MY JOURNEY TO BECOMING WHOLE

CHRISTMAS IN THE VILLAGE

Trigger Warning: This chapter contains references to emotional abuse, forced labor, and medical distress. Reader discretion advised.

After he called me barren, Kelvin changed tactics.

He was well known in church. A worker. A “brother.” So he couldn’t be wrong. If Kelvin said something, it was gospel. If Kelvin did something, it was holy.

He started giving me prayers for barren women. He opened his Bible every morning and read verses to me about “fruitful wombs” and “women who waited.” He laid hands on my stomach before he left for work.

I kept on crying.

I would sit on the bathroom floor after he left and ask myself, What did I do to deserve this kind of treatment from someone that claimed he loved me? We had been married two months. Two. I was 19. But in his eyes, I was already failing as a wife.

The third month was Christmas.

We traveled to celebrate Christmas in the village with other members of the family. His both parents were dead — I didn’t get to meet them. But his brothers and sisters were all there. His house was full.

As the youngest wife, their tradition demands I do all the chores and cooking alone as the new wife in the family.

So I cooked.

I fetched water from the stream at 5am. I pounded yam for twelve people. I washed clothes until my palms bled. I swept the compound. I served food. I cleared plates. I smiled when his sisters called me “our wife.”

No one asked if I was tired. A new wife isn’t supposed to be tired.

I fell sick because of the stress I was undergoing.

My head was hot. My body was shaking. I could barely stand. I went to Kelvin and whispered, “I am sick.”

He looked at me, then looked at his sister. He said, “You’re pretending.”

He called my mom that night. I heard him from the next room. “Your daughter is not behaving well,” he reported. “You should caution her. She’s lazy.”

My mom didn’t call me to ask what was wrong. She called me to say, “Lilian, do what your husband says. Don’t disgrace me.”

I thought I would die in that village.

Then his elder brother came.

He had just returned from the United States for Christmas. He was different from the rest. Quiet. Watching. He saw that I wasn’t good from a distance. He came closer. He placed the back of his hand on my forehead.

“You’re burning up,” he said.

He went to his bag and brought something out. A sachet. He mixed it in water and gave it to me to drink. “Rest,” he told me. “Don’t tell them I gave you this.”

I drank it. I slept for the first time in days. Later, I began to feel better.

When Christmas was over, we got back to the city.

The sickness started again.

This time it was worse. My chest hurt. My vision blurred. One morning while sweeping the parlor, the broom fell from my hand. Then I fell.

I woke up to white walls and the smell of antiseptic. A drip was in my arm. Kelvin was standing by the bed, arms folded.

The doctor walked in with a file. He looked at me, then at Kelvin. Then he smiled.

“Congratulations, Mrs. Kelvin,” the doctor said. “You are pregnant!”

Pregnant.

The word hit the room like thunder.

Kelvin’s mouth opened. Then closed. The man who called me barren, who gave me prayers for barren women, who reported me to my mother for “pretending” to be sick…

He was going to be a father.

I put my hand on my stomach.

And for the first time since I said “I do,” I felt something stronger than fear.

I felt hope.