Pregnant and Divorced: The Billionaire Begs For Forgiveness

Chapter 4: Two Heartbeats In Houston

After the clinic, Blessing and I walked home slowly in the cold.

I kept looking at the scan picture. Two dots. Two babies. I could not stop looking. Blessing kept saying Elena, you will spoil the paper with looking, put it inside your bag. But I could not. I held it like a phone, like I needed to keep checking that it was real and not a dream.

At home, Blessing made me hot tea with ginger. She said ginger is good for nausea. She said in our culture, when a woman is pregnant with twins, it means double blessing, double joy, double trouble too, but mostly double blessing. She said our grandmother had twins but one died because there was no hospital in those days. Now you have hospital, you have me, you will be fine.

I sat on the mattress and called my mother for the first time in three days. I had been avoiding her call because I did not know what to say. Blessing dialed for me and put it on loudspeaker so she could hear.

My mother picked quickly. She said Nne, where are you? Your husband people called me and said you traveled. I have been calling your number, it is switched off. Are you okay?

Hearing my mother voice made me cry again. I said Mama, I am in Houston with Blessing. I left New York. I left Adrian.

She was quiet, then she said what happened? Did he beat you? Did his mother pursue you? Tell me.

I said no Mama, he did not beat me, but he believed a lie about me and asked me to leave. I did not tell her about the photos and Daniel because I did not want her to worry more. I just said we quarreled.

My mother said in Ibibio, even if you quarrel, why did you leave your house? A woman does not leave her house unless her life is in danger. Did you take your things? Where is your box?

I said Mama, I am pregnant.

Silence. Long silence. Then she shouted, pregnant? You are pregnant? After all these months of praying?

I said yes Mama, five weeks, and it is twins.

My mother screamed so loud Blessing had to move the phone away. She was shouting in Ibibio and English, thanking God, thanking ancestors, saying her prayers have worked. She said Elena, you are carrying twins? Two babies? In one stomach? Abasi has remembered you.

Then she started to cry. She said why are you crying then? This is good news. Why does your voice sound like someone who is mourning?

I said Mama, Adrian does not know. He threw me out before I knew. He thinks I cheated with another man.

My mother stopped crying and became angry. She said what? He said you cheated? My daughter, my Elena who I raised in church, who never followed boys in Uyo, who was a virgin when she married? He said that?

I said yes Mama.

My mother said okay. Do not worry. Do not tell him yet. Come back home to Uyo. Let me take care of you. Let us born these children with dignity. A child does not need a father who does not trust its mother. A child needs a mother who is strong and a grandmother who will cook and pray.

Blessing took the phone and told my mother everything, the bus station, the clinic, the scan. My mother said Blessing, thank you for keeping my daughter. God will keep your children too. Do not let Elena lack anything.

After the call, I felt a little stronger. My mother knew now. My cousin knew now. I was not hiding alone anymore.

That evening, Blessing husband came home from work. He is a quiet man, tall, Yoruba. He looked at me and said Elena, welcome. This is your home as long as you need. No one will pursue you here. He did not ask many questions. He just brought me a second blanket and said Houston cold is not good for pregnant woman.

I started to live like a pregnant woman in Houston. Blessing taught me what to eat and what not to eat. No raw fish, no alcohol, no stress. She cooked me beans, vegetables, fish soup, everything with plenty protein. She said twins eat a lot, you must eat for three now, not for one.

At night, I could not sleep. I would lie on my mattress and look at the ceiling and think about Adrian. I would wonder what he was doing in Knight Tower. Was he sleeping alone in our big bed? Was he happy I left? Was he with someone else already? Was he regretting? I would check his i********: on Blessing phone. He had not posted since I left. His last post was me and him in Santorini, smiling. People were still commenting love you guys.

I wanted to send him the scan picture. I wrote many messages in my notes app and deleted them. One message said Adrian, you are going to be a father. Another said Adrian, you were wrong about me, and now God has given us two babies. Another said Adrian, come and take us home. I never sent any.

Blessing said do not send yet. She said if you tell him now while he is still angry, he will say the babies are not his. He will say you got pregnant for Daniel. Wait until the babies are born, do DNA, then show him. Let the children speak for you.

I knew she was right, but my heart wanted to tell him. Every kick that I did not yet feel, I wanted him to feel too. Every time I felt nausea, I wanted him to rub my back like he promised he would when I get pregnant.

One week after I arrived, Blessing took me to another scan, a better one, to check the heartbeat well. The doctor said both babies are fine, both heartbeats strong, but I must rest, no stress, no heavy work, because twin pregnancy is high risk.

I asked doctor, can I travel to Nigeria now, fifteen hours flight? Doctor said it is okay if you are less than twenty weeks, but after that it is risky. So if you want to go home to Uyo, go now, not later.

That night I made my decision. I would go back to Uyo. I would go home to my mother. I would born my twins in Uyo, in my mother house, with my mother holding my hand. I would not raise my children in America where their father does not want them. I would raise them where they will be loved by everyone in the village, even if people talk.

Blessing bought me a ticket to Lagos with her savings. It was five hundred dollars. I cried and said I will pay you back when I start working. She said keep your money, buy baby things. She packed a bag for me, full of baby clothes she collected from her church, second hand but clean and fine. She also packed vitamins for three months.

At the airport, Blessing hugged me tight and said Elena, remember, you are not a single mother, you are a mother of twins, that is double honor. Go and make me proud. Do not let any man make you feel small again.

I boarded the plane to Lagos with my scan picture in my hand luggage, with two babies inside me, with four hundred dollars still in my account plus Blessing gift, and with a heart that was broken but also beating for two new reasons.

As the plane took off from Houston and America became small below, I whispered to my stomach, we are going home, my babies. We are going to Uyo. Your grandmother is waiting. Your mother will be okay.

I did not know that back in New York, Adrian was sitting in our empty living room, holding my black card that I left on the counter, looking at the door, and wondering where I went.