to enjoy the night life before Zackary went back to the city , so they went out, to a club and hunged out with friends.
It was when a girl approached Sean with a drink in her hand for him and a offer for the night did it occur to him that he was bothered, he shakes his head, Zackary raises his brow, as he watches Sean politely turn the girl down and watched her go on her away.
“What’s wrong Sean, known you forever and I haven’t ever seen you turn down some free loving and not even booze, you okay?’’ Zackary nudges him, but Sean was frowning
“Yeah I am, I just remembered
something that happened to me before I left, the day of my flight, some cheek appears infront of my door and claimed that she was pregnant for me” he says shaking his head, Zackary laughs, but when Sean wasn’t laughing he stares at him
‘’For real?’
“Yes Zackary, for real. I mean its ridiculous right? Plus I have never met the girl in my entire life before and I never banged a stranger without knowing who she was but here she was, eyes puffed and she says I got her pregnant and she was dead serious’’
‘’who the hell was she?”
“I don’t know, some Megan chick or something”
‘hmmm, So what did you do, what did you say?’’
“What else, I told her she was lying, because she was, she had to right? And I left her standing there, headed to the airport and came here”
“Well good thing, some chicks this days sleep around and looking for scape goats to pin it on and what is worth, you are rich, well your family is so why not pin it on Sean O’Conner, get him married to her or better still have his family take care of child support and she is made for life living off the kid, and you know we are talking millions if they girl gets a good ass lawyer to take her case, good thing you dodged that bullet. All lying bitches looking for freebies, hope you told her to go stick it in her ass somewhere?”
‘Well technically I did, but she showed me the test result”
“So? Could be forged and even If it’s real and she is pregnant,dude did you screw her?”
Sean frowns “ I don’t think so. No. I have never met her in my entire life let alone kissed her”
‘Good, that is all”
“But she said something else that we did it and she was certain it’s graduation night, and she is almost a month gone, but do you know the funny thing, I frigging don’t remember half of what went down that night, so what if?”
“ What if you smashed her? Dude don’t be stupid. Well…how could you remember, we had shisha, we had drugs, we had strong spirit and we did shit.. but I know you wasn’t with no girl, and even if you were with one you would have been too stoned to know where the right hole was so trust me, that girl be lying to you son, don’t get easily swayed. If it were truly your kid, how come for three months now no chick had come to find you or your parents? Has your parents been contacted? Look, I know girls like that, forget it. Wait! is that while you turned down that pretty brunet? she had the hots for you”
“No, it was just the fact that she was giving me a drink I didn’t know where from and I just wanted to be careful, if I sleep with a girl I want to be sober doing so. And I aint taking any liquid or cigar from you ever again. You were the one that got my brains fried”
‘Well you could easily had said no, but you didn’t, you took it , you loved it and you flew, literally, I remember you screaming and shouting cockroach and aliens in the building” Zackary laughs, Seam joins him
“No that was you actually”
“Oh shit!! Zackary laughs
They forget about the girl pregnant girl.
The girl comes back again, this time Sean doesn’t refuse her , but he doesn’t drink “Why don’t we go back to your place and finish the party?”
she whispers into his ears
“Why the hell not!!’ Sean smiles whispering back and they make their way out.
“That’s it son, “ Zachary claps his back and he goes out with a girl hanging on his arm too
Back at his apartment, Sean opens his drawer as she laid on his bed waiting and takes out a condom, he was going to be extra careful and sober while was at it.
Whoever that girl was, he didn’t want someone like her to turn up again to force a pregnancy on him and even if one did show up, he wanted to be able to say…Yes, he was the one.. or No he wasn’t with certainty.
But for that girl..that Megan whatever-her-surname-was, she was just as Zachary said, some gold-digger apparently trying to pin a pregnancy which wasn’t his on him.
He was glad he didn’t listen to her and he prays to never have to see her ever again.
*
**FOUR YEARS LATER***
Megan had grown from a twenty-three year old insecure woman and a single mother with no hope, no direction and misplaced priorities to a single proud mother of one, with a focus, more drive and determined to be the best and do the best for her daughter.
After she gave birth to her daughter after working as a waitress in town, she had wanted to put her up for adoption, she had everything planned . but that fateful day as soon as the child was born in the orphanage home where she worked and took care of kids, she knew there and then that she could never give up her daughter, never. So she took her child and she left that same night.
She did nanny jobs in order to spend time with her daughter and by the time Kikina Alexis-Grace turned two, she enrolled for a teaching course with the money she had saved, and after a year she got the job as a kindergarten teacher, and she was able to enrole Kikina into a school.
Yes, it had been one hard journey, cut off from her parents who didn’t want to have anything to do with her, going on with little to survive, kiki, her daughter seemed to be the only light in her life and she was determined to make the most for her, she loved her daughter and she had vowed to keep her safe, protect and never let anything or anyone harm or take her away from her.
Megan had come along way,she had tried to build her life back together, forgetting that night years ago, forgetting the months that followed and the boy who walked away not wanting to know if he was actually a father .
But it seemed life had other plans.
Tonia walked into her small house, as Kiki ran to hug her ‘’Hello beautiful princess, how are you?’’ Tonia kisses her
“I am awesome” kiki says “ wait Aunty Tonia, I have to show you what I made today at school’’ Kiki ran to the bedroom
“Oh wow okay, I ain’t going anywhere” she says smiling at her, but when she turned to Megan, there was a sad smile on her face
“What’s wrong?’’ Megan asks her friend, she knew that face well, fear grips her “Is my mother okay, dad?’’ she holds her
“It’s not your parents”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“Sean O’Conner,he is back. he just moved back.”
Megan blinks
“Did you hear me Megan, Kiki’s father is back”
‘’Kikina is my daughter,her father is dead, that is all”
‘But Megan, you can proof to him that you weren’t lying”
“she has no father Tonia, that is all there is to it. I will not let my daughter know a man who didn’t care to know about her. And I intend to keep it that way, forever. I don’t care that he is back, but he will never be her father, he’ll never know the truth” Megan snaps
“My father?’’
They turn so see kiki standing there puzzled
“Mum, are you talking about my father? Did you meet my father Aunt Kiki, mummy told me he went to heaven, did she lie to me?”” she had tears in her eyes
Megan leaves the chair and goes on her knees to be leveled with her four year old daughter
“Kikina, listen to me, mummy and Tonia are having adult talk okay, go to your room. But mummy didn’t lie”
*
TO BE CONTINUED.