TARA
Esther: Ladies! I’m hosting an intimate tea party next week. I’m inviting y’all personally.
Cleo: 💃
Tara: Sounds like fun! Count me in.
Esther: Thanks, my people. I’ll send details shortly.
Cleo: Dress code?
Esther: Tea party ish. Dresses and cuteness. And of course, no kids!
Tara: Yaaay!
The evening air smelled of steamed sweet potatoes, leftover stew, and baby wipes.
Tara thought she might throw up if she made another sweet potato puree for the girls. However, all the recipes and videos online praised sweet potatoes as if they were some kind of magic food for the brain. She had decided to add some stew to today’s concoction. Sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, and a dollop of stew. She tossed it into the blender and stared transfixed at the reddish mash.
The girls, now six months old, had rebuffed all Tara’s attempts at solid,s and this evening had been no different. She had set them up in their high chairs as usual, dished two tablespoons of the reddish mash into their bowls, and placed them in front of them, taking turns offering them the food. As if they’d both agreed to frustrate her, they sniffed at the spoon like dogs seeking out something familiar (or unfamiliar), and then they turned their faces away. It would have been funny, the way they mirrored each other’s actions, if it wasn’t annoying.
At some point, she had pushed the spoon against Ruth’s firmly shut lips, trying to force them open, but had stopped when she began to whimper.
She’d thought she was prepared for this stage. Had gone online–Facebook, TikTok, Google, Instagram. She’d read up on the different weaning methods and had thought she was strong enough to attempt baby-led weaning like Cleo had, but when the six-month mark reached, she’d found herself mashing a banana and trying to spoonfeed it to the girls. That’s when she knew she’d made a subconscious decision to go traditional.
She’d read stories of women whose babies had choked…or well, gagged, but really, what was the difference? Both were still quite scary and required an immense amount of courage that Tara was sure she didn’t have, not with twins. Perhaps, if she had had one baby, it would have been easier to focus, to plan, and to be brave. But two? Nah.
Let that be another thing on her list of things she’d failed to do as a Mum.
Jem thought she was being hard on herself (of course, she was), and on the girls, too. But what did Jem know about the emotional and mental burden of being a mother? Yes, he adored the girls, and they adored him too. His relationship with them seemed easier and smoother, and Tara almost wished they could swap places. With her, they were tense and reserved, but with him they gurgled and cooed joyfully, grabbing his beard and giving him slobbery kisses. When she tried to play with them the way he did, it felt unnatural and strange, and she caught herself. Sometimes, the only thing that felt natural about being a mother was breastfeeding.
The nurses at the hospital had advised against breastfeeding. According to them, mothers of multiples weren’t advised to breastfeed.
Why? Tara asked.
It’s just too much work had been the popular answer. But Tara remembered her mother breastfeeding her brothers; sometimes both of them latched at once. It had been fascinating to watch, and Tara remembered thinking that breastfeeding was a superpower she couldn’t wait to have.
She’d had a large supply that even the nurses were impressed by. They brought her a breastpump to use for the first few days in the hospital while they waited to be discharged. But one night when Tara couldn’t sleep, she took one of the girls out–she wasn’t sure which one she was (they were identical!), and placed her against her chest, and without prompting, the baby had found her nipple and locked her tiny red lips unto it like they were made for each other and Tara had felt a euphoria that she’d never felt before sweep through her body as the baby suckled.
So she began to offer them her breast whenever she wanted to feel that headiness; she was careful to alternate the girls as she offered, giving one the bottle while the other suckled.
Breastfeeding made her feel more like a mother than anything else. It was the only thing she could do that Jem couldn’t. It was the only thing she could trust the girls to settle in her arms for.
Now, introducing solids was not going as she’d hoped.
“It’s a new experience for them, let them ease into it,” he said, in his reasonable voice.
She hated that voice. It made her sound irrational, like her exhaustion and disappointment were “Cleo’s daughter started on solids as soon as she turned six months and she’s doing really great,” she’d snapped. “I don’t want them to be behind.”
“It’s not a race, T,” Jem said.
