Two Prayers A Day

A story by JOE NYIRENDA

She had derailed fate’s train. With a prescription of two prayers a day and a fast once a week, Mwai had changed the course of her destiny. But her faith in miracles wavered lately; doubt festered in her heart. For two months now, she had not seen her period. That should have elated her, but she had missed them for longer before, only to menstruate when she thought she had conceived.

There being only one place she could count on to reignite her faith, Mwai drove to church instead of to her monthly hospital appointment. For the second consecutive month, she had missed the medical check-ups and abstained from medication on purpose. The pills waited in the drawers of her bedside stand with the patience of Job.

The December sky was a thick blanket of rain clouds, threatening to pour. It was five minutes past 10 a.m. on a Saturday when Mwai drove out of her compound, her mood as gloomy as the celestial scenery. There were a couple of swallows perched on the power lines outside the wall of her house while some swooped around in the air continuously. Dragonflies zipped by her windscreen, bringing back the long-lost memories of her childhood when she would run out of breath trying to catch one. Other days, she would stealthily sneak up on a dragonfly, only for it to fly off when she was a few feet away.

She adjusted the rear-view mirror and took a glance at the reflection of her chin. She noticed there were a couple of hairs that she had missed when shaving last night, and then she pulled them out. Mwai noticed she did not wince.  

About four years earlier, the pain that shot into her chin the first time she pulled out a few hairs had brought tears to her eyes. This was a few hours after the doctor had just told her she had Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, a fancy way of saying she was likely infertile. She was told her irregular periods and hairy chin were some of the symptoms, and that meant she was less likely to bear a child for Jeda, her husband. Armed with a shaving stick, Mwai had gone after all the hairs on her chest, legs and arms.

The stretch of tarred road she was on ran for half a kilometre before it met the highway and was bordered on either side by a drainage wide enough to accommodate a rapid flow of water. One of the perks of living in an affluent neighbourhood.

There had been a heavy downpour the previous night, lasting until dawn, and she had stayed awake through it. As the rain pelted on the windows of her bedroom, a battle between faith and doubt raged on in her mind. The conflict inside her was what prompted her to visit church, seeking external help. Except for the dark patches around her eyes and a few trees whose branches had been swayed by the rain, there was almost no trace of last night’s storm.

Mwai loved the privileges of living in this neighbourhood. But there were times she wished she was near broke and renting a house in the township. Rumour had it that she had sacrificed her fertility to dark magic in exchange for wealth. The gossip preceded her everywhere, from the corridors of the real estate agency she worked for to the pews of her church. But the gossipers knew nothing of her sadness, the loss of a child she had never had. Mwai had read many books that had prepared her for motherhood but none on how to deal with not having a child.

The highway was unusually congested with traffic for a weekend. Mwai reached for her Rosary in the glove compartment, panic threatening to overwhelm her. She had been raised by Catholic parents, and despite having left for a Pentecostal church years ago, she found comfort in reciting the Rosary. There was an upbeat Hillsong United worship song playing in the speakers of her Toyota Allion, but instead of calming her, it put her nerves on edge. Her pastor had advised that she play worship and praise songs or sermons whenever she felt agitated to keep all impure thoughts at bay. However, that morning the clamour in her head was louder than the worship songs she was playing.

Maybe she should have continued taking the medication. Maybe this time, the treatment would have coerced her body to give in and allow science to fix her. But science had given her false hope for the last four years. Doctors had made numerous attempts to help her conceive, yet each only ended with her bank balance a couple of thousand Kwachas less while she was still not pregnant. For four years, she had been their guinea pig, and they had probed her so much she felt violated. Mwai was not sure when, but at some point, she had admitted to herself that she was only a statistic; that one in six people who are doomed with infertility. Ditching the medication was justifiable, she knew. Then why did it feel like she was making a mistake?

