C3: The Child is Not Mine

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A month after the funeral was over and mourners from far places had dispersed, her mother had aroused her from her sleep and dragged her to Vernon’s place.

She dumped her at his parents’ house and told them she was now their problem. No amount of crying or pleading would change her mind.

“What is the meaning of this? What do you mean you are pregnant?” a furious Vernon had yelled at her. The two stood in the back of his mother’s yard.

Ysabelle had stubbornly looked away from him, biting her trembling lower lip until the coppery taste of blood filled her mouth.

“Goddamnit, Issy, answer me!” he bellowed, startling her.

“Why are you yelling at me?” she had cried. “I am going to have your baby…”

“No… no… no… no… this can’t be happening. This is crazy!” Vernon muttered, pacing up and down, pulling at his hair.

Silent tears had flowed down Ysabelle’s face.

“Why did you allow this to happen? You did this on purpose, right? You set out to trap me!”

“What?”

“It can’t be my baby…”

“Vernon!”

“We only did it once… moreover, I withdrew!” he had said, looking at her with wild eyes.

“What are you trying to say?”

“I’m not the father of that child. Go and find the man responsible,” he said in a tone that sent chills down her spine.

Lost for words, she had looked at him as if seeing him for the first time.

“You can’t be serious… you can’t mean what you just said…”

He had stared at her coldly. Something similar to a smile graced his lips. “Don’t, for a second, try to assume that you know me…”

With each word he said, he took a menacing step toward her. Ysabelle had retreated until her back hit the wall. His warm breath hit her face.

“Vernon… you are scaring me…”

“That thing growing in your belly is not a child. You will get rid of it!”

Ysabelle shook her head vehemently, her hand covering her belly protectively.

“No… no… I won’t… Vernon, this is our child…”

He had grabbed her by the shoulders and rammed her into the wall while shouting. “That is not my child! That is not my child!”

“Vernon, stop it! You are hurting me!”

“Vernon!” an authoritative voice yelled from behind. “You let go of the girl now!”

The man who had just ordered Vernon to let go of her—and possibly earned Ysabelle another day on earth—was Uncle Miti, the authority figure in the Miti family. The woman beside him, Sofia, rushed to Ysabelle’s side.

“You okay?”

Ysabelle had looked up at the woman. She was met with a kind face and eyes full of compassion. She tried to hold back her tears, but in the face of such kindness, they rolled down.

“It’s okay,” she said, shooting her husband’s nephew a hateful glare. Aunt Sofia took her by the hand and led her away to the house.

“What is this despicable behavior?” Mwewa demanded.

“Uncle, that is not my child…”

Vernon never got to finish his sentence as a slap from the former military man landed on his face.

“Another word out of your mouth and I will knock your teeth out. Tell your mother this weekend we are visiting her family to apologize, pay the damages, and start negotiations for her bride price.”

“Uncle, no. You can’t do this to me.”

“You are still talking?”

“….”

Days later, after the cold treatment from Vernon and his mother, she had gone back home only to be turned away at the gate. When she refused to leave, her mother went inside and came out with her clothes, mementos, and anything that had tied her to her father, and burned it all in front of her.

Time and again, she was rejected and turned away. Her family would not even come to negotiate for her bride price. She had long known she couldn’t depend on them, but she still hoped. Even as she was maltreated by her mother-in-law and Vernon did nothing to stop it.

She was treated with disdain and contempt. As time went by, verbal and physical abuse became the norm for her.

To them, she had been the seductress who had lured their son for his money.

While she had been the doted-on younger child, he, on the other hand, had been the firstborn with a widowed mother and two younger siblings to take care of.

Throughout her pregnancy, not once did she hear from her family—not even when her son was born and she had sent word.

She had made excuses for them. Her naivety had made her believe that her baby—her mother’s first grandchild—would heal the pain she had caused.

Sadness overwhelmed her as it always did when she recalled the events of that day. She had been so optimistic as she bathed her baby boy, Caleb. She had named him after her father, Caleb Jere, because her mother-in-law had refused to name him as per tradition, and Vernon had shown zero interest in their son.

“Why in the world would I do something that stupid? Not even when I am old and senile would I fall into that trap,” her mother-in-law, who was sorting beans on a tray, had said when her son Caleb was just two weeks old, after she had queried the naming of her son.

As the first grandchild, they were supposed to hold a baby naming ceremony for him. Being poor was no excuse. Even a small, intimate ceremony would have been fine for Ysabelle.

“Where did you get the absurd idea that I would want to name your bastard son?”

This was not the first time Mrs. Joyce had called her a whore; she had just developed a thick skin to it. But it was the first time she had done it in front of Vernon. Ysabelle had looked up from the baby in her arms at him.

He sat under the shade of the avocado tree, playing mancala with his youngest sister. She had hoped to get a reaction out of him. He had been within earshot and had earlier been conversing with his mother before Ysabelle had come out to join them.

Vernon had continued playing the game like nothing had been said. She had been disappointed and hurt but had brushed it all aside.

