Life! With Habika… ~Ep. 2

CHAPTER TWO

Five days passed.

Five days of absolute silence from Nathan’s apartment, and frantic scurrying from mine.

You guessed it. Nathan abandoned the little darling with magnanimous me and locked himself in, not for once coming out to find out if the baby was still alive.

You can trust that I banged on his door several times a day, but…nothing.

The only assurance I had was that whenever I pressed my ears to the door, I’d hear the soft sounds of music, and his car was still parked in the driveway. I would’ve have thought he’d run away for good.

I hope his house goes up in flames, flushing him out. These exact words flashed through my mind one hundred times a day. Very unchristianly, but my charity was stretched thin.

By day four, I was slowly finding a rhythm with Nathan Junior, NJ for short. Seeing as his father refused to speak to me, I named him myself.

My first night with him was horrible!

He wouldn’t stop crying. All my supposed expertise with children seemed to pale in comparison to being solely in charge of a squalling child.

I wore a path in the rug in my living room, singing nonsensical lullabies in a vain attempt to calm him down, all the while casting longing glances at the front door, hoping Nathan would show up.

At first, NJ would quieten after approximately thirty minutes of rocking. But the moment I stopped moving or singing, he’d begin wailing again.

And so I sang and sang till my voice went hoarse.

Finally, by five in the morning when I couldn’t take it anymore, I heard a still small Voice telling me what to do. Immediately, I bundled myself and the baby -still wearing my PJ’s and with rollers in my hair- into my car and drove to the teaching hospital with a renowned Emergency Pediatric unit several miles away.

I’m pretty sure the first thought the nurse on duty had on seeing me was that I was a mad woman who had stolen a baby.

Thankfully, my friend from the University, Dr. Bukola, was the paediatrician on duty that morning. As I stumbled into her office, NJ still whimpering against my shoulder, she took one look at me and shook her head in dismay.

“What trouble are you in this time, Habika?”

“Don’t be snotty, Bukkie. I don’t look miserable enough to you, abi?” I wailed, finally giving in to the tears I had been holding back all night.

“Oops! Okay, I’m sorry. Sit down and hand over that child before you keel over,” she ordered, pulling out a chair for me.

I gratefully handed over the baby and sank down into the chair, wiping my tears on the sleeves of my pajamas.

“I’m pretty sure I saw you two months ago. You definitely didn’t look pregnant or look like a nursing mother. So, is this one of the little ones you babysit?”

As she spoke, she stuck a little rubber toy she extracted from a sealed bag in NJ’s mouth. His crying immediately subsided, though he still let out a mewling cry occasionally.

I felt so betrayed. C’mon, I’d been trying to get him to keep quiet for hours!

“Habika?”

“Yes?” I shook my head to clear off the drowsiness I felt.

“What’s going on?”

“Erm, I’m not even sure how to answer that question.”

Then I began to narrate all that had transpired the previous evening. Bukola just stared at me in wonder as I spoke.

“You sure have a way of attracting drama, don’t you?”

I snorted. “Trust me, I didn’t ask for this. Especially not from Nathan of all people.” Yes, she knew Nathan. I might have complained about him to her once before. Okay, maybe more than once…

“We’ll get to that later. First things first, this child is famished. Do you have any money on you?” This was Bukola, the Chief paediatrician speaking, not Bukola the friend. She placed the NJ on her examining table and began undressing him.

“No, but I’ve got my MasterCard with me. Why?”

“Good, you’ll use the POS then. Rush down to the nurse on duty, ask her for directions to the baby shop across the road.” She scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to me. Honestly, doctors and their handwriting! I couldn’t read a single word she wrote down.

“Buy this baby formula there and rush back with it. Also, buy a feeding bottle, a bottle warmer, some diapers and baby wipes. This little man needs urgent attention.”

I just stood there staring at the note.

“Habika, move!”

Her command spurred me on. I hurried out, purchased the items -the shop attendant was clearly used to Bukola’s illegible scribbles- and hurried back to her office.

Thirty minutes later, NJ was completely calm, wearing fresh diapers and sucking sleepily from his new bottle as I rocked him slowly in my arms. I spent one more hour there, learning that NJ should be five months old, give or take a few days, receiving instructions on how to prepare his formula, and generally how to become a mother – talk about exhausting!

As I gathered up my things to leave, Bukkie placed a hand on my shoulder, forcing me to look into her eyes.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Habika? You could just as well leave the child on his doorstep, Nathan will eventually come out to attend to him.”

“No!” I replied firmly, unconsciously tucking NJ closer, “Nathan might leave him out there to starve. I can’t risk it. But if he thinks he’s completely free of any responsibility towards his child, he’s got another think coming. I’ll make his life miserable!”

Bukola smiled wide, nodding her head. “That’s the Habika I know and love. I almost wish you’d be the one to raise this little man. He’s in good hands.”

“Thank you, Bukkie,” I replied, deeply pleased by her compliment. “That means everything.”

Before driving home, I stopped at the supermarket, hastily pulling out the rollers in my hair as I determinedly told myself I wore a T-shirt and jeans, not in fact my pajamas. I stocked up on the list of things Bukkie had indicated would be needed by NJ.

I bought the most expensive ones too, muttering “Take that! And that!” as I placed each item in the cart. Yes, I fully intended that Nathan would pay me back for every single item. With interest!

