The Family LIES

May 30 1997

It's been a while since I wrote a diary entry. I am too lazy to write it every day. I just jot down stuff that I want to remember. But for the past month, I wish I could just forget those things and change the past.

Last month, just like that I started feeling dizzy. I still went to the school. But one day, I fainted while I was going to the school. My father soon took me to the hospital, that is, it was just a clinic.

My father is close friends with the doctor. Dr Blake did many tests on me to find the cause. When he asked me from when I started having feeling nauseated, I told him that it happened for weeks.

He took my father away to talk privately and told him about doing another test. When my father returned, he was afraid. I did the test and went home with my father.

The next day I could feel tension in my whole house. My mother had teary eyes and my father looked as if he had aged at least ten years within a day. He asked me to get dressed to go to the hospital.

We went and I was taken to a room with dim lighting. Dr Blake greeted me and asked me how I was feeling. I told him that I vomited plenty of times and that I was feeling tired. He smiled and told me that it was going to be ok.

There was a machine there. A nurse came and asked me to expose my stomach. Then she spread a gel like substance on my stomach. I knew that it was a sonogram. I was terrified that I might have come up with bladder infection or something.

The doctor started rolling something on my stomach and looked at the machine. He pointed to something in the screen and told me, "that is your child right there."

I won't ever forget the moment when he said that. I was afraid and I could feel my body becoming weak. I suddenly felt sick and was ushered to the toilet to throw up.

I could feel tears filling my eyes, making it impossible to see. My chest was hurting very much and I cried for a lot of time. Finally I went to my parents. They knew it. That was why they were sad. I felt so bad when I realized that I was the reason my parents were sad.

When I went to the room,I could hear my father asking, "can't we just abort it?" I felt my heart sink. I didn't want to abort it but I never wanted to keep it either. I was in an emotional turmoil. The doctor replied that my body was weak and I had complications, so aborting it would affect me.

Then everything was hazy. I don't remember much about what happened after that. But a few hours later, I was in my room and my mother and father were there.

They had no choice other than to let the baby be born, or else they would lose their daughter, that is what the doctor said. My parents were extremely sad and I know that if this news gets leaked, it would humiliate both of them.

My parents asked all of the workers to leave. They said that I have come up with a flu and they didn't wish to spread it to anyone else. Only Edna was allowed to stay. She was told about the pregnancy and she burst out crying. Lily too came to know about it.

"Who is the father?" That was the first thing my mother asked me after knowing that I was pregnant. I didn't say, I would never say. They asked me many times, but I didn't say anything. They questioned Lily who said that she didn't knew who it was. Finally they gave up. They decided to make sure that this news would stay inside the house forever.

On that day, Lily came to see me at night. She asked me, "how are you?" I still remember being happy to know that she came to see me. She was the first one who asked me how I was feeling. We had a long chatty night. Before leaving she asked me, "It's him, isn't it?" I nodded but I asked her to never say that to anyone. She kissed me on my forehead and left.

From then on, she came to my room every night and we starts talking.Lily teaches me everything that is taught in school. She brings me books to read from the library. She even brings me food items from outside so that I could eat something delicious. Edna makes me eat nutritious food that I don't like. It makes me gag. But she is adamant about it. My parents have stopped coming to check on me. I was confined to my room.

Now my life has changed drastically. I am sick all the time and weak. Being confined to a room isn't easy. I was alone majority of the time. Even if my parents are in the house, they won't come and see me. As for Edna, she spends her free time with me. But she has a lot of work to do as she is the only housekeeper now.

As for Alonso, he doesn't know that he is going to be a father. I can't call him as my parents would know about it. Even Rose doesn't know. My parents thought that it will be better if she doesn't know about it. They decided to let my sister know about my condition when she comes back during Christmas. Alonso too would come back then.

I have to wait until then. It is a long wait of seven months, but I have to be patient. Time moves slowly and it took a lot of time for one whole month to go. But I will wait patiently.

As of now, I don't know what to do with the baby once it's born. I feel a connection to it, but I don't exactly love it. I feel that it ruined a beautiful part of my life. But whenever I am alone, that means most of the time, I talk to it. I know the baby can hear me. We are bonding. And I hope that when I give birth to it, it wouldn't be hard for me to say goodbye.