May was shaken and greatly terrified when she woke up in the middle of the night from a bad dream. This wasn’t a bad dream or a nightmare, she thought to herself as she rolled out of bed heading to the bathroom. She knew that it was the truth of her past and it was time the truth came to light. The thought of what she had done haunted her day and night and stole her sleep.

She was scared of the consequences and the price they would be to pay if the truth came out. She owed it to herself to come clean and to talk of her family. She had often wondered how things had turned out the way they did after everything that had transpired. During the first days she had told herself that it was for the best but lately she knew that it wasn’t true; it was only wishful thinking.

Slowly she finally drifted back to sleep in between her wonderings.

Ray only knew a part of the story regarding how they had met but he wasn’t sure if his wife had told him the whole truth. He knew from the start that she was a very secretive person and didn’t like to talk about the past so he hardly mentioned it. But he had earned the right to know. Firstly he didn’t understand why his wife was cold when it came to her daughter, Gift.

As a doctor he believed that every mother should have a strong bond with their child from birth. But that wasn’t how things were with his wife and daughter. He wasn’t her biological father but he still loved her as a daughter. So why couldn’t her mother show the same affection?

As they both woke up in the early morning, May could tell that something was on her husband’s mind. She could see judging from the outline of his mouth and his tightened jaw. She knew it was only a matter of time before he asked her what was bothering her. And as if he had read her mind, he asked.

He told May that he wanted to know what it was that made her wake up in the middle of the night, kept her distracted most of the times. And most importantly, he truly wanted to know what it was that had driven her – a beautiful young woman – to the hospital rooftop attempting to throw herself off it. He wondered what could have been so terrible for her to abandon her infant daughter in the hospital nursery and to try to commit suicide. He knew that there was no one else to get the truth except from her.

“May, what had happened that night? I need to know,” Ray said as he sat next to her putting his arm around her shoulders as some sort of comfort.

May had already started sobbing at the thought of letting out a past that she wished to burry. She braced herself and kept her gaze fixed on the bedroom wall as she started explaining. She didn’t want to see her husband’s reaction to what she was about to tell him. She decided to start from the beginning and confide in her husband.

She told Ray about how life as a primary school teacher was for her, until the time that she had fallen in love with a handsome guy who worked at a hotel. She had been in love and had soon gotten herself pregnant only to realize that the guy was married. Unfortunately her boyfriend had refused to own up and take responsibility of the pregnancy.

She stopped as she felt her voice stuck in her throat, she felt like she couldn’t go on talking. Ray decided to give her time to calm down while he went to make her some tea to calm the nerves and flooding emotions. In the meantime May managed to gather all the strength and courage that she could. She knew that she was going to need it if she had to utter the scary and shocking part of her past.

The truth was ugly. And as the minutes flew by, she started to wonder if she could finish what she had started. She knew that she had to do it and finish it once and for all. It was time the truth got out in the open. Her family deserved it and she hoped that her husband would understand and give her sometimes before breaking the news to the children.

Ray returned after a while with a toast and freshly made tea. He carefully set everything down and handed May her tea. As May opened her mouth to talk again, Ray knew that the worst was yet to come and he only hoped that it was bearable and forgivable. If May had been able to live with it this far, he was sure he also could try…

*****

Jim was a known drunkard. But he had his own troubles that drove him to drink, and no one knew them. He always wondered what had happened to the primary school teacher with whom he had fallen so in love. He remembered her dropping the bombshell on him with the news of her unexpected pregnancy. His wife had been pregnant right at the same time. He had been so shaken that in the end he chose the easiest way out.

Jim abandoned and deserted May when she had mostly needed him, and he knew that he had run away from taking responsibility. May felt so heartbroken and empty, she had no family except for the man who had broken his promise of giving her a family.

Even with the knowledge that her lover was married, she didn’t regret her actions as he had been her first love. He had had the audacity to advise her to terminate the pregnancy but May refused. It went against her Christian beliefs and she believed that her child had been conceived out of love. She vowed to do whatever she could, to make sure that her child would be born and live happily like other kids.

A few months later, Jim was surprised, even more shocked to see May rushed to the hospital on the same night his wife Tracy was admitted. It is just a coincidence, he told himself, even though he knew that fate had its own way. Doctor Ray had been the one in charge on that day and so the baby girls were delivered. As customary in the hospital, the babies were moved to the hospital nursery after being tied on the hand with a name tag while the mothers rested.

Both mothers were overjoyed to have delivered such healthy babies. But May’s happiness was limited as her heart ached with the pain of rejection. She felt awful that Jim had deprived her daughter the chance to be seen by her father and blessed at birth. For Tracy it was a wonderful night although she couldn’t understand why Jim, her husband, didn’t seem to be overjoyed and celebrating the birth of a female child that he wanted so badly.

Their child was even named before it was expected to be conceived. Jim knew that since the day at the hospital, his life would always be incomplete without the knowledge of his child and mother’s whereabouts. And so drinking had been a solution to make him forget everything and live in the present.

Tracy wondered why her husband seemed so distant when it came to their daughter. He was more like an unconcerned father who wasn’t interested in what Joy’s life would be like. His wife worried and tried so hard to know why, after all he had been the one to pressurize her into having another child.

*****

Ray sat tentatively listening as his wife explained all that had transpired the night Gift was born.

Although she didn’t really believe it herself as to what had truly pushed her to rebel her beliefs and commit a terrible sin, she told Ray what she thought. She told how she had sneaked into the baby’s nursery and swapped name tags of her child and Jim’s child. Jim had once mistakenly mentioned that they planned to name their child Joy and so May had all the info she needed.

After doing what she called “preparing a better future for her child”, May ran to the hospital rooftop with a suicidal thought in her head. She had done it spontaneously and believed that she no longer had anything to live for after committing such evil. But as she was about to throw herself down, eyes closed and the heart making a silent prayer, she felt a hand gripping her tightly.

She was terrified and relieved at the same time when she opened her eyes to see Doctor Ray holding her and stopping her from leaving her infant motherless.

Ray had recognized that his worrisome patient was missing from her bed as he was doing his final rounds. He knew that no one had visited her since the delivery and he had assumed that the pregnancy was unplanned. There had been an emptiness in her eyes when she looked at her child and he had seen it in most patients who had no hope for the future. He thought that maybe she had gone to the bathroom and so he headed for the roof to take in the last view of the beautiful city that the hospital faced before heading home.

But as he got to the roof, his eyes could not believe the different view that was waiting for him on the rooftop. He was speechless and acted impulsively to stop her from jumping off.

***

Tell us what you think: What do you think of what May did, swapping the name tags?