‘Mummy, there’s no baby crying any where’ Lara told her mum. ‘Ada is busy cooing in your arms and the TV is on. Surely one of them is your source of sound.’
Her mum had been, in the last one hour, insisting that she had heard intermittent cries from a baby outside their house. She seemed to be the only one who could hear the cries and Lara wondered if her mum was imagining things.
Lara had felt really lucky to have her mum here with her, babysitting. She was thankful that she was fit enough, at the age of seventy-nine, to handle the rigours of babysitting. Two of her favourite things were spending time with her grandchildren and chatting on the phone with friends and family. ‘E ku owo l’omi,’ Lara would repeatedly hear as her mum took calls on speaker while bottle feeding the baby, the Yoruba greeting for people baby-sitting newborns.
She was also looking forward to her mother-in-law, Emeka’s mum, joining them once she commenced her vacation. She was a sixty-seven-year-old High Court Judge in Nigeria, who kept a TikTok account under a pseudonym because she wanted to ‘keep up with happenings in the real world, while juggling a career in a dream world.’ Lara found her fascinating and called her JudgeVibes, a name she was contemplating changing her TikTok account to once she retired.
Lara knew she was blessed to be surrounded by such amazing mums. She was happier still, that they got on well with each other. They would speak for hours on the phone like long-lost sisters. They sent WhatsApp videos to each other back-to-back and sought each other’s opinions on matters of importance.
To assuage Lara’s mum’s fears, Emeka had gone outside to check but had returned to say he could not hear any sound of a baby crying. Perhaps, a stray cat had come to whine around their backyard and then abandoned its undertaking and gone elsewhere for attention.
Lara’s mum seemed to accept Emeka‘s report and then let the matter go until she heard it again. This time Emeka and Lara heard it too.
‘Mummy,’ let’s go check. We’ll be right back’ Lara said as she made to join Emeka who was already on the porch. Her mum was by now calling the honourable Justice to bring her up to speed.
There was no mistake- close by, there was a baby sobbing uncontrollably and seemingly pausing to gasp for air. As the couple moved closer to the house two blocks from theirs, they heard it louder than ever before.
‘Call 911’, Emeka yelled as he began to furiously ring the doorbell, repeatedly pressing the button which seemed to be dead. Then he began to bang on the front door of the house. ‘Hello? Anybody home?’ The baby’s cries seemed to increase with the noise at the door, yet no one came to the door. Now, Emeka had become panicky. Lara reassured him that the authorities had confirmed that they were on their way. They arrived presently and asked Emeka to step aside while they took over knocking on the door. In a minute, they had forced open the door and made their way into the house.
With prayer hands clasped on the bridge of his nose and on his lips, Emeka watched intently, waiting for the officers to emerge. Lara was already a sobbing mess by the time the paramedics were called in and moved into the house.
They came out holding a baby, not more than a year and a few months old, who had been left alone strapped in her walker for at least 24 hours and was exhausted from crying.
By this time, many of the neighbours had gathered at the scene and gasps could be heard on seeing the baby.
‘I hope she’s alive!’ ‘Is she ok?’ was the chorus of questions and exclamations.
‘Thank you, Mr. Onwenu. We reached her just in time. Please thank your mother-in-law. We are grateful she didn’t disregard the cries she thought she heard. The baby is responding well. She will make it.’
The EMT told a grateful Emeka as he walked back towards Lara to share the good news.
……to be continued.
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