In her rearview mirror, Mwai noticed a grey Toyota Corolla that she recognised driving behind her. She rolled up her tinted windows and turned the volume on her radio a few notches up. The vehicle belonged to her next-door neighbour, Chiti, who never passed the opportunity to chitchat, regardless of the occasion. Mwai first met Chiti when the latter was still new to the neighbourhood, recently married, and a few months pregnant. On that day, she did not bother to find out if Mwai was a mother before asking her how she had coped with her first pregnancy. Without waiting for an answer, Chiti had gone on about how she hoped to acquaint herself with mothers to toddlers so she could learn a thing or two about motherhood. Mwai bit into her tongue instead of uttering the coarse response that was itching to be let out. The young woman was so clueless she had missed the creases on Mwai’s face. It had been hard for Mwai to keep her eyes off Chiti’s belly. 

Now, both cars were stuck in traffic and next to each other. Mwai tried to ignore the honking of the Corolla, whose owner had rolled down her window and was waving at her. Then she gave in, turned down the music, and lowered her window.

“Hi, it’s been a while.” Mwai waved back and feigned a smile.

“I’ve been dying to tell you I gave birth to twins a week ago,” Chiti said, without preamble, a wide grin on her face. 

“Oh!” Mwai mouthed her surprise louder than she had intended. “Congratulations,” she added quickly. 

“Thank you. I had my young sister come over to your place twice, but no one has been home each time.”

“Sorry, I’ve been busy with work,” Mwai lied. She quit her job over a year ago. She was relieved when the vehicles ahead of her started moving.

“Please bring the kids over when you visit,” Chiti said.

Mwai stepped on the accelerator and made a small wave before rolling up her window and taking the first left turn. Twinges of envy and anger stabbed her heart. Envy at how motherhood had come easy for Chiti and anger at the young woman’s naivety.

Life had played a cruel trick on Mwai, making her a stepmother first and then denying her the ability to have her own child. Two years before Mwai met him, Jeda and his bride-to-be had a child together. The woman died in childbirth, leaving her daughter to be raised by Jeda’s mother. Jeda seemed less concerned with Mwai’s plight and was instead content with his daughter. The girl, Beauty, was the spitting image of her father, and that meant Jeda was as fertile as could be. But then, it was always the woman’s fault if a couple could not have children. Her mother-in-law disliked her, and she insisted that she did not believe a childless woman would know anything about raising a toddler. 

It started to rain without warning when she got onto the ring road. It started light and grew fierce in a few seconds. There were vendors on either side of the road, and they ran for cover under the nearest tree. Mwai watched in awe as one woman selling roasted maize struggled to pack them in a pail beside her and strap a little girl, about a year old, on her back. There was also her brazier with red-hot charcoal embers, which she attempted to carry with her at once. After a brief hesitation, the woman seemed to decide that the most precious were the roasted maize and her daughter. Everything lasted a few seconds, but the woman was drenched by the time she walked away from the dead fire, baby on back and pail of maize on her head.

The sight tore Mwai’s heart apart. Seeing those far less privileged than her have children and in large numbers hurt. The woman most likely relied on her maize business to fend for the little girl and her siblings. If there was ever a group that needed to have their ability to have children kept in check, it was society’s least privileged. The poor needed some restraint on the number of children they could have. Babies deserved better. Instead of being paraded in extreme weather because their mothers had to earn a living, babies deserved to be kept indoors with everything they would need at their disposal. Not only was she more deserving, Mwai knew she was also more capable of giving a child a good life than that struggling woman ever would. 

It was a sign, Mwai thought. The rains had been delayed by a divine power for her to witness the scene before her. The same power had caused the unusual Saturday traffic for her benefit. And Mwai had deciphered the message with ease; heaven had heard her prayers and answered in the affirmative. 

But there was a nagging thought at the back of her mind. Would she know if she was being delusional?

*

The rain had waned and was now a drizzle when Mwai drove into the church compound. The church building stood towering to the north of the compound, and to its left, a collapsible tent had been pitched. Mwai estimated there were ten women sheltered under the tent, and all had their eyes fixed on her car. They were all waiting to talk to the pastor, she guessed. Having an audience with him would take longer than she had expected. She let out a long sigh, left the car and walked towards the tent.

