A week after finding out the news about Shamiso’s inability to give birth, Mike found an adoption agency where there were twins available, and he signed up as a father hoping to bring joy to his wife. He knew he was doing it behind Shamiso’s back and she would still decline, but throughout the week, she had hardly spoken to him and had spent the entire time sitting curled up on the bed, crying or staring in space.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Mike suggested, and Shamiso just nodded sadly to him and followed him out the door. He drove her to the agency, but Shamiso didn’t realize where she was because she was still drowning in her agony.

A woman came holding a baby, but Shamiso still didn’t look up. “Sir, I’ll bring the babies after a while,” the woman said. “A couple had promised to take them, but they sadly died in an accident. Is this your wife?”

After introducing herself, the woman left Shamiso and Mike and handed a wrapped baby to a couple that was sitting on the corner. The baby began crying, which brought Shamiso back to reality. Once she was back, she set her eyes on the baby the couple was adoring.

“Yes, she is,” Mike answered.

Seeing that Shamiso was now back to reality, the woman came back them and greeted her with a handshake. “Nice meeting you.”

Shamiso was in shock, but she said no word and her eyes were scanning the whole place, even the roof.

“Let me bring the babies for you,” the woman said, turning to face the door. “Thank you Mike for being honest, I thought you were going to disappear.”

“I wouldn’t!” Mike said while chuckling. “I even brought the clothes and milk for the baby. I was just waiting for my wife to heal.”

The woman then turned her back and smiled. She returned in less than a minute with another woman wearing a white dress that looked like a nurse’s uniform, and they were both holding babies. The woman offered the baby to Shamiso, who was cautious, but she eventually took the baby in her arms. She touched the baby’s cheeks and, with a smile, touched the baby’s fingers.

“They are yours,” the woman said, joyfully brushing Shamiso’s shoulder. The joy wasn’t for her, though, it was for Shamiso.

For the first time in a while, Shamiso felt her heart dancing with joy. The baby was in her arms, and the other one was with Mike. The baby smiled at her and tickled her heart.

Seeing the babies everyday made Shamiso weak at her knees. She felt a bubbly good feeling spread through her body, starting from her heart and growing outwards until she felt it on the tip of her toes and the crown of head. It’s true, babies change people. Mike saw a gentle smile spreading on Shamiso’s beautiful lips every day. When she was happy, he was also happy, and he was glad things were back to normal. He prayed it would stay that way forever. Just a week prior, she had been told that she was barren, and now she was blessed with two babies of her own.

The babies brought a breath of fresh air into Shamiso and Mike’s home. Shamiso had just lost her mother and had been told about her damaged womb, and that had made her loose hope. She didn’t want to live, but the twins gave her a reason to live and embrace life. The babies were so endearing and their eyes were so sweet and lovely that one could think they were girls. They were also very identical, but Shamiso knew how to differentiate them. One had a birthmark on her shoulder, and the other had one on the leg.

“You are now their mother!” Mike exclaimed the first day the babies entered their household. “What will you call them?”

Shamiso didn’t have names because she was still digesting the fact that she now had twins, a boy and a girl. She couldn’t leave the twins for a second, and she checked on them every chance she got.

“Don’t take too long to name them,” Mike added when Shamiso didn’t respond.

Shamiso told her sister and her father that she had babies, and they both came for supper. But the atmosphere at the supper made Nomatter feel uncomfortable. She could smell the baby’s soap and milk in the air, and she thought that the reason her heart was not at peace was because she had given up her children for adoption. She had all the money in the world to look after them, but she wanted stability for them and for them to have two parents. It wasn’t easy being a single mom, and her assistant, Lindsay, had always complained about how hard it was to raise one child, now imagine two.

The family only saw the babies after dinner, but they were still sleeping. Nomatter was happy the new parents managed to adopt so quickly because knew how difficult it was to adopt.

“Baby girl, I am so happy for you,” Gerald said while chuckling.

“‘What are their names?” Nomatter asked curiously. But, as she said this, she felt a connection with the baby boy and she wondered why. She felt jealousy but she was also happy.

“Tanyaradzwa and Tawananyasha,” Shamiso said with a smile. One could see the happiness on her face. She was glowing.

When Nomatter saw Shamiso glowing, she felt her heart sink. She felt that she had made a mistake and she needed to get her babies back. Her stomach felt uneasy with dread, and words got stuck in her throat. She loved the names Shamiso gave her children, they were her favorites too. She became quiet throughout the entire dinner, and she blamed herself for giving up on her babies. She couldn’t sleep that night, and her thoughts swirled in her.

The following day, Nomatter went to the adoption agency to find out if she could get her babies back.

“You can’t get your babies back,” the woman at the agency told Nomatter, trying to sympathise with her. “They’re gone. If you had come a week earlier, they would still be here.”

On hearing the news, Nomatter’s jaw dropped. “What happened to the family who wanted my babies?” she asked curiously and concerned. She had visited the agency even though she knew that she had signed a contract saying that she could not get her children back. She understood why the woman at the agency asked her numerous times about her choice when she first came to give up her children for adoption, and she had also given her time to think because a mother and child can never be separated.

“They were in involved in a car accident and died on the spot,” the woman answered, shuffling papers as if she was looking for something.

“Who adopted them, then?” Nomatter asked harshly.

The woman pretended not to hear Nomatter’s question, and took her phone in her ears, making Nomatter so angry that she grabbed the phone and sprung her hands at her neck.

“Who adopted my twins?” Nomatter shouted. The woman was trembling and suffocating, and when Nomatter saw that she was trying to talk, she released her.

“Its Shamiso and Mike, the new couple,” the woman answered, easing the pain on her neck by rubbing it softly.

Nomatter felt at ease when she found out who adopted her babies. Shamiso and Mike could be good parents, and her children were safer with them than they were with strangers. She was prepared to keep her secret until death, but she got closer to Shamisi so she could watch over her children.

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