The Unwanted Wife: Revenge After Divorce

AMELIA

It felt like my eyes and ears were working overtime. My eyes kept roving all over the waiting room of the hospital. My ears were perked up to catch the slightest sounds. They waited to hear the footsteps of anyone who would give me the information I so desperately needed.

I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. It felt impossible to. I took several deep breaths, thrust my hands between my knees and tried to put my racing heart under control.

It felt like I was on the verge of having a full scale panic attack. Thoughts kept flitting through my head. Worrying thoughts. I couldn’t stop them no matter how hard I tried.

Last night, I couldn’t bring myself to take the test again. I didn’t know if I could handle the result and I wanted to put my mind at ease.

People throw up once in a while, don’t they? But not me. Something strange was happening to me and I had my suspicions. Suspicions that my doctor would confirm.

When I strolled in here in the morning, I was barely able to answer any of the questions asked. I was so scared, too nervous. The nurse had assured me the result would be out in hours so here I was, sitting and waiting for it after work.

Now, I didn’t even know how to feel. What if, just what if I was pregnant? It would be a wonderful thing, but it would affect my relationship with Damian in so many ways.

Just last night, I had assured Damian that I wasn’t pregnant. If it eventually turned out that I was, it would look as though I had hidden the pregnancy from him for ulterior motives.

‘I know you’re not the type of woman that’s manipulative…’ he had said.

Now it would seem as if I was actually a gold-digger planning to hide the pregnancy from him until it became too late to terminate it and then request for child support. I cringed as I imagined the disappointment on Damian’s face if and when this happened.

“Shit!” I cursed, burying my face in my hands.

But I wanted a baby. I wanted one.

“Mrs Donovan?”

I looked up quickly at the doctor and immediately shot to my feet.

“Yes?”

“I’m ready to see you now.”

I wanted to shout, to demand that he cut right to the chase and tell me the results but he was already walking towards his office. I was forced to follow on legs that felt like stilts.

“Please, have a seat,” he said, waving to a chair opposite his while he lowered himself into one.

I started to sit and then just dropped into the chair.

I leaned forward quickly. “Doctor. Tell me… The result…”

“Yes. Calm yourself, Mrs Donovan.” He raised an envelope stuffed full of papers. “I have the results right here.” His face broke into a smile. “I am pleased to let you know that you are six weeks pregnant. Congratulations.”

My jaw hung open. I found I couldn’t close it again. I was pregnant? Had the doctor just said I was pregnant?

I forced my lips to shape the words, “I’m going to have a baby?”

He nodded. “Oh yes. Certainly. A baby in a little over seven months.”

Not until the doctor confirmed it did I realize how much I had doubted the fact that I could possibly be pregnant. I felt a confusing myriad of emotions go through me at that moment. I felt shocked, happy and then sad all at the same time.

The doctor probably interpreted my shocked silence for being overjoyed because he said, “I imagine it’s a lot to take in. Having a child is rather life changing. I’m also happy to say that the pregnancy is progressing rather nicely, but for the next two weeks, I will like you to come around the hospital more often so I examine you. Now-” He extracted a sheet of paper from between the files on his desk. “I have here a list of things you should do during this period. I would like you to listen and also do them. First, for the sake of the baby, you have to eat right. You see, a good diet can…”

He went on and on about what I had to do and what I wasn’t supposed to do during the period of pregnancy. With only half an ear, I listened to him. All the while, I was trying to grasp the implications of this baby on the way and how it would change everything.

“Well that’s that,” the doctor said minutes later as he got to his feet. “Congratulations once more.”

He took my limp hand, gave me a handshake and led me out of his office. It was only when I was out of the building that I realized he had slipped the pregnancy test results into my hand. I held onto it tightly. Only the feel of the paper on my skin felt real. Everything else that had happened still felt very unreal.

I felt happy tears run down my cheeks as I walked. I couldn’t care less about the curious stares of people I passed.

It felt wonderful to know that I could be a mother, that I could hold my child in my arms, hold it to my breasts. Nothing was wrong with me. I wasn’t deformed or inadequate. My body could actually nurture my own baby!

For months, I thought something was wrong with me. That I was somehow infertile, an empty woman with no prospects of motherhood.

But all that wasn’t true. I could have my own baby.

As I walked to my car, I felt loads lighter, like something heavy had been lifted off me. And indeed, it had.

When I got into my car, I made a decision, a decision that had been ringing in my mind from the very moment the doctor had told me that I was pregnant.

Whatever happened, I would not tell Damian about the pregnancy.

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I perched on the edge of the sofa, watched Queenie pace the living room of her small apartment. Her eyes ran over the pregnancy test results that lay open in her hands.

“Positive,” she muttered, her gaze fixed on a spot close to the bottom of the page. “You’re actually pregnant, Amelia.”

“I know,” I said in a hushed whisper.

A grin split Queenie’s face as she stopped right in front of me.

“I said it, you know. I told you it was going to happen for you, that you were going to have a baby. Now it’s happened.”

“Yes,” I murmured absently.

Queenie’s smile became a frown as she sat beside me.

“But I won’t pretend that there isn’t an issue here,” she said. “Amelia… what are you going to do?”

I shook my head sadly. I really didn’t know what to do or where to go from here. But just as I had earlier made the decision not to tell Damian about the pregnancy, I had also made the decision to keep the baby.

As though of their own volition, my hands curved protectively around my stomach. The baby was a part of me now, as necessary to me as breathing. I would never get rid of it for love or money.

“I’m keeping the baby,” I told Queenie.

“Of course you are, dear. Of course you are.” She placed her hand over mine, stroked it reassuringly. “I wouldn’t have expected anything less from you but then there is still the issue of the baby’s father. Are you going to tell him about it?”

“No!” I said vehemently.

Queenie reared back a little. “Whoa! That was fast. How come you are making that decision so quickly? Aren’t you at least going to think about it?”

“There is no need to.” And I went ahead to tell her of what Damain had said to me after dinner the previous day. “All his suspicions of me will be back once I tell him of the baby. I’ve seen him so angry about me having a baby before. It wasn’t a pretty sight, Queenie. I don’t want his negativity to spoil this for me. He would rather I terminate the pregnancy. I’m sure.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Yeah. Which is why I think it will be best for me to leave him before he finds out.”

She heaved a deep sigh. “Yes. Much as I hate to admit it because I was hoping there could be really something between you and Damian, I think you are right this time. Leave. You’re big enough on your own now. You have the bakery and several other businesses?” She looked to me for confirmation. I nodded. “You see? You have all that and you’re also in charge of the city project. All the resources you need to take care of the baby, you’ve got them. You don’t really need Damian anymore.”

I shook my head slowly. Queenie couldn’t possibly begin to understand the different facets of this matter. “It’s not as simple as that… Damian… when he finds out, he’ll come after me. He can bring me down just to get back at me. I know the kind of person he is. He’s not a man to cross. There are several ways this can end up.”

“And it can end up in your favour too.” She pressed down on my hands now moving nervously in my lap. “Don’t you forget that Noah hurt you and paid for it. The same thing can happen to Damian if he underestimates you.”