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CHAPTER EIGTHY THREE
Dead
I never
really liked hospitals, but I know they are necessary evils, and the last three
days here have only turned my dislike into hatred. I rubbed my chest with my
fist in an effort to clear out the pungent smell of antiseptic which clung to
my chest and refused to go away.
I watched the
doctors surround Bewaji’s bed through the transparent window, whispering over
her head while the beep-beep sound of
the machine breathing for her echoed.
She has
refused to wake up, and the doctors have been trying to figure out why she is
not waking up. Soon, one of the doctors moved to the door and stepped out. I
stood up when I saw her approach us.
“Alice!” I
called out to my friend who sat at the extreme end of the bench I was on. She
stood up immediately too when she saw the doctor.
“Why is she
not waking up?” she asked the doctor in a hard voice. I turned to her; she
looked exhausted, which was a result of her lack of sleep.
“It is to be
expected. She suffered a massive trauma. Her heart stopped for about 10 minutes
before resuscitation, which means her brain didn’t get oxygen for ten minutes.
It is a miracle that she is still alive,” the doctor informed us.
“Will she be
waking up soon?” I inquired with hope and dread.
“Mr. Mbappe,
your wife’s brain was deprived of oxygen for more than five minutes. Yes, she
has brain functions, but we still don’t know the kind of irreversible damage
has been done to her body.”
I heard Alice
gasp.
“But that is
not the issue right now,” the doctor continued with a wary expression. “We are
seeing signs of infection.”
“Infection?”
Alice frowned as she knitted her fingers together. The doctor nodded.
“Due to the
heavy blood loss and cardiac arrest, her blood supply was compromised, and the
source of the infection is likely her womb.”
I blinked slowly,
trying to understand it. There should be a solution to that, right?
“Is the—”
“It is
treatable, right?” Alice beat me to it. “It is an infection, it should be
treatable.”
“We are doing
everything we can. At the moment, we have placed her on strong antibiotics, and
we are monitoring her intensively.” She paused, and I felt a but coming.
“But,” I
stated.
“But…” she
continued, choosing her words carefully. “With the level of her white blood
cell count, there is a possibility that the tissue in her womb is severely
damaged, and if that is the case, the antibiotics are not going to work. At
that point, we are looking at sepsis, which becomes very life-threatening very
fast.”
The corridor
suddenly felt smaller.
Tighter.
The air
became dense, too hard to breathe in.
“When that
happens, what is the next line of treatment?” I asked in a lower voice now.
The doctor
sighed, looked into my eyes directly, and said, “If her condition does not
improve in the next one hour, I recommend a complete hysterectomy.” I scrunched
my eyes at that. “It is the complete removal of the reproductive organ to stop
the infection and save her life.”
There was
silence.
Not the quiet
kind, but the heavy kind.
“No!” Alice
exclaimed. “There has to be something else you can do.”
“And we are doing
that at the moment, but the possibility of that working is as low as 5%.”
Alice’s
resolve finally broke at this.
“Ho… how… how
did this happen?” she stuttered.
“I am sorry,”
the doctor comforted her. “But this is the last resort if the medication does
not work. A nurse will be here with some consent documents for you to sign. All
hope is not lost; we should pray for her.”
The doctor
left.
“How did it
get to this? From one calamity to another, I don’t… I don’t… I don’t know how I
will tell her… tell her about the child and now this… what is this?” she cried
bitterly.
I moved to
comfort her, but she pushed me away.
“This is all
your fault. I warned you,” she said as more tears fell from her eyes. “I told
you to come clean to her. You have destroyed her life. You have, and I helped
you. I am your accomplice. I helped you destroy my best friend’s life. Her baby
died and her womb is decaying. How did I let you drag me into this mess?” she
wept bitterly, with snot running down her nose.
Tears started
dropping from my own eyes, and I quickly cleaned them off. I don’t deserve to
cry.
No one has to
say it out loud or point it out to me because I know.
I hear it.
In every silence.
In every
glance.
This is my
doing.
I watched
Bewaji stand up from a corner in the ICU corridor, and my knees almost gave
way.
She is alive!
I exhaled in
a way that felt like I had been holding my breath for years. She came to about
an hour ago, and the doctors have been doing tests to check her cognitive
function, ensuring there was no permanent damage from the loss of oxygen to the
brain. Seeing her stand on her own, I say there was no damage.
