Selma Cook

This is based on a true story. People make rash decisions, often for unjustifiable reasons, on the spur of the moment and then live with the consequences for the rest of their lives. In this case, the woman later became a strong, practicing Muslim. Mashaa Allah. With the Help and Guidance of Allah, all obstacles can be overcome, even the ones we make for ourselves.

 

"You have to be one of the most selfish, dogmatic people I've ever had the misfortune to meet!"
"You used to love me."
"That was long ago, my dear!" added Terry sarcastically.
"Let's just call it a day, shall we Terry? My head is pounding and I can't take it anymore."
"You! Take it anymore. You've brought all these problems on yourself. I'm leaving. I! Can't take it anymore."
Helen jumped a bit when the door slammed and she sat staring into the fire soaking in the warmth it offered. She shivered and crossed her arms, hugging herself against the cold.

"It's better that he goes," she thought to herself. "One day I would have had to tell him."
They'd been married for fifteen years and never had children. It was the one thing that he missed from his life and now at forty years of age, he could remain patient, no longer. She told him that she'd been for all kinds of tests and luckily he'd believed her.

"There's no reason why I shouldn't get pregnant," she'd lied.
"Gullible fool," she thought to herself, "why does he need to have kids so much to make him happy?" She had managed to keep the marriage going for years, flying by the seat of her pants, so to speak.

The last straw for Terry came, when he decided he wanted to adopt a child and she'd been up in arms.
"We're happy as we are Terry. Why do we need children? It will just complicate life and we'll be tired and grumpy and won't be able to go on holidays or anything, anymore!"

He'd called her unnatural and said he couldn't believe he'd actually met a woman who didn't want to be a mother.
"Little does he know," she'd thought.
Sitting in front of the fire that night, her eyes flicked across the room, looking at all the usual things. Some nice, nature scene pictures on the wall, and some sporting trophies on the mantelpiece that belonged to Terry. Her eyes passed over a safety pin lying on the floor beside the fireplace. Funny that a safety pin could arouse her memory so sharply.

"Nurse Mothersby. What a name! How could I forget that old dragon?" thought Helen to herself, smiling. The head nurse had held her nametag to her starched, white uniform with a safety pin. Many times Helen had stared at it, when the nurse treated her in hospital. She stared, trying to focus on something physical; known - to escape from her pain.

"You'll be sorry my dear. I warn you," she'd said.
"Not as sorry as you'd like to think, Nurse."
"I don't know what kind of strings you've pulled in this hospital Helen, to get this operation done, but I'm going to try to have it cancelled."

"You wouldn't dare!"
"It's for your own best interests Helen. I believe you don't understand the possible consequences of your action."
"It's my womb! And I don't want it!" Helen shouted.
Nurse Mothersby had tried to cancel the operation but without success. Helen had a direct connection with the Head Professor who had found some probable reason for having her womb removed at some stage of her life and so had approved of its removal at that time. Friends were handy to have, at times.

"Why are you doing this Helen?"
"I don't want to have children," she'd replied.
"Obviously. But apart from that?" asked the head nurse.
"I don't want to be tied down to a monthly cycle. Basically I want to be different from everyone else. What's wrong with that?"
"It sounds like a pathetic excuse Helen," said the Nurse staring her hard in the eyes. Helen had averted her eyes from hers.
"If you don't want children, you could have your tubes tied."
"I know."
"Being a woman, isn't confined to your womb, my dear," said the Nurse with great feeling. "It lies here and here," she said as she pointed to her head and her heart. "You'll never be able to remove it. There are needs we all have which are instinctive and you can cut away as many parts of your body as you like, but you'll never be rid of those needs. Perhaps one day, when you're old and alone, you'll understand what I mean."

The old nurse hadn't waited for one of Helen's cryptic replies. She'd just walked away. Helen smiled when they put the injection in her hand before the operation. A kind of foolish, childish grin like a child who'd finally got what they'd wanted after nagging for a long time.

When she woke up, the first face she saw was Nurse Mothersby staring at her with a kind of twisted smile.
"How do you feel Helen?"
"Like hell," she replied.
"Good," said the Nurse quietly. "If you want anything or need anything, just remember, you did this to yourself by choice, my dear."

The days after the operation, the Professor was nowhere near and Helen could hardly move for the terrible cramps that kept overcoming her.

"Please, can I have.." but the nurses would ignore her, giving her only the basic treatment required. They looked at her with hate and disbelief.

"Why did you choose to do this?" asked a young nurse one day, when Helen was feeling a bit better.
"I don't want to be like the rest of you. Locked into a pattern that only brings weakness and sickness."
"Is that the only reason Helen?" asked the young Nurse.
"What more?"
"How foolish you are," she said quietly. "What if you change your mind? Children are a light for us."
"And we become their shadows," added Helen, with a sarcastic grin on her face.
"It's a pity your parents hadn't shared your ideas," commented Nurse Mothersby, who had just walked into the room.
"It's not your business," scowled Helen. "Your job is to serve the public."
"My job is to protect life," said Nurse Mothersby. "When I became a nurse, my intention was to help and protect people, not to aid selfish, over indulged women like yourself, waste the time, technology and opportunity that other people really need. There are thousands of people out there who need medical attention, who need this bed that you're in and you're here because you know someone high up. You make me sick."

Helen had recovered slowly. Her stay in the hospital was longer than she'd thought and she'd endured a lot of pain. If she needed any kind of emotional support, she was in the wrong place. But time had passed, the cramps had disappeared and life got back to normal. Then she'd met Terry.

They'd married soon after they met and had a happy life together. She kept up the charade of the possibility of her getting pregnant; she just couldn't bring herself to tell him what she'd done. She was sure that when they were old and she wasn't going through the problems of menopause and all that, he would be pleased. They hadn't got so far. The door opened and interrupted Helen and her memories.

Terry walked in and sat down.
"Helen, I want to talk."
"What do you want?" she asked, not moving her eyes from the fire.
"I know it's impossible for you to get pregnant. I've known for a long time."
"What?" cried Helen in surprise.
"All I wanted was for you to be honest with me. But you never were."
Helen sat up and her face was twisted in absolute amazement. "How did you know?"
"I met your old Professor years ago. He wanted to buy a house and I did his papers for him and we got on talking and became buddies really. He told me all about it. He thought, of course, that I knew."

"That's confidential information. He shouldn't have just talked like that."
"And what about me Helen? Confidential from me too? You've been playing me like a fool all these years. All those times you pretended to go to the doctor and coming back with all the hopeful news, it took me all my time to hold my patience and just wait and hope that one day you'd open up and tell me. Don't you have anything to say for yourself?"

Helen stared at her feet. She felt something like a brick in her chest that made it hard to swallow. She felt hard and cold and really, didn't care anymore.

"No, not really Terry. What can I say? Anything I say now, will sound pathetic."
Tears started to fall down Terry's face and he put his head down and sobbed. After some time he spoke again.
"Helen, I'd really hoped you'd cry or something. At least, be sorry for lying to me. Anyway, it's over. I came back to tell you, that I'm moving out."

Helen started to feel angry but she couldn't find any words. She didn't watch him leave.
After he left, she sat for a while looking around the room, trying to maintain a casual mood. Then she got up and walked to the kitchen. On the way she bent down to take out something that had hooked itself to her sock. She pulled out the safety pin angrily and threw it into the trash. She was forty years old and alone. She went and made herself a cup of tea.