Different Worlds

Chapter Nineteen

A/N: Hey guys, I'm sorry for the delay in updating. I was trying to figure out a couple of things and I was a little bit lazy but it's finally here.
Enjoy
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Ijeoma

The sun was high up in the sky, making the environment around us slightly warm. It was 10:00 am on Sunday, Noah and I with Zozo in the backseat drove into the street leading to my church. The church had three services every Sunday; one at 7 am, the next at 10 am and the third at 1 pm. Zozo and I usually went for the 7 am service because it was preferable for us but when Noah said he wanted to come along I decided to change it to the next service so that he didn't have to wake up so early in the morning.

Cars were packed on both sides of the road leading to the church building indicating that the church's parking lot must be filled up with cars. Noah stopped the car in front of the church's main gate for us to get down before moving forward to look for a free parking spot ahead.

I smoothened out the creases on my gown before grabbing Zozo's hand and walked into the church premises. The church is a massive building, painted in cream thick coats that indicated that it had been painted numerous times. The church sometimes gave the feel of a convent because of the covered passage with arches. We were quite early as the recessional hymn for the previous service was still being played by the church organist and there were a few people huddled up in groups greeting each other; women standing at the corner catching up with their friends and family, some people gathered around the church dues payment point which was at the corner of the gallery where pregnant and nursing mothers stayed during the service and the rest leaving the church for home.

I held Zozo's hand firmly as we weaved through the crowd of people so that she didn't get lost. The children's section of the church was located on the first floor on the left side of the building.

I picked her up as we reached the flight of stairs leading to the children's section. The door of the children's section was wide open upon our arrival and I could see some of the aunties who taught the children sweeping hastily. The ground was filled with cabin biscuit nylons and orange-flavored Caprisone drink that they must have shared for the children from the previous service.

I walked over to aunty Grace, the woman in charge of the entire children section and handed Zozo over to her. She is a short and plump woman with a protruding belly that made her look like she was expecting when she wasn't. Although she is a mother of three so I guessed that was the three pregnancies must have enlarged her stomach. She is another person I know who always had a smile on her face which made children comfortable around her.

There were a few children seated at the corner of the room that had already been swept, aunty Grace walked Zozo to the group of children and I noticed Zozo's body language change a little when she didn't recognize any of children around her. It was expected since all of her friends went for the first service. She took a seat beside one of the girls but her eyes kept darting to where I was as if pleading with me to take her with me.

I took that as my cue to leave because I knew that the longer I stayed there the stronger that idea in her head would be and before I know she would start crying to go with me. I wasn't worried about leaving her there because I knew that in no time, she would warm up to the kids there. It was a trait I used to have when I was younger until I got pregnant and all that gory stuff happened then I became more reserved.

On reaching the bottom of the stairs, I saw Noah walk into the church premises. He looked nicely dresses in his light pink colored trousers and jacket with a plain inner shirt that was lighter in color. The color pink did look good on him; in fact, everything he put on looked good on him.