She Is Blind

✍️EPILOGUE.

✍️EPILOGUE.

As I draw the curtains.

Seems the story is coming to an end.

A probably beautiful end.

But does a story ever end?

Or does it keep being written and rewritten.

Is a Happily Ever After meaning to refer to infinity?

When I got back from work that day, my wife did not look like my wife. She had never been sick in all the years I knew her—it could be God's way of compensating for her blindness, but I knew I never wanted to see her that way again. I had feared she would die inside the back of a Taxi I had stopped without even looking at a driver, until we got to the hospital and I was told everything was okay.

I knew she could be pregnant... I wasn't really good with pregnancy scares anyway. The last one I had when I was seventeen nearly snuffed the life out of me. But Gift had looked as though she stood on the thin line that separates life and death, that cord that snaps everytime and lets the victim rise, to life, or fall, to death. But with the smile on the doctor's face when he saw me again, I knew my wife refused to leave me alone. She never would have, if she had an option.

"Your wife is good." he grinned. "You are just going to be a father."

I remembered the first and previous time I got this news. I could have died over it, but not now. Now I had a job that gave tips as large as a salary, my lady worked comfortably at an embassy, and I lived in a house I could call my own for the meantime. And I remembered confessing to Gift about that incident, on one of the nights after our wedding that had me pulling her to the bed and her asking me to go again until we had done it twice. I told her about it because I did not want to keep a secret from her, and I was surprised when she laughed, her breath fanning my face and making me want to go again.

I asked her why she found it funny, and we both laughed over it when she told me she hoped I wasn't impotent. I asked if she was angry, and she asked me if she should.

"I knew you had changed when you said I would pay for what I did. I knew you had fucked up. Amina told me all about your smoking and that you were involved with a girl named Winifred, and that was when I knew how I would pay."

Gracefully, Amina never told her about my pregnancy scare with Winifred, and when I told Gift and she laughed and put the question to my potency, we laughed all the time because of it. Because if I could never have children, or she could never have children, we would not really care. I was content enough to be with her, and her with me, and we simply couldn't coexist without each other.

I smiled at the doctor and thanked him, laughing inwardly at how he was grinning like a clown.

"One more thing." he said, not diminishing his clownish smile. "When last has your wife been in a hospital?"

"She has not been in one in all the years I knew her." I said, quite confidently.

"Well... We have hopeful news."

I raised an eyebrow suspiciously, eyeing the doctor.

"As of the time your wife was born, her eye condition was something that could be solved. She had not really been born blind, according to our findings, but it slowly got worse and by the time she could have memories of previous sight, it was already gone.. But—

"But what?" I hurried the doctor.

"Now, with the advancement in technology and research, and the right amount of money, your wife will see. She will see again."

"Tell me you are not joking Doc,"

"Well... When your wife was born, if the doctor had actually been skilled, he would have been able to handle it. It was quite a minor issue, but it degenerated over time. Now all she needs is an eye transplant. It's an eye transplant to you lay men, but it's actually a corneal transplant and a visit to a hospital in Lagos I will refer you to should solve it."

I remember gasping for air, unable to breathe with excitement, and the poor panicked doctor, thinking I was asthmatic went to get me an inhaler. But the worst had not hit yet.

"How much do we need?" I asked.

"About Four million naira." came the reply. "And there is a 50:50 success chance of it."

My excitement level went down by half. I was just a Corps Member surviving on tips. My wife earned quite a sum, but not up to a million. And I almost did not want to ask my father in-law for the money, but when I thought about it later, I had to.

I went in and saw her lying in the ward, her eyes open and vague I was almost scared she had died, until I saw her finger twitch. I sat next to her, and her face lightened up at the pressure. I leaned over her, supporting myself on one hand beside her and entwining the fingers of the other in hers, and kissed her, uncaring if the nurses were watching, if anybody was watching.

"The doctor gave me good news sweetheart. You are carrying a baby. Our baby. Our child. Our little miracle."

She smiled, her eyes blinking and I thought of the doctor's words again.

"Yes I know. I have never felt so blessed. To carry your child." she whispered, and I kissed her again. Since our wedding, our kisses now meant so much to me. I usually felt a tightening sensation in my chest when I kissed her, a sensation that made me feel like I could conquer the world with her by me.

I told her the doctor's words, what he had told me about her eyesight, and the look on her face was one I had rarely seen on her face. It looked familiar, and I remembered that I saw it for the first time when she confessed her feelings for me the first time after rejecting me, and the next time when she had come back from France and seen me again. And I knew she would need no persuasion. I knew she would accept it and that not even the scare of the 50:50 chance would deter her.

Getting the four million naira was quite miraculous, in ways I never really expected. My parents in-law could not contain their joy, and like their daughter seemed to push the 50:50 chance aside. And before I had known, they had somehow sourced ₦1.5million. AB told my parents about it too, and for the first time in months my father called me. When I picked up the phone and heard his voice, it was one of the most emotional conversations we had ever had.

"This time you win my son. I was always wrong. Now I understand that God's plan for her was you, because you would be her eyes. And you would be the reason she would see again. I am sorry. I give you my blessings. And I will send one million naira too. Tell my daughter in-law that I am sorry, and that she deserves it for being the one carrying my first grandchild."

Gift had cried when she heard the phone call.

I still don't know where he got the money from.

Amina had added ₦500,000 to it, and Mr Moses did same too. Peter had claimed to join his will to Amina's, and Jean completed it all up. I had never appreciated the influence of having rich friends around until that day, and for the first time that night I spoke to Jean not as a rival, but as a friend and a brother. I had been scared that I would have to solicit for help on Blues FM.

The operation was held in Lagos at an eye clinic shortly after we had flown into Lagos at 11:00AM,  and it took over two hours of me pacing around despite Amina's and Gift's parents pleas for me to calm down. My wife was pregnant, undergoing an eye operation, and no man who had wife and child in the same room would be able to calm down. And when the doctor finally opened the door, I rushed to him, almost pushing him over. He said my wife had been given anaesthetics and she was still unconscious, but he was sure that in a while she would be able to open her eyes.

When I got to see her again, she had a bandage around her eyes, and a weakness in the knees similar to the one I felt when I saw her for the first time overtook me and I fell to the floor. She was still asleep, but she looked almost dead to me and I cried like a baby, kissing every part of her that was still uncovered, getting solace from the fact that her body was still warm before I got tired, and sat in the chair next to her and slept until she awoke in the night. But the doctor insisted we wait until the next day.

The next day, I insisted I sit in front of her when he took off the bandage, and when he finally did, she screamed.