“Caleb,” she had said after a while, “I will call him Caleb after my father. Is that okay with you?”

She had looked up from the baby to Vernon, but Mrs. Joyce answered before he could. “Didn’t you say Mr. Brian wanted to see you over the roofing of his house?”

“Oh, yes. That. I forgot,” he had said and left soon after, without a word to either her or the baby.

Looking back, Ysabelle couldn’t help but scoff at her younger self. What had she expected, when from the word go he had denied his paternity of the child?

A week later, she decided to go see her mother.

As she had dressed up Caleb to go see Kanyama, she had hoped that at least one grandmother would adore him.

After her visit to the under-five clinic, she had boarded the bus heading to Kanyama. As she drew closer, happiness swelled in her heart. She couldn’t keep the smile off her face. Each time she looked down at her sleeping son, she saw a bridge of hope.

She had found Aliness, her mother, washing clothes outside.

“Mom?” she had called out.

Aliness had slowly looked up from her laundry. She stared straight past her and the baby.

“Mom, I brought the baby,” Ysabelle had said. She walked toward her. “I figured you were too busy to come.”

She pulled back the blanket covering the soundly sleeping Caleb.

“His name is Caleb,” she had said. Her mother rose from the cement block she had been sitting on.

“I named him after Dad,” she told her. She wanted to add that God had returned him to them but held back.

She swelled with pride and joy when her mother walked toward her and her baby.

But that soon went away as her mother walked past her to the gate.

“Mom?”

“Please leave,” she had told her, opening the gate. Ysabelle turned sharply.

“Mom, he’s your first grandson. Don’t you want to hold him?”

“Manase! Manase!” she had yelled instead for her elder brother.

Four years separated them. He came running out of the house. He stared at her in shock.

“Issy, what are you doing here?”

It wasn’t what she expected to hear from the brother she had not seen for over six months.

“Manase. I brought the baby over for you to see him,” she said, ignoring how angry he looked. She held the baby closer to her. She felt tears at the back of her eyes but fought them off.

“Do you want to hold him? He’s just eight weeks today. I just came from the under-five clinic. I had sent word but you never came… I brought him home so you could see him. He’s your nephew. You are an uncle now,” she said, forcing herself to smile even though her heart ached, as she shifted her baby bag to the other shoulder.

Manase had looked past her to their mother. “Mom, are you okay?”

“Tell her to leave. Now.”

Ysabelle had looked down at her sleeping baby. The tears she had fought so hard to hold back fell onto Caleb’s blanket.

“You should leave. And next time…” he began, then sighed defeatedly. “Just go, Issy, please don’t come back,” he told her.

“Why is the gate open?” a voice called from outside. It was Chikondi. She walked in and closed the smaller gate. “Oh, Mum, are you going out?”

Chikondi wore the uniform of a supermarket.

Aliness had shaken her head.

Chikondi had turned and cast an inquisitive look at her brother when she saw Ysabelle.

“You!” she spat. “What did you do to our mother? Why are you here? How dare you show your face after everything you have done!”

“Mother wants her gone,” Manase said.

“Then why is he still here? What did you even come here for?”

“Hi, Chikondi,” she had mumbled. “I brought Caleb…”

“Wow, the audacity you have. You even had the guts to name that, honoring our father?”

“I just wanted to honor his memory,” she had murmured. “Doesn’t he look like our father? Do you want to hold him?”

Straightening out her arms, the baby turned and snuggled closer to her.

“That thing you are carrying in your arms is no relative of ours. It will always be a reminder of why the father left us.”

“Please don’t say that,” she had whispered, tears choking her voice.

“Does the truth hurt? I am glad it does. I hope each time you look at that thing, you remember that you are the one who killed our father!” she had yelled. “You and that bastard son of yours are murderers!”

Fresh tears had stung and rolled down Ysabelle’s face as she looked at her eldest sibling.

The hate she saw in the eyes of all three tore at her heart, but it was Chikondi’s words that shattered her already broken heart.

Caleb was the most precious thing to her. How could she tell them that each time they uttered such words?

Despite the early summer heat, Ysabelle had felt a chill run down to her bones.

“Leave now,” Chikondi had told her. “You are not welcome. Nobody wants to see you here. What you did to our father is unforgivable. Do you think a mere sorry will make everything okay? Your sorry won’t bring Dad back from the dead. Your sorry won’t wipe away all the tears Mom has cried. Your sorry is worth nothing. Your sorry is just that—words. Leave now and don’t you ever show your face to us again.”

Ysabelle had looked at her mother, hanging onto the last strip of hope.

“Mom…”

Aliness had looked away from her.

Ysabelle nodded and walked away. The moment her feet stepped outside the gate, her sister shut it and latched it.

To date, she could still hear the loud bang of the iron gate shutting behind her.

Nine months later, she had lost her son to pneumonia. For a week, he had fought the illness. Crying on the phone, she had called her family, but no one came.

They hung up on her. It was the last attempt on her part to mend fences with them. Then the worst happened: her son died. And so had everything in her.

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