The Pregnancy
Mama Ronke was at it again, her husband had done it again. This time he had impregnated the young girl that had been bringing ogi (pap) for them every day. Her screams got the attention of everyone, and we all troop to her house to get more details of how it happened.
When we arrived, I couldn’t help but notice the young girl that always sell ogi with two elderly people, a man, and a woman. I guess they are her parents. They looked sad as they told Iya Ronke what her husband had done to their sixteen-year-old daughter. We, the amebos, stod by, adding pepper to the talk by murmuring, sighing in disgust and some even cried out, ‘Na wa oo for papa Ronke’.
After a while the girl’s parents left, leaving their daughter in the care of Iya Ronke.
Ronke, her daughter, was there when the girl parents came with their daughter. And if I am not mistaken. they would be the same age. Obviously not happy with the commotion, Ronke hissed and walked into their house, locking the door behind her. The young girl didn’t know what to do so she sat down and begin to cry.
One after the other, the people that had gathered in front of the house started leaving. I was among the last set to leave.
Mama Ronke is a robust lady who sold ogogoro in our area. She was married to her husband at very young age. Well, that was what she told us anyone who cared to listen. She had Ronke, her first daughter, and only child, few years into her marriage and since then there has been no other.
Now with all what was going on, we sympathized with her in our hearts.
Later that evening, I was opportune to hear the full story from Papa Ronke himself, as he had come to drink in my mother’s shop.
He was frank enough to tell us, he was truly the one who impregnated the poor girl, and he is ready to marry her. He needs children.
Mr, Okoro, aka Papa Ronke, isn’t poor, but a middle-class citizen in the community. He had fallen in love with Pelumi and got married to her after dating her for some months. And it was a beautiful wedding.
Well, he didn’t deny the fact that he was the one responsible for the girl’s pregnancy. And when the girl was asked in the front of Baale, she told them that she loves the man.
A month later, Papa Ronke paid the girl’s family a visit for the introduction, and then the traditional wedding. Afterward, she started to live with them as the second wife.
I guess the man talked to his wife and daughter and they tried to be good to the girl.
I don’t really know what happened, but what I know is this, the girl died during labor.
The hospital did their best to save the boy, but they couldn’t save his mother, due to some complications in the delivery process, and her state of health.
His son, the carbon copy of Mr. Okoro, was taken under the wings of Mrs. Okoro, who pretended to be the boy’s real mother. She has always treated the boy like her own.
Till date, the young boy, Ikechuckwu, doesn’t know that the woman he is calling mummy, isn’t his real mother.
Whenever he is on the streets, tongues wag and the dead girl’s story comes up again.
I just hope he doesn’t hear the gossip.
Thanks for reading.

The End