All chatter seemed to come to an abrupt halt with her presence. The prying eyes of some of the women rested on her belly, speaking volumes their mouths dared not. She noticed one woman whispering to another while she pretended to smile at her. In the same instant, she heard a stifled laugh that was quickly succeeded by a fake sneeze. Some went about their business, hunched over their phones, and did not pay the slightest attention to her. Most of the women were familiar faces from the church, only a few were strangers. But their collective regard of her was obvious. She was the odd one out. That impression was hard to miss.

“Good morning, ladies,” Mwai said as she squeezed herself on one of the benches.

Some mumbled their responses, while others kept their silence. Mwai should have gotten used to being ostracised by now, but each time she felt shunned, her heart broke.

“I don’t seem to get full,” someone said.

Mwai turned to the speaker and noticed it was a pregnant girl no older than eighteen, feasting on unripe mangoes.

She wished she had been as wild as her elder sister, who fell pregnant and got married at nineteen. Mwai despised her younger self for all those sexual advances she had turned down.

“You look full to me, " an older woman said while caressing the girl’s belly, and the others erupted into laughter.

“If I knew it was this hard, I would have waited.”

Mwai noticed for the first time that the girl had a ring on her hand. She, herself, had dreaded marriage, preferring to pursue her career first. She only decided to settle down when she had clocked thirty-three.

“You still have three more months, and they’re worse.” Another woman said.

“The only time pregnancy feels right is when the baby kicks,” the girl said, smiling with a faraway look in her eyes. 

Then, started the discussion every woman in the tent, save for Mwai, took part in. They started off talking about the onset episodes of pregnancy: nausea, loss of appetite, and mood swings, signs Mwai desperately yearned for each month. The talk turned to the numerous food cravings and sudden allergies that led to a painful delivery. Then came the sleepless and diaper-changing nights. Mwai listened on in silence.

“We weren’t even ready to have a child yet. It just happened,” the girl said.

“You are lucky. Some people struggle for years without a child,” a third woman said, and the others agreed in unison. “They have all the money but no children.”

Mwai decided she had heard enough. She excused herself and headed for her car. She could feel all the eyes in the tent resting on her back. When inside, she closed her eyes and let out a sigh. The women’s exchange had been intense and reminiscent of her old workplace. She had failed to relate to any of the early signs of pregnancy the women had discussed. A thought started to form at the back of her mind but was disrupted by a rap on her window. Her eyes lit up, and her lips parted into a smile when she saw the face smiling at her. 

“Pastor, I didn’t see you there.” She said, rolling down her window.

 “You’re just the person I hoped to see today, Mrs Daka,” Pastor said. “In my dream, you had a baby boy. It’s a sign from God.”

Mwai could only gape. She could feel a glitch in her brain and a lump in her throat. This was not what she had expected to hear from him. A rush of mixed emotions overwhelmed her as she lost track of her bearings while trying to conjure an image of herself and the baby.

“God is never late. All your tears have not been in vain. Your own child is on the way.”

Mwai’s eyes welled up. She willed herself to say something, but she was still tongue-tied. Her tears fell, and she let them. A part of her had hoped the church would give her clarity, but what she was experiencing now was too much for her. 

“God has remembered you like He did with Hannah, Sarah and Lazarus,” Pastor said. “All you can do now is praise him.”

Mwai could only nod. She knew the load in her heart was no more. All she wanted now was to cry. 

On her drive back, she knew the ultimate test of her faith awaited her at home.

*

Mwai stood motionless at the nursery door, a look of terror on her face. The room had never been occupied, yet entering it gave her a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach, like it was haunted. Mwai and Jeda had meant it to be their first child’s bedroom together. Instead, it had become a constant reminder of the empty stillness in her body, where she had once hoped her baby would be.

She reached for the doorknob, then hesitated but only briefly. She turned the doorknob and pushed back the door. The room was painted light blue and furnished with a crib and wardrobe. There was a small cabinet beside the wardrobe, and in it were toys, children’s picture books, and a flash drive full of CoComelon nursery rhymes and videos. Jeda had instructed the house help to clean it every once in a while. For the first time in years, Mwai felt calm being in the nursery. She was glad she had decided to go to church in the morning. 