At the checkout line, the cashier, who probably recognized me from previous visits, widened her eyes in shock at the sleeping baby I held, and the sheer volume of my purchase. I could see she was itching to start a conversation, so I plastered my phone to my ear and engaged in an imaginary conversation with my Mom until we were done.

In the car, I strapped NJ into his new and very expensive car seat and sat back, staring at him.

He is a beautiful child, I thought, an unexpected surge of love welling up in my heart for him. I sighed, knowing I was in big trouble.

I picked up my phone and called the office. I was already appallingly late for work (I worked half days on Saturdays), so I decided instead to call in sick and ask for the following week off to take care of a family emergency. Well, it’s technically true. Besides, my boss is a nice woman, sort of. And I’d never missed a day of work in the two years I’d worked there.

I finally arrived home. Feeling too tired to confront Nathan, I simply made up a bed for NJ, laid him down and collapsed beside him, asleep in seconds.

That was day one.

Days two and three weren’t exactly free of NJ’s screams and tears, but at least I was better fortified to handle it.

By day four, we had a schedule going on:

12 midnight – ear splitting screams that could wake the dead. NJ’s way of saying “Feed me NOW!”

4am-ish – a more subtle cry for food.

6.30am – wake and formula.

For the rest of the day, I could end up feeding him about five to six times, before we begun the night time routine again.

On the evening of day five however, I snapped.

I had just finished feeding NJ and was softly patting his back so he’d burp, when I saw a movement through the kitchen window in Nathan’s apartment. That was the first sign of life I had observed in four days.

I saw red!

I immediately dressed NJ in warmer clothing, put him into his baby carrier, strapped him on and marched out of the house. I went out the main gate and picked the most dangerous looking rock I could find. I marched back in and banged on Nathan’s front door. When he didn’t answer after two minutes, I stomped to his kitchen window, took aim, and hauled the rock at it with all the strength I could muster.

The sound of breaking glass was music to my ears.

Few minutes later, the front door was yanked open and I was greeted by a hairy giant in a faded T-shirt and faded jeans. He obviously hadn’t shaved since the last time we spoke.

“A-a-are you crazy? You almost killed me!” He spluttered.

His first words to me after hiding away for days. Charming.

“You selfish, selfish man!” I yelled at him.

He didn’t respond, just glared down at me with tired-looking eyes.

“If I had a gun, I think I would shoot you first and ask questions later.” I continued, getting into his face and jabbing a finger at his chest. I knew our neighbours were probably listening in avidly, but I didn’t care a jot at that moment.

“Do you have any idea what I’ve been through? What NJ has been through? What sort of man abandons his baby with a woman he doesn’t really know and acts like it doesn’t exist? Thank the God you serve that I didn’t report you to the police for child abuse, because that’s exactly what this is, you stupid man!”

Nathan still said nothing, just stood there, taking in my abuse calmly.

That only served to further aggravate me.

“Nothing to say, huh? Alright then.”

I pushed past him and walked into his living room. A part of me noted with surprise that everywhere was clean and neat, I considered it odd since he looked like a mess. Then again, Nathan Okeke is a very precise man.

I unstrapped NJ, who had surprisingly slept through my tirade, and placed him on Nathan’s pristine white sofa.

“I’m done.” I said to Nathan, who still stood by the open door, watching me in silence. “I’ve been good enough to blindly care for your son without any explanation from you. Not anymore.”

I placed throw pillows around NJ, so he wouldn’t roll off the sofa in his sleep. He tends to do that. It hurt in some deep part of me to leave him, even for a minute, but I knew I had to do something drastic now that I had Nathan’s attention.

“And Nathan, if I hear him cry for more than five minutes at a time, I’ll rip your hair out. It’s a promise” (And I was going to do it too!)

As I made to march back out the door, Nathan placed a restraining hand on my arm. I stopped and glared up at him.

His next words floored me.

“He’s not mine.”

“I beg your pardon?” I asked, sure I hadn’t heard right.

Nathan removed his hand from my arm and ran it over his face in exhaustion.

“The child is not mine.”

I snorted.

“You must really think I was born yesterday or something. That child could be you when you were five months old, or my other name is Stupid and I didn’t even know it.”

Nathan just looked towards the sleeping boy on his sofa, a pained look on his face.

“Nathan, stop wasting my time. I actually feel like hitting you upside the head right now, and it’s getting harder to restrain myself.”

As I made to leave again, he muttered;

“He looks like me because he’s my sister’s son.”

Sixty seconds of silence passed as I tried to process this new information.

“Then why did you say the lawyers told you he is yours?” I asked, truly perplexed.

Again, that pained look on his face.
“Because my sister is dead, along with her husband and her in-laws. They were involved in a car crash three weeks ago.”

i just blinked in confusion as I processed his words.

“Apparently, she thought it’d be wise to play a joke on me and name me the legal guardian of her child. Just before she died in the hospital.”

I graduated to rubbing my hands against my eyes. I could feel a headache coming on.

All the spicy scenarios I had imagined; Nathan’s high school sweetheart returning their secret love child; Nathan’s one night stand, before he repented, coming back to haunt him…poof!

Debunked, just like that!

Life with Habika couldn’t get anymore complicated, could it?

Photo credit: Black Art @Pinterest

#OLD #babies #LifeWithHabika #unexpecteddad #ourlittledarlingss #Momforhire #LOL

This is Episode 2 of

Life! With Habika…

{I excitedly await your comments, likes and shares.}