“I think he married me because of this land. I think he knew there were papers somewhere. And when he couldn’t get everything easily, he made me too weak to fight.”
The sob that escaped her was small, but it broke Mama Ifeoma’s heart.
“He used to pray with me,” Enkiru cried. “Do you understand? He prayed with me.”
Mama Ifeoma held her.
“Yes,” she said softly. “That is why this kind of evil hurts deeper. It borrows the language of love.”
Recovery did not come like a miracle. It came slowly, painfully, one day at a time.
At first, Enkiru could not walk from the back room to the kitchen without stopping to breathe. Her hands shook when she held a cup. Some mornings, shame crushed her before she even stood up.
Mama Ifeoma would not allow it.
“Do not insult survival by calling it weakness,” she told her. “You are rebuilding a house after fire. Of course it is slow.”
So Enkiru learned to be slow. She learned to sip broth without apologizing. She learned to stand in sunlight for ten minutes, then fifteen, then twenty. She learned that trembling did not mean failure. It meant her body was negotiating with life again.
Then a doctor named Akane came from a mission hospital two towns away. He examined her carefully and confirmed what Toby had suspected: her body had likely been harmed by repeated misuse of sedatives and other medication.
Then he said something that made the room go silent.
“There are signs of a past trauma that may have involved pregnancy loss.”
Enkiru froze.
For months, she had tried not to think about it. Before her body collapsed completely, she had missed her monthly bleeding. She had felt different. Heavy. Hopeful. She told Obinna, and he acted pleased. A week later, he brought new tablets and said they would strengthen her.
Then came the cramps.
Then the bleeding.
When she begged for a hospital, he told her women panic too quickly. When the bleeding did not stop, he said maybe it was never a baby. Maybe her body was confused. Maybe stress had made her imagine everything.
“Was there a child?” Enkiru asked Dr. Akane, her voice barely alive.
He could not give certainty after so much time.
