‘’If you miss your monthly flow for more than thirty days, then you may be pregnant. You should go for a test’’. These were what I eavesdropped from someone who came to address the women selling things under Ojuelegba Bridge. They came to teach the women there, excluding me.

I have my way of knowing when my next blood flow is due. Now that I can’t see it, it dawned on me that the ‘issue’ growing in my stomach was Rosco’s. The fact that I was going to miss Rosco’s ‘thing’ mattered to me more than the pains of childbirth, I thought, as I stared at the crowded scene where the ‘fresh’ mad woman was displaying. I pitied her, for I am better. After all, no one had ever seen my bra or pant, except Rosco.  Rosco couldn’t even attribute the rounding of my hips and breasts to the fact that I was some weeks gone. That evening, he came again to ask for his ‘tea’. I tried to resist, but was hypnotised by a selfish suggestion from my groins to give in. I did, not minding that I may be climbing on a precipice.

Months later, I started seeing passers-by stealing looks at me as my stomach grew bigger. Women gossip a lot, especially those girls who hawk agege bread.

‘’Ta’n fun were l’oyun?  Who got a mad woman pregnant? They ask, and then clap their hands and hiss, in dismay.

The next morning, the same wicked men in black who flung the frying pans of my dear ‘akara’ seller came to attack us.                                                                   

‘’Stand up! Olopa don come o! They don even carry Rosco and him boys go.’’

That must be Mama Sunday’s voice.  [The paraga seller whose face is laced with tribal marks]. It is those men again! The Fashola’s messengers that everyone is afraid of. I tried to hurry, managing to rise up to get ready, but my heavy stomach and feeble knees failed me. That was the last I could recall.

I opened my eyes to find myself in a strange, but beautiful place. The room was painted white. In my life I have never been in a place like that before. It was quiet. I touched my tummy, it was already flat. The ‘woman’ in me instantly yearned for expression. I wanted to see the reason for my indescribable cramps, why I lost appetite for aboki’s noodles, and why I will live to regret ever meeting Rosco. I screamed! And that attracted four women, dressed in white. ‘’ Madam, relax.  You were brought here by Covenant Church members. You will be fine.’’ They chorused.  I sighted lovely babies in the cot pushed to my bed. So these ‘oyibo’ twins came from my womb?  I couldn’t hold back salty tears and watery mucus from my nostrils. So I was going to be fine someday?  May be its today. I became speechless.