Pregnant and Divorced: The Billionaire Begs For Forgiveness

Chapter 3: Back To Uyo With A Secret

The bus to Boston was cold and smelled like old air freshener and sweat.

I sat by the window, my Ghana must go bag on my lap, my hand inside the bag holding the pregnancy test stick like someone would steal it. The woman beside me was eating chicken and talking loudly on the phone about her boyfriend who did not call her back. I did not hear her well. I was listening to my own body. I was listening to a new life inside me that I could not even feel yet but I knew was there.

Every small pain in my lower stomach, I thought, is that the baby growing? Every small nausea, I thought, is that normal for five weeks? I had no mother beside me to explain these things. I had no doctor to ask. I had only Google on a phone with ten percent battery and no data and no money to buy data. I felt so alone but also not alone, because I knew there was a tiny seed inside me that was mine alone.

When we got to Boston, it was early morning and it was still dark. I went straight to a small African shop near the station that was open. The woman selling was Igbo. She had a big wrapper tied around her waist and she was frying akara. She saw my bag and my tired face and my expensive dress that was now dirty and wrinkled and she said sister you just came from Nigeria? I said no, I am going back to Nigeria. She looked at me with pity that only African women understand and she gave me a bottle of water for free and a small piece of akara. She said eat, you look weak. I will never forget that water and that akara. It was the first kindness I had received in two days after sleeping on the floor.

I found a cheap ticket office run by a Yoruba man. He had a big Nigerian flag on his wall. He said Lagos direct is expensive, eight hundred dollars minimum, sometimes nine hundred. I said I have only two hundred and eighty dollars left in my account. That is all I have in the whole world. He looked at me from his glasses and said sister, you can not fly with that money. Go and hustle more. Come back when you have complete money. He said it kindly, but his words broke my heart again.

I felt like crying again but I had no more tears left. I went outside and sat on the pavement near the dustbin. I opened my bag and counted my money again on my phone app. Two hundred and eighty dollars. I had no house, no job, no husband, no ticket, and now I could not even go home to Uyo to meet my mother. My mother would be in her shop in Itam market now, selling her wrappers, not knowing her daughter was sitting on cold floor in Boston.

I thought of calling Adrian again. I thought of begging Margaret, his mother, to at least give me ticket money to go back to Nigeria so I can leave their life forever. My pride said no. My mother voice in my head said no. My mother always said Uyo girls do not beg, even when we have nothing. We suffer with dignity. We carry our pain with our head up.

Then I remembered my cousin Blessing in Houston. Blessing was my mother younger sister daughter. We grew up together in Uyo, fetching water together, going to same primary school, fighting over who would wear the better dress on Christmas. She was now a nurse in Houston, Texas. She had told me last Christmas on video call, Elena if you ever need anything in America, call me, do not worry about your husband people. I had not called because Adrian family said we should not bring village people into our private life. They said Blessing was too loud, too local. Now I had no choice. Blessing was my only hope.

I used the Igbo shop woman phone to call Blessing because my phone was dead. She picked after three rings. When she heard my voice, she shouted Elena, where have you been? I have been calling you since December, your husband people said you traveled to Dubai for business. I started to cry on the phone in the middle of the shop. The Igbo woman came and held my shoulder. I could not hold it anymore. I told Blessing everything in Ibibio and English mixed together. The photos, the ring on the table, the rain, the bus station floor, the two lines on the stick.

Blessing was quiet for a long time, then she said Elena, you are pregnant? I said yes. She said with twins? I said I do not know yet, I think one. She said my dear, you can not be alone in Boston. You can not go back to Uyo now like that, Uyo people will talk and stress you and you will lose the baby with stress. Come to Houston now. I will send you bus ticket. Do not worry about money. Just come to me first, let us do scan, let us know what God has given you, let us feed you.

Within twenty minutes, Blessing sent me a Greyhound ticket to Houston, Texas, to my email. I used the shop woman computer to print it. It was a thirty hour bus ride from Boston to Houston. Thirty hours sitting upright with a new baby inside me, with my back hurting, with no food. But I did not complain. It was a free ticket and it was family and it was love. The Igbo shop woman packed two more akara for me for the road and said may God go with you and your child.

