Meant to be

  I see my husband's smile, his father's look of pride, his mother's sense of satisfaction and I can only wince inside. They are all very happy, at last I have given them an heir. A son to carry the family name into the future, to ensure that the bloodline continues to infinity and beyond, his birth resurrects the dying family pride.


  The sleeping baby already carried so many hopes and dreams on his fragile shoulders, I felt the strain already. He'll go to the best schools, get the best of everything. Will he be happy with the path already chosen for him? Will he feel entrapped and suffocated?

For five years I cried, fretted and begged for a child. Was poked and prodded for uncountable tests just because I could not produce a child. Buko's mother scoffed and mocked me and my innocent family for not giving her precious only child a child if his own. I shudder to remember how she brought a retinue of women to our house for her son. Now she's smiling like a demented baboon, I let the hatred I feel for her flow from my heart to every cell in my body and my plans for revenge make me slightly light headed.

Buko and his father are sharing a drink and toasting to the strenght of his loins, I long to smash their faces on the oak dining table. Somehow I manage to walk past them calmly, I even smiled at them- I should win an Oscar. Finally I'm in my son's nursery, he's awake and looking at the world. The doctors say he can't see yet, he's only a few days old. What do they know?

Calmly I carry him to my car, I'd told them I just wanted to drive around the street and show Buko II the local sights. I'm glad I've always been eccentric, I wouldn't have been allowed to leave if I'd been "normal". I keep driving until I get to a massive complex, I park my car in front and carry my baby out. After giving the attendant a little money, I carry my baby to the departure lounge and an hour later we were a mile high in the sky, winging our way to Lisbon, and then Brazil.

The aftermath makes me giddy with joy, my husband and in-laws looking for us, finding that most of the family money has disappeared without a trace. They'd search for my siblings and wouldn't find them or my son and I. They'd be reduced to penury while my son and I would live a beautiful life in a beachfront villa in Rio.

The image of my mother in-law wearing cheap clothes made me snort with laughter, I rubbed my hands with glee. Buko would never understand why I did this. He had no way of knowing I'd discovered their dirty secret, he was sterile and even his hypercritical parents knew about it. Yet they let me go through all that anguish, they knew Buko wasn't the father of my baby and had planned to retain the baby and kick me to the curb. When I leave with nothing, he'd marry someone new and they'd raise my child together, one of his steady girlfriends even though he was married. After hearing that, my plan hatched itself.

I smiled softly at my baby as tears ran down my cheeks. Liberty had never been so sweet.