She is alive
and also well.
And that is
all that matters.
For a second,
none of the losses matter.
Not the baby.
Not the womb.
Not even our
fucking future.
The fact that
she is alive, hale and healthy, makes my heart pump with joy for the first time
in seven days since I lost my baby. Then, I watched her lurch for her mother
and scream. I didn’t need to be in the room to know they broke the news to her.
She is alive!
Hale and healthy!
But at what
cost?
My eyes
tinged, but this time, I let the tears flow.
Suddenly, my
relief turned to torment.
BACK TO
PRESENT
I looked into
Bewaji’s face, and she looked so peaceful… but that is probably because of the
drugs. Would she ever smile at me again? Look at me with love again? Tell me
her hopes and dreams again?
I held my
wife’s hand. So warm.
I did this to
us.
We had a good
thing… and I destroyed it.
Bewaji, I am
so sorry.
My tears
started flowing again. Recently, I can’t seem to keep my emotions in check. The
tears just flow without filter. The door to her room opened, and I was looking
into Alice’s unhappy face.
“What are you
doing here?” she questioned harshly.
I raised my
upper body, cleaning my tears away. “I was just try—”
“Get out!”
Alice ordered, to my confusion.
“She was
sedated before she slept. Do you think she wants to see your face when she
wakes up?”
“I know,” I
accepted. “But I should be here with her. I know I did—”
“Leave for
now, Kylian,” she muttered as she opened the door.
I pecked
Bewa’s hand and left.
I walked to
Bewa’s hospital room at full speed, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Alice,
who was engaged in a conversation with another nurse, run toward me.
“Kylian,
don’t!” she yelled, but I ignored her and entered the room. I locked the door
behind me. Alice started banging on the door, asking me to open it, but I
refused. The last time I spoke to Bewa was the day she woke up. Ever since, I
haven’t seen her. Each time I come, Alice is always preventing me from seeing
her. So today, when I saw her distracted with a nurse, I decided to take a
chance, and judging from the look of things, it is working.
I looked away
from a furious Alice to inside the room and found Bewaji on the bed, looking
out through the window.
“Hey,
Bewaji!” I greeted her, but got no response. “Bewa!” I called her again and got
no answer. I looked at the window to find what she was fixated on, but I saw
nothing.
I moved
closer to her and sat on the bed. I held her hand. “Bewaji!” I called out
again, and she turned to look at me slowly. The face was my wife’s, but the
eyes that looked back at me were not hers. Looking into her eyes felt like
standing in a place where something once lived. The love, the joy, and the
happiness that I fell in love with were gone. And it was not unexpected, but
there was no anger either.
There was no
storm.
No tears.
No visible breaking.
Just absence.
Her eyes were
dead.
Chills ran
down my spine at this observation, and at that moment, the door opened and
Alice burst in and violently dragged me out.
“What the
fuck, Kylian?” she shouted at me. It took me a few minutes to compose myself
after I just saw Bewaji in that state.
“She is my
wife, Alice. You can’t keep me from her,” I stated in a low voice.
“Of course,
this is about you, you selfish motherfucker!”
“What did you
just call me?”
“You fucking
heard me,” she retorted, and I moved closer to her, but she stood her ground
and looked me in the eyes.
“You know
what? It does not matter,” I gave up. “I know I fucked up badly, but I can’t
fix my mess if you won’t let me see her. I’m losing my fucking mind here,
Alice. We need to move on from this. It has been two fucking months.”
“Wow! Of
course, there will be a deadline for grief where you are concerned.”
“That is not
what I am saying, I—”
“That was
what I heard,” she cut in sharply. “In case you forgot, your wife lost her
child and her womb a few days later. There is no moving on from that, at least
not yet,” she yelped.
I moved away
from her, and she turned back to go into the room.
“That woman
in there is Bewa, but also not Bewa,” I commented, and she stopped and looked
back at me.
“Your point?”
“My point?
Did you not notice that?” I shouted, and she looked away.
“She just
needs time.”
“Time? The
light has gone out of her eyes. What she needs is help, not time,” I argued and
moved closer to her.
“Whatever
help she needs is not going to come from you. Go back to Spain, Kylian,” she
said and went into Bewa’s room.
In
frustration, I punched the wall.
TO BE CONTINUED ON NEXT SATURDAY, 9.00PM WAT.
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