The bus to Houston was long, so long. We passed many states I had never seen before. I saw America through the window for the first time, not from Adrian private car with tinted glass, not from a plane, but from a crowded Greyhound bus with poor people like me. I saw corn fields that had no end, small towns with one church and one shop, gas stations with big lights, white churches with tall crosses. I slept and woke up and slept again. My neck pained me. My legs swelled. I kept my hand on my stomach the whole time and whispered we are going to be okay, we are going to be okay.

In the bus, a small Mexican girl sitting opposite me, maybe five years old, gave me half her sandwich. She did not speak English. I did not speak Spanish. But she saw I was hungry and she pushed the sandwich to me with her small hand. Her mother smiled at me. I took it and said thank you and she smiled back with missing front teeth. That half sandwich saved me that day. It was more than food, it was God telling me I am still loved by strangers.

When I arrived in Houston, it was morning again. Blessing was waiting at the station with a big jacket and a big scarf. Houston was cold too that morning. She saw me coming down from the bus with my Ghana must go bag dragging on the floor and she ran and hugged me. She started to cry immediately. She said Elena you have lost weight. Your face is pale. Your eyes are inside. What did that man do to you? What did that family do to my sister?

Blessing house was small, two bedrooms, but clean and warm and smelling like stew. She lived with her husband and two small children who were still sleeping. She took me to the small room that was her store room before, now cleared for me. There was a mattress on the floor, a thick blanket, a small table, and a small Bible on top of the table. There was also a small heater.

She said you will stay here. No rent. No stress. No one will ask you about your husband. Just eat and sleep and grow that baby. My husband has agreed. You are my sister.

That night, Blessing cooked white rice and stew and fried plantain and fish. I ate two plates. I had not eaten proper cooked food in two days, only akara and sandwich. Her children woke up and looked at me and laughed. They said aunty you eat like daddy. I laughed for the first time in three days. It felt strange to laugh, like my mouth had forgotten how.

After food, Blessing took my hand and said let us pray. We knelt down in her living room, me, Blessing, and her husband. She prayed in Ibibio mixed with English. She said Abasi, you see your daughter. You see what she is passing through in this foreign land. You gave her a child in her pain to show her you have not left her. Do not let her fall. Protect the child inside her. Bring shame to those who shamed her. She prayed and prayed until I was crying again, but this time it was not pain tears, it was relief tears. Tears because someone finally said God sees me.

I slept that night on a mattress, not on a bus station floor, with my hand on my stomach, with the heater humming, and I said to my baby inside, see, God has not left us. We have somewhere to sleep now. We have family now.

The next morning, Blessing woke me early. She said today we go to clinic. She took me to a free clinic for women with no insurance. The place was full. The nurse there was a kind black American woman with big braids. She asked when was my last period. I told her. She asked if I had done test. I showed her my stick that I still carried in my bag. She smiled and said congratulations, but let us do proper blood test and scan to be sure and to see how many weeks and how many babies.

We waited for two hours in the clinic. There were many women there, black, white, Hispanic, all waiting with big stomachs. Finally they called my name, Elena Carter.

The nurse took my blood. Then she took me to a dark room for scan. She put cold gel on my stomach. It was very cold and I shivered. She moved the machine around my lower stomach slowly.

She was quiet for a long time, moving the machine, looking at the screen. Then she said oh.

My heart stopped. I said what? Is my baby okay? Is there something wrong with my baby? Tell me please.

She turned the screen to me and said look.

On the black screen, there were two small sacs. Two. Not one. Two tiny dots flickering like small stars.

She said Elena, you are not having one baby. You are having two babies. Twins. Two heartbeats.

I stared at the screen. Twins. Two heartbeats. Two blessings inside the body of a woman who was sleeping on the floor of a bus station two days ago with four hundred dollars.

I put my hand over my mouth and cried again. The nurse laughed and said many women cry when they hear twins. I said no, you do not understand. Yesterday I thought I had nothing. Yesterday I thought I was alone. Today I have two. God gave me two so I will never be alone again.

She printed the scan picture and gave it to me. I held it like it was the whole world. Two small dots on black paper.

In that small dark clinic room in Houston, Texas, with a stranger nurse holding my hand and Blessing waiting outside praying, I became a mother of twins.