The Chronicles of Bewa 100
Time
Unable to bear the awkward silence that had settled over the room, I lifted my eyes and looked straight at Dr. Berot. I held her gaze, almost daring her to say something, anything, just to put an end to the unbearable quiet.
But she didn't.
She simply looked back at me, and two seconds later, I lowered my eyes. I couldn't stand that look for too long. It always felt as though she could see past my face, past the things I said and the things I carefully left unsaid, digging through the mess inside my head for something she could pull out and use against me.
Like she always did.
"So how have you been, Bewaji?" she finally asked, breaking the silence. Unable to put a label on my feelings, I just shrugged.
"I don't speak non-verbal language, Bewaji," she said, her voice calm but firm. "You are going to have to open your mouth and speak to me." For a moment, I stared at her. Then, unexpectedly, a laugh escaped me. It started small, almost like a breath that had taken the wrong shape, but once it came, I couldn't seem to stop it. I covered my mouth, shaking my head as more laughter spilled out.
Dr. Berot watched me, completely unimpressed.
"What is funny?" she asked, and I tried to answer, but another laugh escaped before I could get the words out.
"Because..." I managed between bouts of laughter, wiping at the corner of my eye. "That is a lie, you lied."
"Excuse me?" Her eyebrows drew together.
"Because from the very beginning, you have been speaking non-verbal language. I don't have to tell you how I am feeling because you already know how I am feeling." I chuckled, covering my mouth as though I could somehow catch the laughter before it escaped again.
"I am sorry," I added, lowering my hand. "It is just weird when you say you don't do non-verbal because that will make you a liar..." I paused, the faintest smile tugging at the corner of my lips. "And a hypocrite."
"Okay," she said quietly. She dropped her notebook onto the table and leaned back in her chair, studying me for a moment. The smile slowly disappeared from my face as I realised she is doing her creepy investigation again.
"Marcus reached out to me to ask if there is a possibility for me to do house rest, and of course, I said no," she said.
"You said no?" I asked, turning to her in surprise.
"Yes, I believe a person that needs healing has to want to be healed and not be forced into it." I stared at her for a moment before a small, disbelieving smile pulled at my lips.
"I hope you told him that because the asshole actually threatened me with you coming to the house if I don't come to see you."
"Exactly my point." Dr. Berot's eyebrows lifted slightly. "Why does he feel the need to threaten you to come to therapy?"
"You mean other than the fact that he is a nosy, arrogant motherfucker that can't seem to keep himself away from my business?"
"Bewaji!"
"What?" I yelped, throwing my hands up in surrender, and she gave me a look. My fingers tightened around each other.
"How have you been feeling since our last session?"
"What is it with you and your obsessive need to know how I am feeling when you already know how I feel?" I lashed out.
"I need you to tell me how you feel with your mouth."
"Leave me alone!" I yelled, pushing myself out of the chair. "I need you and that arrogant asshole to leave me the hell alone." I turned to the door. "I am so done with everyone trying to fix me." I walked toward the door.
"You need to stop running, Bewaji." Her words stopped me. I turned back slowly, fury rising in my chest.
"I am not running." Anyone else would have flinched, but Dr. Berot didn't. She simply sat there, watching me with that maddeningly calm expression, as though my anger was nothing she hadn't seen before.
"You want to know why Marcus feels he needs to force me into therapy." She looked at me, completely unshaken. “Well, there’s your answer. I don’t want to do therapy anymore because it makes me feel like crap."
"As it should," she replied.
"No, you don't understand." I moved closer to her. "For months, I believed it was my fault, and that was good because I didn't have to ask questions that I wasn't going to be getting answers to because I already have my answer. It was my fault."
"Bewaji!" She called me in a soft voice.
“But being the genius that you are, you managed to convince me that it wasn’t my fault.” I swallowed hard. “And I agreed. It isn’t my fault.”
"That is good." She nodded and smiled.
"But if it is not my fault, then whose fault is it?" Just like that, the light that had shone in her eyes moments earlier disappeared. "Tell me, Dr. Berot, you seem to know everything. You said it was not my fault, so whose fault is it?"
"You need to sit, Bewaji."
“No. No, no, no.” I shook my head violently, the words spilling out before I could stop them. “You don’t get to tell me to sit down when you’ve been on me since the very moment I walked into this office, asking me how I’ve been feeling.” My voice cracked.
“Well, there’s your answer.” I pressed both hands against my head, squeezing my temples as if I could somehow quiet the thoughts pounding inside my skull. “I’ve been asking questions. Questions I can’t get answers to.” My chest tightened.
“Why did my baby have to die?” The words came out broken. “She was innocent. She didn’t do anything. And why did I have to lose my womb?” I swallowed hard, my eyes burning with tears. “I didn’t do anything either.” I stepped closer to Dr. Berot. She remained where she was, watching me quietly.
“I didn’t do anything wrong.” My voice rose, trembling with anger and desperation. “Why was I punished?” I dragged in a shaky breath.
