THE EMPTY GRAVE

THE EMPTY GRAVE

I did not go home in her driver’s car.

I waited until her car left the compound, then I pulled the drip needle out of my own hand. Blood dripped on the white floor. I didn't care.

I walked out of that small white bungalow with no sign. My legs were shaking. My wrapper was stained. My stomach was flat but my breasts were already leaking milk. Milk for a baby they said was dead. If my baby was dead, why was my body making milk for her?

There was no doctor to ask. The woman in the faded uniform was gone. The gate was locked from outside. I climbed over the low fence like a thief, barefoot, a woman who had just given birth less than 24 hours ago.

I stopped a keke on the road.

"Parklane Hospital," I said. My voice was broken. "Please."

The keke driver looked at me, at my condition, and didn't ask questions. He drove.

At Parklane, I went straight to the maternity ward. I knew the matron there, Matron Rose, she had done my last scan.

"Matron! Matron Rose!" I called, holding the wall.

She turned and saw me. Her face went white.

"Chiamaka! What are you doing here? You... your mother-in-law said you... you delivered yesterday and lost the baby at a private clinic! She came here this morning to collect your file! She said you didn't want to come here again because of trauma!"

My knees gave way. I fell to the floor of the hospital I should have given birth in.

"She collected my file? When?"

"This morning. 8 AM. She said you had postpartum hemorrhage and baby was stillborn. She said you wanted all your records transferred to her friend's clinic for burial arrangement. She was crying, Chiamaka. We all consoled her."

She was crying. That woman was crying for my baby that she sold.

"Matron, please check your system. Was any baby registered dead with my name yesterday? Was any stillbirth reported from any private clinic?"

Matron Rose frowned and went to her computer. She typed my name. Chiamaka Okonkwo.

"Nothing. No death certificate issued for any baby with your name in Enugu State in the last 48 hours. If a baby died in a registered clinic, they must report it here within 6 hours. There is no report."

No report. Because there was no death. Because my baby was alive.

"Please help me," I whispered. "My baby is alive. My mother-in-law took her."

Matron Rose looked around, then pulled me into her small office and locked the door.

"Chiamaka, listen to me carefully. I have worked 30 years. I have seen this before. Not many times, but I have seen it. Rich families, no male child, or they want to punish the wife. Sometimes they sell the baby to couples who cannot have children. Especially fair, beautiful babies. Especially to rich people in Abuja, Lagos, even abroad."

"Where? Where would she sell my Amara?"

"I don't know. But that bungalow you described near Ugwuogo Road... I think I know it. People call it Mama Nnenna's place. It is not a registered clinic. Police closed it two years ago but it opened again. They do illegal adoptions. Rich women who cannot born pikin go there. Poor girls go there to sell."

She wrote an address on a paper and pressed it into my palm. "Don't go alone. And don't tell your husband yet. Not until you have proof. A mother-in-law like yours... she will turn your husband against you. I have seen it."

I took a bike home. Our apartment door was locked from outside. My mother-in-law had locked me out of my own husband's house.

I sat on the corridor floor, leaking milk, bleeding, empty, waiting.

At 7 PM, she came back with two other women, her sisters. They were carrying food, as if for condolence.

When she saw me sitting there, her face changed. For a second, fear. Then anger.

"You! Why are you not at home resting? Why are you following me around like a ghost? Do you want to kill yourself and put blame on me?"

Her sisters looked at me with pity, but also with that look people give a woman who lost a child - "God will give you another one."

"Where is my baby buried?" I asked, looking her straight in the eye. "You said she died. Where did you bury my daughter? Take me to her grave. I want to see where you buried Amara."

Silence. The corridor became very quiet. Even the neighbors who were peeping stopped.

Her sister, the fat one, spoke first. "Beatrice, you said you buried the baby at... at..."

"I buried her! I paid people to bury her properly!" my mother-in-law shouted, too fast. "At the community cemetery! Why do you want to see a dead baby? You want to get infection? You are not well! Go inside!"

"If you buried her, you will know the exact spot. Take me there now. Tonight. I want to dig her out and see her face one last time. If you don't take me, I will call David right now and tell him you refused to show me my own child's grave."

That was my weapon. David. Her son, who she worships.

She stared at me for a long, long time. I stared back. Two women who now hate each other forever.

"Okay," she finally said, her voice low. "Tomorrow morning. 6 AM. I will take you. Now enter house and sleep. You are embarrassing me in front of my sisters."

She opened the door.

Inside our bedroom, everything was cleaned. My hospital bag was unpacked. The small baby cot David had assembled before traveling, the small pink cot with white net, was gone. The small pack of newborn diapers, gone. The baby clothes I had washed and ironed, gone.

She had erased my baby from the house in less than 24 hours.

I went to the bathroom and locked the door. I turned on the tap and sat on the floor and cried without sound, milk soaking my blouse, blood between my legs, and my arms aching to hold a weight that was not there.

My phone rang. It was David, video call from London.

I wiped my face quickly. I could not tell him now. Not like this. Not without proof. He would think I am mad with grief.

"My love," he said, his eyes red. He had been crying. "Mama told me. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I wasn't there. Are you okay? Is my... is our baby... really gone?"

I looked at my mother-in-law standing outside the bathroom door, listening. I could see her shadow under the door.

I swallowed my truth and said what she wanted me to say.

"Yes. She is gone. God took her."

David broke down and cried on camera. And behind the door, his mother smiled.

I ended the call. I opened the paper Matron Rose gave me. An address.

Tomorrow, after she shows me the empty grave, I will go there.

Amara, hold on. Mama is coming. I felt you kick. I will feel you again. I promise.