I Have Never Loved You

Ida was so tired cause she had just finished delivering her baby at the labor room. Carrying her baby for the past nine months hasn't been easy for her. While catching her breath on the bed, she sighted one of the nurses that helped her deliver her baby and she asked elatedly," is my baby a male or female?" 

"The baby is dead," the nurse declared casually as if it was nothing. Ida's heart felt as if fire was being poured on it. She felt an excruciating pain that she almost couldn't breath anymore. 

"What did you say?" She thought she didn't hear what the nurse said clearly. 

"Your baby is dead," the nurse declared and walked out. As she threw her two legs to the floor and sat upright, trying to grasp the shocking and devastating words of the nurse, the door opened and her husband walked in alongside her sister. 

Tears poured freely down her face as she beheld her husband, she said pitifully," the nurse said my baby is dead, it can't be true...it can't be true!" 

Her husband, Olga frowned and his expression showed less concern to her predicament. 

"Olga, what's wrong? Why are you not saying anything? Please tell me my baby is not dead." 

"Should I be concerned that a bastard died?" Olga asked with a displeased look on his face. This was the first time her husband would be speaking so cruelly to her. 

Their marriage clocks one year today and although he had only made love with her once, she still adored him and he of course, showed her love too. She can't understand why he was suddenly acting weird on a day like this. 

"Bastard? Are you calling our baby a bastard?" Ida assumed that her husband couldn't be speaking to her that way. 

"Big sister, your baby is truly a bastard. I guess Olga hide it from you but the he wasn't the one you had sex with nine months ago," Janie, her younger sister said. 

"That can't be true," Ida stood, what she was hearing was too much for her to handle. 

"It's true. I never had sex with you. That night, it was a stranger you had sex with not me," Olga responded. 

Ida's mind suddenly trailed back to that night, Janie had invited her over to their parent's house and asked that they celebrate her new promotion at her workplace, Ida went there innocently and drank but she didn't expect that her drink would be so spiked that she lost consciousness in no time. 

When she woke, she saw her husband in the room dressing up but she realized that she was naked, she blushed that night thinking that it was her husband who made love with her. Actually, that was her first time and she was happy that it was her dear husband who eventually took her virginity. 

Although her husband's attitude changed towards her since then, and she asked him about the reasons behind his cold attitude towards her for a long time but he wouldn't speak up. 

Was it really true that the person she had sex with that night wasn't her husband? 

Thinking about the possibility of what Janie said, her heart felt like it was been stabbed with a thousand knives, she felt terribly heartbroken. Was the drink on that night spiked up? Was she set up to sleep with someone else? She couldn't really tell. 

"And you hide this from me all this months?" Ida asked Olga.

"What's the point telling you? You won't abort the baby anyways so it's better for the baby to be delivered before we..." 

"Wait! What?" Ida ran to him and held him by the collar of his shirt," did you kill my child? Did you?" Ida felt her world collapsing. 

"What did you expect him to do? Don't you know he will be ridiculed by our family if they find out his wife gave birth to a bastard?" With what Janie just said, Ida confirmed that her husband really killed her child.

She shook her husband aggressively and she cried, "how dare you? You wicked man! How dare you kill my child?" Her voice was so loud that people outside of the ward could hear but no one dared to interrupt as Olga was one of the powerful men in the country. 

Olga's face became even sterner, he removed her hand from his shirt and pushed her to the bed, he dipped his hand inside Janie's bag and brought out a paper from it. 

"I have never really loved you, Ida. I'm sorry, sign this," he stretched the letter to her. Ida felt like she was literally sinking into a bottomless abysss when she collected the letter and saw that it was a divorce letter. 

A painful laughter fell off her mouth instinctively and she looked at Olga, the man she had loved since she was a teenager, her heart was hurting like it was being set of fire...the pain was so unbearable.

"Is this a joke?" She asked," If it's a prank, it's too expensive." Ida even thought that she may be dreaming.

"Sister, wake up, this is not a joke nor a prank, Olga has truly never loved you. It's me that he loves," Janie said and leaned on Olga's shoulder. 

Ida furrowed her brow, infact, her eyes almost fall off, she pinched herself to be sure all these was real. Her husband killed her child, presented her a divorce letter and already fell in love with her sister? She buried her head in her palm and screamed like she was going crazy. 

She raised her head up and looked at Olga, she placed her hand on his cheek with tears streaming down her face," Olga, tell me this is a joke and I'll believe you." 

"Janie and I have an important meeting to attend and it's almost time. Sign the divorce papers quick," he said aloofly. There was no emotion at all in his face.

The seriousness of the situation dawned on Ida, she withdrew her palm from his cheek slowly and not only was she bleeding from her eyes, even her heart was bleeding and tearing apart. 

Ida looked at the divorce papers that she had placed on the bed. 

Janie immediately dipped her hand inside her bag and handed over the pen to Ida," big sister, here is a pen, sign it quick. Olga and I really need to leave quick." 

Seeing her sister happy with her predicament even hurt her more. If her husband can kill her child? Then it's insane to remain in marriage with him. 

She collected the pen from her sister and squatted before the bed, with a shivering hand, she scribbled her signature on it. 

A beam of happiness flashed across Janie's face, she immediately collected the signed divorce paper from Ida and kept it in her bag, "let's leave hubby," Janie said to Olga. 

Ida watched brokenheartly as her 'now ex husband' walked away with her sister.