He had come home from work to find Tara dumping the bowl of red mash with a clatter that startled one of the twins into a whimper.
“Or maybe they don’t like it?” Jem offered gently.
Tara whirled round to face him, her fingertips wet, “and what’s that supposed to mean?”
He raised his hands in mock surrender, brow damp with sweat from his bike ride home. “Nothing. Just… they’re allowed to have preferences, aren’t they?”
“They are babies, they know nothing about food except what I give them,” she snapped.
Jem sighed, backing away to unbuckle the girls from their high chairs.
“They’re Nigerian too, you know,” Tara muttered.
“What?”
“I think sometimes you forget that they are as much Nigerian as they are Canadian. So, they’re going to have to eat Nigerian food too.”
“Sure, yes, T. No one is arguing that.”
There it was again. That maddening calm. Tara clenched her jaw, restraining the urge to throw something at him.
“Fine,” she hissed and stormed out of the kitchen, her slippers slapping against the tiled floor.
She fled to the bathroom, slammed the door shut behind her, and slid down onto the cool tiles, her back pressed hard against the wood. Her eyes stung. Her hands trembled. What was wrong with her? Why was she throwing a tantrum like a toddler?
She pulled out her phone, her thumb hovering over the call button, and before she could talk herself out of it. She called her mother.
Maybe, just maybe, God had touched her heart.
The phone rang and rang until WhatsApp notified her with No answer.
Tara felt something well in her chest. She hit record on WhatsApp.
“Mummy, this is not fair. I can’t believe you’re still not talking to me. It’s been a lot. The twins are 6 months old now, so it’s been six months of the silent treatment. Is this what Jesus would do?”
It was the classic emotional blackmail tactic that her mother sometimes used on her while she was growing up–emotional blackmail with a sprinkle of Jesus had been quite effective back then.
But Tara was not trying to emotionally blackmail her mother; she really meant those words. What was love if it didn’t account for when you made mistakes?
Didn’t First Corinthians 13, the famous love scripture, talk about how love never fails? Why did her mother’s love fail?
It had always been conditional, Tara was beginning to see. A love that celebrated her when she did the right things, but condemned her or shut her out when she did wrong. How had she never seen it?
“Daddy,” she said, hitting the record button again, “I’m tired of this silent treatment. Maybe I will stop trying to get back in her good graces and just live like I don’t have a mother. I am trying to do the right thing here. I know I’ve made mistakes, but what is so big that it can’t be forgiven? Where is Jesus in all of this? Where is love? I can’t believe that I have six-month-old daughters who don’t know their grandparents. I just…can’t.”
She pressed send without thinking, and then she let the tears come. It wasn’t supposed to be this hard, she thought. She felt hedged in. Trapped in a life she wasn’t sure she wanted, with a man she wasn’t sure she wanted anymore, with children she loved some days and resented on others.
What options did she have? It was like that nursery rhyme, the bear hunt, the only way forward was through.
She’d chosen Jem, chosen this life, and perhaps she had no choice but to stay in it. Her happiness wasn’t what mattered anymore; she now had the girls to think of.
Tara sniffed, wiped her face with the sleeve of her oversized hoodie, and set her phone down on the bathroom sink. She exhaled, shaky, looking at her reflection in the mirror. She didn’t even recognise herself. She was almost twice her size; this wasn’t baby weight anymore, this was her. She was eating more, eating recklessly these days, because food was the only thing that didn’t disappoint her.
Once upon a time, she was trim; there were no extra rolls of fat in her arms and waist. She’d worked extra hard to lose weight after her breakup with DaShawn, and God, she’d loved her body then –thick in the right places, trim in others. She’d felt confident, had shown up at the office in her work suits, feeling powerful, speaking up more in meetings, and addressing clients without feeling intimidated.
All that work, all that confidence had flown out the window the moment she got pregnant. She’d put on weight rapidly, and when it bothered her, everyone said it was normal, after all she was having twins. Now the twins were here, what other excuse did she have? That she was unhappy? That motherhood wasn’t what she’d expected it to be?
Tara rinsed her face with water, then she heard it.
