WHOSE OWN AM I? ?2025 Oko Miracle Chioma

“Mum- -my” I heard shrieks

“Darling” My husband called, and I could hear the feet of several people rushing into the sitting room. I tried to keep my eyes open but could not. I was slipping away.

Ebubechukwu, I called in my mind. Ebube, my love. My son. How old is he? I tried to grapple with that. He is turning 30 soon. No, I cannot die. For Ebube, I must live. I will find a way. I pleaded.

???

What will you do now? Adaeze asked.

I sat in her parlor with red-rimmed eyes. I had my third miscarriage after seven years of marriage in between trying to take in.

I and Emeka had been to the doctors several times, and they said nothing was wrong. At each time, they prescribed one new drug or the other.

Emeka would often hold me and say, “God's time is the best,” trying his best to smile, and then I would hear him groan later in his prayer closet.

How many years will I keep waiting on God? Is it not obvious that he didn't care if he did exist at all?

If he existed at all, he ought to have shown mercy to Emeka. There was no one I knew who was as devoted, trusting, and committed to him as Emeka.?

That was one of the reasons I had fallen in love with him; he exulted so much peace, love, and charisma, and look at us seven years down the line, while other couples had three to four children running around them.?

He still held on to that one piece he was always with.

I like to think rationally; I wouldn't spend my time without a child while I knew there were other ways I could get one.

“How about that place you suggested that we should go?” I mumbled in between sobs to Adaeze.

“Dibia Omunwa,” She replied as if she had been waiting for me. She had not even asked, “Where?”

“Yes, Dibia Omunwa. When can we go?”

“Anytime you are ready.”

That week, I was so stealthy, I kept avoiding my husband's gaze, and when he asked that we attend the three-day church convention, I refused. While he was at the convention, I and Adaeze were on our way to Dibia Omunwa.

And finally saw Dibia Omunwa’s scary shrine. I was so out of my wits that I thought it was a vision. I didn't know the worst visions were to come. It seemed like I closed my eyes and?

opened them, and here I was at his place. Like I had not journeyed miles to be there. I quickly composed myself as I tried not to look at the old shrivelled face even as Adaku explained what brought us.

“You will have a child” He said calmly.

My heart leaped for joy and Adaeze patted me on my shoulders “ But”..He continued.

But what?I suddenly became afraid and could look nowhere else but his twinkling eyes.

“But he will be ours when he is 30 years old”?

“Wha-t d-o yo-u me..” I didn't know when I began to stammer.

“He will be dead when he is 30 years old”?

I rose up on my feet. I didn't mistake it; the old man looked like a snake before Adaeze blocked my view, trying to hold me back from leaving the makeshift shrine full of skulls. “Do you want to be barren all your life?” “Are you not tired of the insults?” "Do you want to pass up this opportunity?”

My brain remembered the insults I receive from Mrs. Nkechi, who just married two years ago, and the queer looks I get even from people I call my friends.

I sat back on the wooden stool and tried to negotiate?

"Can the child be 60 years old before..”

A thunderous “No” came from the place the old snake sat.

“Okay, I accept” I wept while Adaeze held me in embrace.

I was silent throughout my journey home. I could not bring myself to eat that night, and the next day that my husband came back, I could not tolerate the joy written all over him.

He said, a word had been spoken over our situation and that we would have a son that year.

And truly, I conceived but that was the fiercest pregnancy I had ever carried. I saw snakes in my dreams and sometimes felt like I was drowning while standing in our garage.?

Emeka would come running either in my dreams or in reality to rescue me. I would hear words like "...you promised, Lord” just before I came back to myself.

When the baby was born, he quickly named him “Ebubechukwu” meaning God's glory.?

Over the years, I could not bring myself to tell him that it was not God who gave the baby. I was certain because if it were the God he served, he would have given us the baby before Dibia Omunwa pronounced that I was going to have a baby.

Each year Ebube grew was another year of distress for me. I sat with tears and sadness each time Emeka sent him bible verses and birthday prayers and sat all night praying for our only child.?

His 25th birthday was the toughest for me. The celebrant couldn't help noticing when he came home from college that I was slimmer and sickly. It got worse when his Daddy told him that I?

hardly ate a morsel each day for the past two years. What he forgot to tell him too, or maybe didn't wish to, was that I was hardly myself. I was a completely different person; I soliloquized often and was hardly around, and yes, I had stopped attending church altogether.

Why would I when I had a pressing issue at hand? It was only people who had plenty of time in their hands or at their disposal that sat about singing, dancing, and making merriment like they do most times in the church. Mine was to ensure that my heartbeat, what made me smile each

day I remembered him was going to be here while I still remained and kept thriving even when I was gone.

I couldn't imagine life without my son. It was better I was gone than him.?

I had searched far and wide, entered various shrines, and paid enormous amounts of money just to have Ebubechukwu’s fate reversed but to no avail.

It was said that I had agreed and an agreement had to be kept.

What I sought now was an exchange. Let him live in exchange for me.?

"Mummy, what are you thinking?” He came close and held my right hand, which held the kitchen knife suspended in the air. I was cutting the watermelon when my mind slipped away.

What was I thinking?

“Ebube, you must marry next month” I suddenly blurted. If I were to die, I would love to see him with his wife and even children.

"Mummy,” He gasped.

"You are not getting any younger.” I said forcefully “You are my only child. I want to see my grandchildren.”

He cringed. I feel it was from the realization that he had grown to an age where marriage expectations were valid and real, just like how I felt at the age of 23, but theirs were not always as hurried as females are.?

“I will pray about it.”

The excuse they always give. I will pray about it.

“After prayers, make sure next month you bring a bride home." I left the kitchen hurriedly to the bathroom to wash away the tears already gathering on my eyelids.

???

“Loose her!!” I could hear the commanding voice of my husband while neighbors ran around in the sitting room.

That evening, while I narrated everything to my husband and how I was supposed to die a day after Ebubechukwu's birthday per the exchange agreement, the native doctor had not deemed to keep his bargain and wanted me earlier probably to take Ebube too.

He said,

My dear readers, come close. I want to whisper it into your ears.

“All belongs to God; the devil only seeks to take that which belongs to God.”

From that day on, I started setting my heart aright with God. I belong to God. I am Faith.