Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite - 4
The ward was dark, but she could sense that there was someone in the cubicle with her. It was Ebun’s second night in the hospital, and she had been moved to a room divided into two by a fragile curtain – leaving her with a space just wide enough to accommodate a bed, cot and solitary chair. She open...
The ward was dark, but she could sense that there was someone in the cubicle with her. It was Ebun’s second night in the hospital, and she had been moved to a room divided into two by a fragile curtain – leaving her with a space just wide enough to accommodate a bed, cot and solitary chair. She opened her eyes and waited for them to adjust.
She could make out a figure approaching the cot where her baby slept. At first she assumed it was her mother. But her mother was short, with wide hips, and this woman was tall and slender. Besides, her mother had gone home to sleep. A nurse? But surely a nurse would say something.
She felt panic blooming in her chest. The figure was moving towards her child with what she could only imagine were bad intentions. What else would explain this creeping about? She wanted to shout, but she was still groggy, weighed down by the various drugs keeping her from feeling pain. Her body would not do the thing she most wanted it to do, which was get up and protect her baby. She tried again to call out.
‘Nurse. Nurse.’ But the words were just a croak. Her throat was dry. Perhaps the other new mother would hear her, but no one responded to her cry.
Her heart rate quickened as the figure neared the cot. She could begin to make out that the woman was wearing an oversized shirt, revealing long legs, bare feet, a thin link chain glinting on the right ankle. Suddenly she recognised the thick hair and the bowed legs. It was Mo. Mo was here, not in Ikoyi Cemetery, in a wooden box covered by soil, but here in the cubicle with Ebun and the baby; bending over the crib, lifting the baby and peering at her face.
‘Mo. Please. Please,’ Ebun begged, even though she couldn’t have said what it was she was asking. She used her hand to hold on to the bed rail, and pushed herself up. Then she swung her feet to the floor and tried to stand. She immediately crumpled, hitting the ground hard, so she began to crawl, dragging herself to the cot.
If Mo was aware of Ebun, she chose not to show it. She was cradling the baby and rocking her gently. Neither of them made a sound. As Ebun inched closer, she noticed that Monife was wet, the T-shirt clinging to her body, her hair heavy and glossy over her shoulder. ‘Please,’ she tried to say again. Mo lifted her head slowly, and a single drop of water rolled from her hairline and fell, catching the dim light, landing with a small splash on the baby’s forehead—
Ebun woke up in her bed with a start, her heart hammering. She looked around frantically; the ward was dark and silent. She found she could lift herself from the hospital bed and shuffle to the cot, where her baby slept peacefully. And Mo was still buried six feet deep, fifteen miles away. It was only a dream. The wall between the living and the dead was impermeable; she had no reason to be afraid. It was only as she turned away from the cot that Ebun realised her foot was wet; she was standing in a small pool of water.