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The rain that showed how unsuitable green is for a raincoat

The first one she bore, she felt swelling in her belly. It was seven months into the pregnancy, or was it five? Years later she has a hard time recalling the time spanning up to that moment, wrapping itself around it and cracking open a most unwanted reality. When it happened, the little life from her womb dimmed and her heart’s bitter cry shook her. She knew then that the sharp pain that tore into her soul as the small body slid out from between her legs, would stand crystal clear in her memory in the years to come.

– But nowadays you don’t seem to hover over the memory as you used to?

That’s Ssebo speaking, he speaks lightly about the loss, if ever at all. Though in that day he was the one supporting her in the basin. Receiving with his hands his firstborn in a still embrace.

She cried in those days, but how he mourned. In a week his smooth skin glowing with a deep, earthen hue, turned dull, gray, leathery because he refused to drink and eat. Then Willmont came by and spoke wisdom into his heart and shook sense into his understanding.

– Are you better than David O, that you must fast and mourn after the child is dead? Nahh na, wash your face, eat and be thankful for the miracle of life. You see now that it is not easy for us to come safe to this world. Now this is that and then is there. We go and live on.

So he did just that, washed, put on some oil and lotion, ate and recovered his countenance.

– I thought to myself this Willmont is on to something, did not David comfort Beersheba and God blessed them with another child? One who grew in a great stature, Solomon, huh, do we not believe and serve the same God?

That was months later he said that to her. By then she had gotten exhausted of grieving and eagerly entertained family and friendship gatherings at their house.

So when the second one came, they received her with fanfare and rejoicing. A beautiful, fat and healthy baby girl, so full of life, so full of heat and jerky motions. This time they cried for joy, and waited no time to proudly show the new life to every neighbor and aunt and friend and stranger who would join in and entertain their celebrations.

That is, until they lost the third one and the pain of loss was brought back in sharp relief. She was still breastfeeding her belle, and they amused themselves with feeding her bits of sweet potatoes, cassava, fufu and millet porridge. She would sway them with her small words of – Ssaaay no, and – Ssaaay wanna.

– It is odd,

Ssebu said.

– Why she wills and wills not, but doesn’t care about giving permission.

She herself did not wonder, see they fed her, pampered her, carried her, changed her, nurtured her, cooed her, entertained her, and anxiously sought new ways to meet every need of hers that they could perceive of. Why in that case would a baby need to say –Eesh, to ensure the good stuff to keep coming?

He was born skinny and on the ruddy side, but he gave some duly coughs and mustered out a choked cry, as the midwife shook life awake in him. He slept much, and in his waking hours he stared studiously into the distance. Ssebu laughed his throaty laugh, a soft rapping sound. The outburst of his love in the face of his beloved.

– Not much impressed with the circumstances, huh? Don’t worry son, we will make sure that you enjoy things from here and onward.

The onward was short lived. Quietly, in his afternoon nap after three and a half months of a gentle existence, he exhaled his last breath. It was Ssebo’s turn to watch him. He was still mesmerized at the life in this small boy. How steadily his chest rose and fell, as he breathed in and breathed out. So he watched the miracle of the working of life’s breath.

– Nyabo!! Ah! Nyabo! Ahh.

He stuttered the words. She had never heard a tattered scream. Did not know that sound released at such a volume could be blocked by the wind pipes refusal to cooperate with the throat’s muscles.

Afterwards she jealously cultivated her love for belle. Armed herself with love for three and two lost which now could only be let loose on the only survivor. Losing two children did that to her. Ssebo was stronger in many ways. He got down on his knees, and stayed there until God’s strength was made perfect in his weakness. How weak and pitiful he was. But later he would be a walking testimony that perfect love drives out fear.

She cried – Jesus, Jesus, and felt vindicated when the fourth, fifth and then sixth child entered the world from her womb. All healthy, strong, beautiful children. And so close in age that no one without knowledge, could notice the two gaps. The firstborn and the thirdborn.

But some would wonder at her desperate, frightening love for her belle. How she fed her handmade sweetpea soup, not that otherwise decent canned stuff. How she plucked the horned soursop fruit from their compound and carefully prepared its sweet acidic meat for belle.

Belle did pick up on the fright. Children smell fear from a distance. She found her frightening love to be too clingy, clogging her soul’s pores and choking her spirit. She would say that much to her father, but to her mother would only look with reproach and contempt at her exercises of love.

Ssebu would go down in prayer for her. As shepherd, high priest and king of the family, he prayed for a healing miracle to take place in her.

– I did not marry you to see you carry trauma and eat fruit of grief and sorrow, when God has blessed us with abundance after our losses. Did God not call me in his time, to bless you and you be a blessing to me? Did Jesus not say that for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and the two shall become one? I left my father and mother to find joy, peace and love with you. Am I a fool, that I left the comforts of my father’s house, just to sit every day and grieve in my marriage bed? Far be it for me to suffer so!

She looked with love and amusement at her lover and best friend who spoke in bold ways to push her out of the emotional bog she found herself in.

The girl belle was by now in her teens, and the power grapple between mother and eldest daughter was bringing to light how distorted her fearful love affected them.

It was the raincoat, expensive, beautiful, the best that money could buy and everything belle did not want, that finally broke them free of the revelry.

– I want a poncho, the designa one, made of thick textile plastic. It cost almost nothing, and it’ll enhance my outfit underneath it.

Her mother looked at her – Eh what nonsense is this?

She could hardly believe it, a cheap, trendy see-through raincoat made from throwaway plastic was going to outdo the expensive, perfect performer designer coat that she wanted to give her belle!?

– Speak proper English madam, we paid hard earned money to that school so they could teach you to speak the Queen's English, I want to hear none of that designa stuff.

She was stunned. Ssebo entered the room, gently wrapped his arms around her and muzzled her neck. Then he let go, walked past her to give a warm embrace to belle.

– What is this O, my two favorite ladies are fighting, what is it that the shopkeeper’s errand girl and our household help cannot come to agreement about?

He laughed and brushed aside their angry stares and sharp words.

– The mother wants the green coat and the daughter the see-through coat, now you are the same size so let us buy both and let the rain decide the matter.