BENJY
Benjy’s bombshell stunned Lizzy into silence. Stunned them both, actually. Benjy hadn’t known he had come to that conclusion until the words left his lips.
“Are you sure? Are you serious?” she asked. “Don’t play with me, Benjy.”
“I’m not. I mean, I don’t think so.”
“For God’s sake, make up your damn mind. I’m sick of these mind games. I’m pregnant, I don’t need this.”
“I know and I’m sorry, but I am trying to figure this out too. I don’t want to singlehandedly make a decision that will change our lives. I guess I should ask you what you want to do. Do you think you might want to keep the baby?”
Lizzy stood and began to pace around the room. “I’m scared of how my life will change if I have this baby. But…”
“But?”
“But I’m even more scared of the alternative. I don’t know that I can go through a procedure to terminate this.”
“What’s your biggest fear?” Benjy asked.
Lizzy sighed, reached for her bottle of water sitting on the table and took a sip. “Oh, I don’t know. Being a single parent. Disappointing my family. Being a freaking cliche.”
“Cliche?”
“Yes. I’m a Delta girl, there’s a presumption that we…we are most likely to get pregnant out of wedlock. I have two older sisters. They’re married now, but they got married because they were pregnant. I don’t want that. I don’t want to be stuck with someone who doesn’t want me just because I happen to be carrying his child.”
“Whoa, calm down. I’m not proposing marriage here.”
“Yes, God forbid you have a crisis of conscience and propose to me, hunh? What, am I that abhorrent? Is the notion of being married to me that despicable?”
Benjy didn’t understand women sometimes. Did she or did she not want him proposing to marry her? Anyway, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to get married ever and certainly not on a whim. God, was this his life now? How had he gotten here? He had crafted his life carefully up till now, skirting around commitments of any kind, and yet he had ended up right where he never expected to.
“Lizzy, you said not to play games. Let’s agree that this situation has thrown us an unexpected curveball. Whatever happens, going forward has to be a choice we both agree to. So, no, marriage is currently not on the table and it seems like neither is a termination of the pregnancy. That leaves us with one choice.”
“No, two choices,” Lizzy said. “I could have the baby and give it up after. Or I could have the baby and keep it.”
“I know you, Lizzy. I don’t think you would go through nine months of growing a child in you just to give it up. Not in a place like Nigeria where nobody minds their business.”
Of course, there would be questions, prying ones from nosy aunties and amebo relatives.
“But I’m not ready to be a mother! I’m not ready to change my life. I’m building a business. You don’t get it, do you? Nothing happens to you if I keep this baby. All the big changes happen to me. My body, my career, my reputation, my time..everything changes. This is not some fancy Mexican soap where we fall in love and raise a baby together. I mean, let’s be honest, if I wasn’t pregnant, you wouldn’t even be here now. ”
Benjy sighed, he was getting irritated with this conversation. They seemed to be going round in circles and it seemed like nothing he said was good enough for Lizzy. She was having a conversation, yes, but not with him. With herself. She was right, this wasn’t about him at all. All the big changes were going to happen to her. His only stake in this was…making his mother proud. As silly and trivial as it sounded, it was his motivation for asking Lizzy to continue with this pregnancy. What would his mother have said if she was here to witness this? It was a selfish reason, he knew, but it was all he had. He feared that without his mother guiding his conscience, he would have walked away from Lizzy and this entire situation without a backward glance. The thought of this made him shudder. Perhaps he wasn’t the person he thought he was.
“I’m going to leave now,” he said, he needed to clear his head, do some reflection. “You’re right. Your life is what is most affected in this situation and I have no right to hijack your decision. I want you to know I will stand by you no matter what you decide.”
“So basically you want me to figure this mess out myself?” she snapped. “So freaking selfish.”
Benjy gave her a levelled look. “As condescending as this is going to sound, I think your hormones are speaking right now.”
“Oh please…you don’t get to tell me about my hormones.”
“Hold on. Do you see how nothing I say is good enough for you? You end up getting offended or twisting my words around. It’s like this is a fight I can’t win. So yes, call me selfish, but I am bowing out of this. I have told you what I think we should do, but the ball is in your court. You need to decide what you want to do, and I will support you.”
He waited for a response. His head was banging. He hadn’t expected this conversation to last this long, hadn’t expected it to feel like he was involved in a tug-of-war with his conscience. When last had he had a headache?
When Lizzy said nothing in response, he opened the door, took one last look around the cozy living room and let himself out.
The drive home was tumultuous. Even though he was alone in the car, his thoughts came rapidly and from all angles. He was thinking about himself in ways he hadn’t in a long time. Thoughts of his mother meshed in with his other thoughts.
He remembered the last few trips they had made to the hospital before her demise. He had taken a leave of absence from his business to travel to Lagos when her health issues became more frequent. He had felt a sense of foreboding when he spoke on the phone with her and she broke into a ratched cough that took the breath out of her.
During the three weeks he was in Lagos, he took it upon himself to drive her to hospital appointments he booked for her.
“Your mother is stubborn,” his father had said when Benjy asked why they hadn’t yet visited the hospital to get a diagnosis for her health problems.
“So, your plan was to what? Wait it out?” Benjy had asked angrily.
“Be careful,” his father warned.
Sometimes Benjy blamed himself, wished he had done more, wished he had insisted on whisking her away to Abuja with him instead of listening to her false cheeriness as she assured him she would get better.
As he sat in his car, eyes closed, he desperately wished he could speak to his mother. He needed her clear-headed moral perspective about his situation. His phone dinged in that moment. It was Ore’s text.
Hey bro, you were right. Can we talk?
Relief flooded through him. He didn’t have his mother here, but he had the next best thing. Perhaps it was time he ended this feud with his sister.
He picked up his phone and dialed.
