MY JOURNEY TO BECOMING WHOLE

THE GIRL NAMED STRONG

Trigger Warning: This chapter contains references to emotional manipulation, neglect during pregnancy, and educational denial. Reader discretion advised.

When he heard the news from the doctor, Kelvin was so happy.

He started pampering me again. “What would you love to eat?” he asked. “What would you love to drink?” He brought home malt and milk. He rubbed my feet. He called me “Mama.”

But that was not my problem.

The only thing I felt after the news from the doctor was satisfaction. Deep, quiet satisfaction. I was happy that God told him I wasn’t barren. That God shamed the word he threw at me in the kitchen. Two months of “prayers for barren women” — and God answered in one sentence: You are pregnant.

We were discharged from the hospital and I went back to cleaning, cooking, and other chores.

“Pregnancy is not a sickness,” his sister told me when I sat down for five minutes.

So I stood up. I cooked. I washed. I swept. I carried water.

One day while I was washing the bathroom, my knees gave out. I fell on the floor, hard. My stomach hit nothing, thank God, but my knees took all my weight. I cried from the pain. I cried from the fear.

When Kelvin came home, I told him about it. I showed him my bruised knees.

He looked at my stomach, not my face. “Nothing should happen to my son o,” he said.

That was it. No “are you okay?” No “let me take you to the hospital.” Just his son.

After that, he stopped me from washing the bathroom till I gave birth. That was the only chore I was free from.

At six months we had a gender reveal.

The scan showed it was a girl.

My joy knew no bounds. I put my hand on my stomach and whispered, “Thank you, God.” I did not care about his disappointment. I saw it on his face for one second before he hid it. He wanted a son. But I wanted a daughter. A girl who would never wait like I waited. A girl who would never jump because someone else lit the fire.

At nine months, my baby came.

She was so tiny with her little fingers. Her eyes were beautiful. Her lips well structured, like she was already deciding what words she would speak into this world. The nurses put her on my chest and I cried.

I named her “Valeria.”

It means strong.

Because she didn’t leave me. She stayed with Mummy. In a house where I was called barren, she came. In a house where I was told I was pretending, she proved I was real.

Three months after Valeria was born, I brought up school again.

I was nursing her, looking at her little face, and I thought, If I don’t go now, when will I go? If I don’t try now, what will I tell her when she asks me why Mummy didn’t finish school?

So I told Kelvin. “I want to go back to school now. Valeria is three months. I can do part-time.”

He laughed. It wasn’t a happy laugh.

“Forget about schooling,” he said. “You are looking for a means to run away with another man.”

I looked at him. At the baby in my arms. “You think I would run away?” I asked. “Is that why you’ve been declining all this while? Because you think I’ll leave?”

I told him I would report him to my mom and the church. That was the only power I had left — shame.

Then his face changed. The mask fell.

“I don’t have the money to enroll you in a university,” he said quietly. “Unless you will go to a catering school. That one is cheaper.”

I went to my mom. I told her everything. I told her he refused university but offered catering school.

My mom sighed. “Lilian,” she said, “if he has money for catering school, go to the one he can afford. Don’t bring problem to yourself.”

And that was the end of university then.

I looked at Valeria sleeping in my arms. Her name meant strong.

I would have to be strong for both of us now.