In her bedroom, she walked to her wardrobe and crouched to take out the last reminder of her crying days. There at the bottom was a one-litre container of the most bitter and stomach-churning concoction she had ever tasted. Before she had ditched this mixture, she had endured two of the same for months. The concoction was less acrid when used to prepare porridge unlike having to chug a cupful three times a day. Maybe the reason the mixture never worked was because she threw up each time she took it.

She drained the contents of the container into the toilet bowl and flushed, leaving a stench in the room. 

Then she took off her shirt and stood before the dressing mirror. She felt around her tummy, searching for a bump, any sign of the life growing inside. On instinct, her hands traipsed down her tummy, dreading the tiny scars there. Just below her belly were two incisions identical to the ones on the small of her back. The scars left on her body were proof of the failures she had encountered in search of a remedy for her childlessness. Mwai had paid hefty amounts to witch doctors and endured pain but without results. 

The rest of the day passed with her in a stupor. She let herself bask in the emotional imbalance the visit to church had left her in.

Jeda came in late, long after she had retired for the night. She pretended to be asleep, and he only kissed her on the forehead. He had been nothing short of a good husband. A good husband she had not treated right for some time now. But her mood swings had grown to disrupt even their intimacy. Sex had become a ritual done only on specific days and tailored to satisfy her need to conceive.

When he turned out the lights, Mwai smiled. From tomorrow on, she would make it up to him. 

*

Mwai woke up three minutes before her 6:30 alarm clock went off. The church service was not due until four hours later, but she liked taking her front pew seat earlier, long before the other congregants arrived. She liked to sit through the entire program for the day, which started with an hour of intercession prayers and followed up by half an hour of congregants sharing their testimonies. She would watch in awe as different people spoke of what God had done for them, from getting a job after years of loafing to being healed from an illness that doctors had initially claimed was incurable. For weeks now, she had been preparing for the day she would be the one testifying to how God had blessed her with a miraculous pregnancy. Today, she would be among those sharing their testimony at the pulpit.

“Thank you for your blessings on me, dear God, amen.” She said her first prayer of the day. 

She went through her morning chores, humming Don Moen’s, God Will Make A Way, over and over again. Doctors had convinced her she was fated to not conceive, and witch doctors had made her think she was cursed. But God had proven them all wrong. The years she had endured humiliation, alienation, and shame had all been worthwhile. The long wait was finally over. All her life, she had heard that God works in mysterious ways, and now she had grasped what that meant. Her only regret was that it had taken her too long to realise it. Instead of allowing mere men to brainwash her with their theories, she should have embraced the waiting phase and loved God during it.

Today, Jeda would find out he was going to be a dad for the second time. She had kept him in the dark all along, avoiding to light a flicker of hope in him. Him learning of her pregnancy with the rest of the congregation would be a memory she would cherish for life. Their boy, she wanted it to be a boy, would grow up in church and learnto love God from childhood. She would have another child as soon as he turned two years old. That meant she would have to get pregnant again when he was only a little over a year old. Mwai would have as many kids as possible. She had escaped the ensnaring long arms of fate and earned the right to obey the commandment to multiply. 

She caressed her tummy and started humming Rock-A-Bye Baby. It was surreal that a life was growing inside her. She closed her eyes and let her mind wander. She would be rocking her son and singing nursery rhymes to him by August of next year.

“Mummy loves you, Samuel,” she said. 

The name rolled off her tongue with ease, like she had decided on it a long time. Jeda would love it too, she was certain.

Then there came a sudden tightening sensation in her tummy, and she felt a gradual rise in her body temperature. She smiled. This was the first time her body had shown any signs of pregnancy, and she felt her heart swell with pride. She yearned for more of the signs and hoped they would be as intense as possible. She was ready to take on any discomfort on the journey to bring little Samuel into the world. She stepped inside the shower and turned on the faucet. She would have a cold shower instead of her regular warm bath.

At first, she was certain it was only water she felt trickle down from between her legs. She had her eyes closed and humming Juanita du Plessis’ Four Days Late. 

Mwai’s world crumbled when she looked down at the grey ceramic tiled floor. The smile on her face faded into a frown when she saw a familiar trail of red flowing down the drain.

She had been wrong. The train of fate had been on the right course after all.