The Sunday News
Short Story Lubalenkosi Yvette Mpofu
WHEN I woke up my eyes were still heavy and I could hear my sister crying. I was on the bench and man, was my back painful. To me it seemed like I would have slept through World War III if it had started. I saw Dr Brighton Sibangani who was my brother comforting my sister. I only remembered my brother being white on the face with red teary eyes. But why.
It all became as clear as crystal. It had all began the previous day when mother was going to hospital. She had completed her nine months of being pregnant. All our faces were purple with happiness. Mother was going to hospital and it was already her due date. Mother had gone for scanning and the results were that the baby was a boy. In our family there were four girls and two boys and now it was going to be three boys. Father drove mother to the hospital and we had our fingers crossed for her to come before sunset, but the day seemed in a hurry to end.
The next day we were busy as buzzing bees. The house was being cleaned hoping for mother to pop in at any time before the birds chirped in the trees. The sun rose but for it to make the day sunny, it made it gloomy and moody. This sent chills of cold down my spine. I tried to make an angel’s smile but it was one of a dog’s smile. I did not want to overshadow others with my “so-called mood”.
The afternoon was approaching and I was getting impatient. My sister’s phone rang and my stomach sank in. She picked it up with a smile. Suddenly in a few seconds the expression on her face changed. I wondered what was wrong but nothing instead of mother being in hospital crossed my mind. We were going to have a baby brother so there was nothing to worry about. As she put her phone in her Gucci purse she took her car keys. “Come guys, Brighton wants to see us.” I could see that my sister was puzzled because she kept on saying, “I wonder what it is that ‘Brae’ could not say over the phone.”
Brighton was a doctor in the hospital that mother had checked into. We got into the car sank into the chairs and our sister drove off. My sister’s words kept swimming in my head wondering what made Brighton not tell my sister on the phone what was wrong.
We got to the hospital driveway. We all got off the car but we only just stared at the hospital door. Who was going to be the first to take a step towards the door and open it. It was a question in my mind because my sister was just frozen like me. My heartbeat was so loud that I could not hear my sisters calling out my name. They were already half-way. I ran to them and I kept my fingers crossed that nothing had befallen mother or the new baby brother.
We got to the reception, my sister asked the receptionist to see Brighton. They directed us to the waiting room. To my surprise the room was empty as if they knew we were coming. Twenty minutes passed and my patience was getting really thin. The door opened and I immediately stood up to just discover that it was the receptionist bringing cookies and magazines. I was getting really impatient that I did not give the brought in items any attention. I kept on making zig-zag lines in the room. My sister almost hit me with a ball because I was getting into her nerves.
Brighton opened the door with a face like a bad winter’s thunderstorm. Brighton had had many expressions before but not this one. I was struck with terror, welcoming the new unpleasant expression. My palms were sweating. Curiosity was swimming in me as my brother asked us to step to the other room. He only asked my sister and I. I was shocked what was it that could not be said in front of the little ones. The little ones did not even notice that Brighton had come as they were seriously intrigued by the cookies.
Brighton turned around to look at us. “Brae you sounded tense over the phone, what is wrong?” my sister asked. My brother just stood there looking at us as if it was the first time to see his sisters in a long time. People in my area called him “Brae four eyes” because of the glasses he wore, now to me, through those glasses I saw a whole lot more and I wished if Brighton could just say what was going on. We stood frozen as Brae’s words were searing a path from our brains to our hearts. “The baby did not make it Sis,” he said. Brighton was already white, my sister was green and I suddenly felt sick. The words to me were like an explosion. My legs turned to jelly that I fell to the ground and passed out.
I woke up from the bench, my sister was crying, Brae was trying to comfort her, to calm her down but it was like trying to make a vicious lion into a tame one. I was trying to hold the tears back but it was no use as Brighton’s words hit me again; “The baby did not make it Sis.”
I finally stood up and walked to Brighton and my sister. He looked at me, he did not know what to say and if I reacted the way my sister did he would have his hands full. At that moment my father walked in and his face was red already. He saw my sister and he just opened his arms and she walked into them. I wanted him to tell her that all would be okay but it was not going to be.
I wanted to hate God at that moment for what He had done, why would He do such a thing, why was He punishing us. I then remembered that everything happens for a reason but what reason would it be for God to take a blessing away from us. We went to mother’s room and her reaction was even worse than ours. She had a red, teary face and the only thing she did was stare at the ceiling, nothing more, nothing less.We tried to do everything we could as her children but it was just too painful for us too.
Days passed, weeks passed we tried to accept what had happened but it was like pouring water on a duck’s back. The only thing that we had to do was to be there for each other as a family and we did our best especially for mother and all was going to be okay, father reassured us of that.