“I was a good daughter. Obedient to a fault. I never wished anyone bad. Yes, sometimes I got jealous when I saw someone else succeeding, but you know what I did with that jealousy? I used it to push myself. I worked harder. I tried to do better.” A tear slipped down my cheek, and I angrily wiped it away.
“I stayed away from boys. I mean, I was a freaking virgin until I was thirty-two.” A bitter laugh escaped me, but it broke almost immediately. “I was a good Christian. I followed the rules. I tried to be a good person. So why did this happen to me?”
My voice dropped to a whisper. “Why me?” I stared at her, desperately searching her face for an answer.
“Can you tell me who I’m supposed to blame for this, Dr. Berot?” Then the sob tore out of me so suddenly and violently that I could barely breathe. I covered my mouth, but it did nothing to stop the flood of tears. My shoulders shook uncontrollably as Dr. Berot rose quietly from her seat and came toward me. She handed me a tissue before gently guiding me back to the chair. I barely noticed when I sat down.
She returned to her seat and watched me cry without interrupting, without telling me to calm down, without trying to fill the silence with empty reassurances. I cried until my chest stopped heaving and the tears became quieter. Until the anger inside me slowly gave way to exhaustion. Eventually, I leaned back against the chair and took a shaky breath.
“I spent the last few weeks asking rhetorical questions.” I stared at the floor, my voice quieter now that the storm inside me had settled into something heavier. “And when I realised the answers weren’t coming, I decided to make myself numb.” I swallowed.
“And ever since then, I’ve felt… dull. Empty, maybe. It’s either that or I get angry, and what would be the point?” I gave a humourless laugh. “There would be nobody to pour all that anger on anyway.” I rubbed my palms together, avoiding her eyes.
“So I didn’t want to come to therapy because I knew therapy would mess with that.” I looked at her. “It would make me feel things I’ve spent weeks trying not to feel. And, as you’ve seen…” I gestured helplessly between us. “Here we are and I don't know where to go from here”
Dr. Berot was quiet for a moment. “Thank you for answering my questions,” she said gently, and I looked away from her.
“Have you even thought about moving on?” she asked softly.
I frowned. “Moving on to what?”
“To something beyond this.”
I let out a quiet, bitter laugh. “My womb is gone, Dr. Berot. I can’t have any more children.”
She held my gaze. “I thought you had dreams.”
“I do, and I remember you telling me that Kylian was your dream.” I looked at her sharply.
“My words were that he was your destination,” she corrected gently. “The bigger picture. Every other dream you had existed within that picture.”
I stared at her, completely lost.
“You have honestly lost me.” I scoffed, shaking my head.
“What I’m trying to say is…” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “You are someone who has so many dreams. Dreams you never got the chance to achieve because you reached your destination too quickly.”
“Excuse me?” I interjected, unable to hide the offense in my voice. Dr. Berot didn't react to my tone. She simply held my gaze.
“Don't feel insulted, Bewaji.” Her voice was gentle, but there was a firmness underneath it. “Those dreams were part of your path to your destination. But you never really got to walk that path because the destination was handed to you.”
I stared at her, my brows drawn together. She paused, giving me a moment to absorb her words before continuing.
“What I'm saying is that this might be your chance to finally do whatever you want to do. To become whoever you want to be.” I looked away, but she continued. “I am sorry you lost your baby. And I am sorry you lost your womb. Those are devastating losses, and I'm not going to stand here and tell you that they aren't.” She softened her voice. “But Bewaji, this is not the end of your world.”
I swallowed, my eyes fixed on my hands.
“You never got to finish your doctorate. You can go back to school.” I glanced at her. “You wanted to be a screenwriter. You can start writing again.” My lips parted slightly, but I said nothing. “You still have your business. You can continue building it. You can take it somewhere you've never imagined.” She leaned forward slightly. “And if having a child is still something you desperately want, there are other ways to become a mother. You can adopt.”
I looked down again.
“You have so much left to do, Bewaji.” Her voice was almost a whisper now. “So much left to experience. So many things you haven't even given yourself permission to want.”
“How can I do any of that when my head is blocked?”
“Your head feels blocked because you’re still grieving. We just have to fix that.”
“How?” I snapped. “By telling me to forget my baby?”
Silence fell between us.
“My bad.” She lowered her gaze for a moment. “I used a poor choice of words.”
“Is there a better way to say ‘fixing’ me without making it sound like you’re trying to make me forget my baby?” I scoffed.
“Yes.” Her voice was gentle. “Because my job here is not to make you forget your baby. It is to help you get to a place where you can live your life comfortably with the pain of losing her.” I stared at her for a few seconds, trying to make sense of what she was saying. Then I finally asked the question that had been nagging at me.
“How?”
“Time.”
“Time?” I repeated, almost offended by the simplicity of the answer.
She nodded. “Time.”
“Time!” I exclaimed, throwing my hands up. “I have this giant ball sitting in my chest, Dr. Berot. It’s suffocating me. I can barely breathe around it, and your medical prescription is…” I paused, staring at her in disbelief.
