Chapter 4 Burdens of the womb

The hospital room was dim, and the sheets smelled of old bleach and pain.

Alice lay weakly on the bed, her hands trembling around the frail body of the newborn nestled against her chest. The labor had lasted almost two days. She had screamed until her throat was raw, cried until her eyes were swollen shut, and bled until the nurses whispered nervously among themselves.

But the one person who was supposed to be there-her husband-wasn't.

Festus had vanished the night her labor began.

He told Alice he was going to get cash before taking her to the hospital and never came back.

Alice had to track a long distance to the hospital with the pains of labour.

She told the nurses her husband must have been stranded somewhere and he will surely come.

The nurses grew tired of waiting. They brought her ice water but no medication. No drip. No comfort.

"You say your husband is Dr. Festus? The big man?" one nurse asked with a raised brow. "Where is he now?"

Alice couldn't answer.

When the child finally came, it was in silence. No cry, no gasp. Just a fragile, motionless body.

The nurse had rushed him off, and it wasn't until the next morning that the doctor returned-not her husband, but a stranger with pity in his eyes.

"Your son... has a condition," he said carefully. "Cerebral palsy. He will need special care for the rest of his life."

The words dropped like stones in her chest.

She barely understood them.

Her body still ached, her spirit felt shattered, and all she could think was, He left me. He left me to die here.

Festus returned two days later. Not with apology, not with shame-but with roses.

"Traffic. I had to handle some emergencies. I knew you'd be fine," he said coldly, pressing a wad of cash into a nurse's hand. Then he looked at the child and frowned.

"What's wrong with him?"

Alice turned away. She no longer had the strength to answer.

-

When they returned home, her suffering multiplied.

Festus's other children-four of them from different mothers-treated her like a stranger, united in quiet hatred. They mocked her accent, her clothes, her crying baby. They threw stones at her door and hid her child's feeding bottles.

"They said your son is mad in the head," the housemaid whispered one day. "That you gave birth to a cursed child."

Festus's mother, Big mummy, was even worse.

"A cripple for a first son?" she spat. "You brought disgrace to this family. My Festus never had bad luck until you entered his life. You are not a real wife."

The co-wife, Patience, returned shortly after and claimed her place beside the doctor once more. With her three children and sharp tongue, she moved like a queen.

"I left you this house," she hissed at Alice. "But you'll never wear my crown."

And then there were the girlfriends-young nurses, market women, even a pastor's daughter. They came and went like shadows, dropping perfume bottles, hairpins, and giggles in the living room, mocking Alice to her face.

One even told her, "He said you're just a baby factory. Once you give him enough children, he'll find someone better."

And still, she stayed.

Because something deeper than chains held her now.

And the voodoo priest's prophecy was unfolding exactly as Festus had planned.

She had a second baby- a boy

Then came tragedy again.

Her second son, Peter, fell sick one rainy night and never recovered. He died in her arms as she begged Festus to drive them to the hospital. He never came.

"She's cursed," his mother said. "First one disabled, now one dead. How many more?"

Alice silence became her weapon. Her prayers her only escape.

And then-six more children came. Her Third,A daughter, strong and fierce like a lioness. And finally, her eighth child-a boy, born with twisted limbs and an empty stare. Another with cerebral palsy.

She held him close and wept for hours.

Not because he was disabled-but because she knew the curse had not broken yet.

The spell still held.

But it was starting to crack.

And she was beginning to see through it.