Desperate Moves

21

We followed the directions and found ourselves in front of a large door made of oak. On the door was a large printed paper with laboratory written in caps. I tapped gently on the door before opening and stepping in. There was a man behind a small desk. He appeared to be in his late forties and had a large pair of glasses sitting on his nose. There were three plastic chairs to the left of the room close to the entrance. Directly opposite the small desk where the man sat, was a large table that was pushed against the wall. The table had a couple of books and a small tray on it. Inside the tray were syringes, needles, cotton wool, a bottle of methylated spirit and some bottles of injection water. There was another door to the right of the room, which I supposed was where the equipments were kept. The man looked up from the book he was reading and smiled warmly at us.

“Good morning sir.” I greeted, glancing at my watch to be sure it was still morning. The watch read 12: 40, so I quickly corrected myself.

“Sorry, good afternoon sir. I had a small smile on my face.

The man’s smile widened before he responded nicely. “Good afternoon. Please have a seat.” He signaled us to the chairs.

“What test are you running?”

I simply stretched out the analysis paper to him. He glanced at it briefly. When he looked up, he had an expressionless look on his face.

“Are you married?”

I didn’t know what to make of the question. My face fell and I replied with a shake of my head. I was shaking or nodding my head a lot these days. I made a mental note to drop the habit soon.

He must have regretted asking the question because when he saw my reaction, he looked a little disappointed. I wished then that I could explain what happened. But why do people have to be so damn judgmental? Only God knows what he must be thinking of me right now. And to think that he was so nice before...

“It will cost you one thousand naira (N 1,000) for the two tests.

I nodded my head as that was fair enough. I opened my bag and brought out a single one thousand naira note and handed over to him. He entered the information from the analysis slip on a large book in front of him.

He got up from his seat and moved around the desk. My eyes followed his every move as he went to the table, grabbed a white transparent rope-like rubber. I have seen it before but I’ve never known what it is called, neither do I even care to know. He also cut out a piece of cotton wool, poured some methylated spirit over it, fixed a needle in a syringe and then came over to where I sat.

I have always hated hospitals and everything related to it. I can’t imagine how the doctors do it; giving people injection, cleaning up large wounds, not to mention poking around people’s brain.

He asked me to close and tighten my hand into a fist, and then he tied the white rubber around my left hand. He carefully searched out a large vein, cleaned the area around it with the wet cotton wool before inserting the needle. As he did that, a young beautiful lady walked in. She wore a blue blazer on a black skirt, with a pair of flat black shoes. Her hair was held up in a ponytail with a black hair band. When she smiled at us, I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful her smile was. After we exchanged greetings, she stayed on to watch what the man was doing. The cold sensation ran down my spine. As the needle went into my hand, I clenched my jaw to avoid screaming. Pain mixed with fear caused my whole body to stiffen. She mouthed a soft “sorry to me while Tosin gave me a sympathetic look. A dark red liquid flowed freely into the syringe for five seconds before he withdrew the needle and the lady, who appeared to be the lab assistant, pressed a cotton wool to the spot, asking me to keep pressing it down for a while. He moved away from me and disappeared into the equipment room to run the test. The lady stepped back out into the small hallway.

He came back out moments later. “You can remove the cotton wool now. Put it in that basket over there.” He signaled to a waste basket sitting at one corner of the room. “You will wait at the reception for the result or you can come back.”

“Is that all for the test? I had expected you to collect a urine sample for the pregnancy test.” I sounded skeptical.

“If you wanted to do urine test, you could have done that at home.” He must have realized he sounded harsh because the next moment, his tone softened while he explained. “I will use blood to carry out both tests. The test is to detect HCG in your blood, which will determine whether you are pregnant or not.” I did not know what he was talking about and I was not really interested to know but he explained anyway. “HCG stands for Human Chorionic Gonadotropin hormone, which is a pregnancy specific hormone.”

“Thanks for the explanation. We’ll wait for the result.”

“Ok.” He sounded kind of remorseful.

We stepped out to the reception. No matter how much I tried to put up a strong front, I knew that my life will completely flip upside down if the pregnancy result turned out positive. I had no idea what it meant to be a mum and I don’t think I was ready just yet, especially a single mum. But then, what if the HIV result came out positive? Will I be able to live all my life on Anti retroviral drugs? God knows I hate drugs, with so much passion. I was no longer sure which of the two will be a lesser evil. How will I face the world, knowing that I will be judged and stigmatized?

Tosin took hold of my hands when he noticed how tensed I was. He gave me a wry smile and gave my hand a light squeeze.

“A thousand dollars for your thoughts?”

I tried to loosen up with a smile. I couldn’t say anything. My brain was in a fog, my thoughts all mixed up and confusing.

“It’s not the end of the world, you know? Learn to take one day and one step at a time and you will get through. Don’t kill yourself with thinking, when we are not even sure whether there is actually a problem.” He adjusted on his seat to lean in more closely. I wish it was easy to just follow the advice and learn to breathe even when there is actually a problem.

Then for whatever reason, he started to tell me about himself. “I am the only child of my parents. I’ve never met my father. He denied my mum and the pregnancy when she informed him that she was with child. She tried everything she could do to make him take responsibility for the pregnancy, all to no avail. Just about three months back, my mum told me he contacted her asking to meet us. I do not want to see him, ever. He left my mum to go through the pain and rejection she went through because of him. To imagine that she was just seventeen and just about finishing secondary school when she got pregnant for him and couldn’t sit for her West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination. Edi, she dropped out of school to have me, against the wish of her own parents to have an abortion.” I have never seen this emotional side of him, so I was touched. Tears were burning my eyelids already and I sniffed several times to hold back the tears. It was now my turn to sympathize with him. I took hold of his left hand that was sitting on his lap. I allowed him to compose himself as he was fighting back tears as well. He soon lifted his face and gave me a little smile.

“I’m sorry about that.” I wanted to say more; to tell him to try and forgive his father, but I had a feeling that was neither the time nor the place to do that. So I just held his hand and we sat in comfortable silence for a while, each lost in his own thoughts.

The rumbling of my stomach broke the silence and Tosin turned to look at me.

“Are you hungry?”

Was I hungry? I was not sure. I glanced at my wrist watch and it showed that the time was now twenty three minutes past two.

“Do you have to look at time to know if you are hungry or not?” he had a sly smile on his face.

I chuckled at that. Really, I don’t know why I did that. “I think I’m getting hungry.” I ignored the last question.

“Let’s go get something to eat then.” He suggested.

“What if we leave and the result is ready?”

“You and your what if’s! And so what, if he result is ready? It can wait till we get back. Can’t it?”

“I think I should wait. I can manage till I get home. You can go ahead and grab something to eat if you are hungry.”

“I’m not the one with a wailing tummy!” his signature mischievous smirk was on his face.

“My tummy is not wailing.” I protested, making a pouty face.

“You are so stubborn, you know that right?”

“And I have a feeling you like that about me.” I had a silly grin on my face.

He was laughing fully now and I was glad he felt better. Come to think of it, I had no idea how to sympathize with people or make them feel better. Most times, I was the one at the receiving end and it made me feel insensitive and immature.

“You wish! You are so lucky I am a gentle man, if not, I would have dragged you across this hall down to the cafeteria for us to get something to eat.”

“Gentle man, my foot!” I was grinning and making a funny face at him, which made him laugh harder.

“Am I not a gentle man?” he was making a display of mock annoyance.