“Time?”
“People say time heals all wounds, and, honestly, I believe it’s true.”
“Not in my situation.”
“And why do you think that?”
“Because it’s been almost eleven months since I lost my baby.” My voice softened as I looked down at my hands. “Eleven months, Dr. Berot. And time hasn’t done a damn thing to my wound.”
She studied me for a moment. Then, unexpectedly, she smiled and rose from her chair. “Come with me,” she said.
“Where?” I asked, looking at her in confusion. Instead of answering, she walked toward the small refrigerator in the corner of the room. I watched as she opened it and pulled out a plastic bottle of Coca-Cola. Then she reached for a white glass cup.
“Come on,” she said. She walked toward a door I had never noticed before and opened it. I hesitated for a second before following her inside. It led to her private bathroom. I found her setting the bottle on the counter, filled the white glass with Coke, and then lifted it until it was level with my face.
“Can you see through this cup?” she asked.
I stared at the dark liquid before shaking my head. “No.”
“This,” she said, tapping the side of the glass, “is your grief right now.” I looked at her.
“Dark. Heavy. And making it impossible for you to see what comes next.” Her voice was calm. “That is what grief does. It blinds you. It makes you believe that what you're feeling right now is what you will feel forever. It makes you believe there is no life beyond the pain.”
She lowered the glass and placed it beneath the faucet. “But…” She turned on the tap, and water began pouring into the glass, slowly diluting the dark drink.
“…with time…” The brown liquid became lighter. I watched silently.
“Slowly,” she continued, “the grief begins to lose its grip.”
The water kept flowing. The darkness faded little by little until, after a couple of minutes, the glass was filled with clear water. She turned off the tap, picked up the glass, and held it in front of my face again.
“Can you see through it now?”
I looked through the glass. “Yes.”
She nodded. “This is what time can do to grief.” I stared at the clear water.
“Your grief may never completely disappear, Bewaji. And I don't want to lie to you and tell you that one day you will wake up and forget your baby.” Her voice softened. “But the darkness won't always be this thick. One day, you will be able to look through it. You'll be able to see beyond it. You'll be able to remember your baby without feeling like you're drowning.”
She lowered the glass. “Your path isn't gone. You just can't see it right now.” I looked at the glass again. “And that,” she said quietly, “is why you have to give it time.”
“So I’m going to keep feeling like crap until I don’t?”
She poured the glass of water down the sink and turned to face me. “That is the idea, yes.”
I stared at her. “That is not encouraging.”
“I know.” A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “But you have to wait, and while you wait, you need to live.”
“Live?”
“Yes. Start small.” She leaned against the counter. “Do the things you used to enjoy. Eat your favourite food. Watch a movie. Dance if you feel like dancing. Go shopping. Spend time with people you love. Laugh when something is funny.”
She paused. “You don't have to wake up tomorrow and suddenly become happy. You don't even have to pretend you're okay.” I looked at her quietly. “Just live, Bewaji.” Her voice softened. “Some days, living might mean getting out of bed and taking a shower. Other days, it might mean going out and having fun. There is no right way to do it.”
She reached for the door.
“You're grieving, but you are still here.” She looked back at me. “So give yourself permission to be here.”
Marcus stood up the moment he saw me and headed for the door. I followed him outside, pulling the door shut behind me.
“She said I need to live my life,” I blurted out.
Marcus turned to me. “You should.”
“She also said it would take time before I feel like myself again.”
“That’s what grief does.” I looked away, swallowing against the tightness in my throat.
“All I see is darkness. There’s no path forward.” My voice dropped. “I feel like there’s nothing left to live for.”
“There are plenty of things to live for.”
“I know.” I shook my head. “I know there are, but it doesn’t feel that way. All I feel is this… this crushing sadness. It’s eating me alive.”
I looked at him, my eyes burning. “I want to be happy again, Marcus. I want to feel like myself again.” My voice cracked. “I want some joy. I need some joy in my life again.”
He stepped closer to me.
“Then come with me to the wedding. That should buy you at least an hour or two of joy.”
“The wedding is next week.” I sighed. “I need to feel some joy tonight.”
He thought for a moment. “How about we go to Joy’s place? I’ll call Abdul and Fatima and have them meet us there. Music always makes you happy.”
“Not anymore.” I shook my head. “All I do now is bawl my eyes out whenever I hear music.”
“Then how about a walk around Paris? Like we did the last time. Some fresh air might do you some good.”
“Walking around people will only remind me that the world has moved on and left me behind.”
He fell silent. I watched him rack his brain, searching for another option, and then suddenly, his face lit up.
“Disneyland!” he exclaimed.
I blinked. “Disneyland?”
“Whenever I need to get out of my head, three rounds on the rides usually do the trick.” I stared at him. “I’ve never been.”
He smiled. “Then let's go.”
TO BE CONTINUED NEXT SATURDAY, 9.00 PM WAT
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