Ping.
Then another ping.
Then a flurry.
Could it be her mother?
She tipped the phone screen up to look and her heart sank. The notifications were from the group chat, the one with Esther and Cleo.
Cleo: “👀 Tara, are you okay?”
Esther: “Tara… did you mean to send that here?”
Cleo: 😢
Tara froze.
No. No, no, no.
She grabbed the phone and opened the chat. Her eyes scanned the voice note, the same one she thought she had sent to her dad. All two minutes and twenty seconds of it.
She played it back, just the beginning, to confirm. Yes. Yes, it was.
She shut her eyes, letting the dread wash over her. Her finger hovered over delete, but she knew it was too late.
They’d heard it. They’d listened to her break down. Now, they knew.
She locked the phone, pressed it to her forehead. She could feel heat crawl up her neck, her ears, her scalp.
God. God. God. Do you hate me?
She picked up the phone. More messages now.
Cleo:
Tara, I know I joke a lot, but if you need someone to talk to, I’m here.
Esther:
You don’t have to carry all this alone. Please call me.
Tara stared at the words. A lump formed in her throat again. She hadn’t meant to let anyone see this part of her. She didn’t want to be anyone’s charity case.
She hovered over the group name. She could exit. Or mute. Or delete the app.
Instead, she typed:
Tara: No, I’m fine. It was an accident. Sorry to drop it here.
But she wasn’t fine.
Three dots appeared… then vanished. Then again.
She deleted the voice note. Damage control was better than nothing. Then she locked the phone. Enough.
She unlocked the bathroom door and stepped into the dim bedroom. She could hear the girls’ giggles from the living room, and Jem’s voice was a low murmur. A song?
She opened her bedside drawer and slipped her phone in there. Then she pulled on a pair of yoga pants and her sneakers, and she padded out to the living room where Jem was bouncing one of the twins on his lap and blowing raspberries on her belly. The other lay gurgling on the playmat.
“Hey,” Tara said, eyes averted. “I’m going for a run.”
His brow furrowed. “Now?”
She was already by the door, tying up her laces. “I need to move.”
Jem nodded. “Okay. We’ll be here.”
That last part made her throat tighten. We’ll be here. It was a good thing to say. It was what she wanted to hear, but it also felt like another weight.
She stepped into the elevator, and the smell of fresh pizza lingered, and her mouth watered. There was nobody when she stepped into the lobby, even though there were at least thirty other apartments in this building; it often felt like they were alone. She missed Nigeria and the noise that meant you never felt alone; the sound of chatter from neighbours, the random knock on the door, the sound of children playing football outside.
Now, as she stepped outside into the soft night air. The streetlights buzzed faintly overhead, casting a golden haze over the sidewalk. The wind smelled of petrichor and lawn clippings.
She started to jog. The rhythm steadied her; left, right, left, right. Running had never been her exercise of choice; she preferred curated workouts at the gym, but tonight she felt like running. She wanted the wind in her ears, she wanted to feel free, to forget.
Her breath came sharp, but she welcomed the burn. She passed a park where a young couple sat on a bench sharing fries. A stroller was parked beside them.
Were they married? In love? Did their love feel like a chore, like a dance that had to be performed, a dance they could not bow out of because now they had an audience with expectations?
She kept running.
She passed a woman hustling her crying toddler into his car seat.
Was it worth it?
Tara felt her chest heating up as she ran. She should stop. She didn’t want to stop.
What did she want? Who was she? Thirty-two; a mother but not a wife. A nobody, a nothing.
Alone in this country, severed from her family, stuck.
Stuck.
Stuck.
Stuck.
Soon, the old-fashioned signboard of her former church came into view, and Tara slowed, remembering how this church had once felt like home when she was new in this country. She remembered the welcome smiles, the old couples who asked her to coffee to get to know her better, the non-judgmental way they asked How can we pray for you? The immersive worship made her feel like she was in a Hillsong worship concert, which made her feel close to God.
She stopped. Hands on knees. Breath ragged.
The tears came again, silent this time.
God, what am I doing?