Chapter 22: Chapter 22

Unbreak my heart

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Elena's pov

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My heart is broken, I feel shattered and incomplete. In one day I lost both my husband and my child.

There are no words capable of explaining my heartbreak, for the past three days since Anthony walked out of my life with Emma my second twin, a part of me, died.

"You mean he left with Emma to Liberia," Father asked repeatedly.

"Yes, father," I said, choking from tears that streamed down my face.

"Can't you do something, Desmond?" Mother asked my father, "Anthony must pay for what he did to my daughter, we would have him arrested."

"Keep quiet, Vera." I had never heard my father shout at mum before, he sounded so angry. "You pushed that boy to his limit. You just couldn't let him make decisions for his own family, now he is gone. I warned you several times to stay out of their marriage but you wouldn't listen."

"Yes, blame me." Mother screamed "All I wanted was the best for my child. I would have him arrested." Mother began to dial a number on her phone, I felt hopeful, maybe they would find him and bring them home.

But no one knew where Anthony was, his parents denied knowing his whereabouts and insisted they had not heard from him for almost a week. I remembered his friend Josh. Anthony had told me a lot about him, but I didn't know where he lived or had his phone number. I never attempted to know my husband's friends even when he tried to introduce them to me.

After three days, it finally dawned on me that I might never see Anthony and Emma again, or at least in a very long time.

"Why me Lord?" I said repeatedly, tears have constantly flowed out of my eyes that now I have no tears left.

I ached everywhere, especially in my heart.

Father and mother had barely left my side since the incident, they feared that I would do something stupid. Sometimes, when I look at my father though he doesn't judge me I feel his eyes echo "I warned you." and I wish I had listened to him and not my mother.

When Anthony had first asked me to go with him to Liberia, I wasn't thrilled about it but I always knew that if he insisted I would have no choice but to go with him.

But mother had convinced me otherwise. "You want to follow him to Liberia, you and your twin girls would suffer a lot. Have any of you been there before? Do you have any relatives there?." Mother had persuaded me and I felt she spoke a lot of sense.

But my father had asked me to go with him. He told me that my place was with my husband. "Your husband has been there for you since, after your wedding, he even came to live with us despite not wanting to, just to please you. Elena listen to me, go with Anthony there is a limit to what anyone can bear and I don't want you to push your husband away from you."

I had agreed to do as father said but the more I talked about it with mum, the more I was convinced to decline his offer. I thought it would be like the other times when he would later submit to my wishes.

The past days have made me see my fault, though mother thinks otherwise. I feel she is even happy to have gotten rid of Anthony, "The boy was of no use to you, my only concern is the child. You can remarry someone worthy and start afresh. Stop thinking about him okay."

It wasn't easy to comply but I did my best to comport myself for the sake of my other twin Ava, I never left her out of my sight.

I lost a lot of weight, and my clothes barely fitted. My interest in living waned, I became a shadow of myself.

As I watched my Ava grow up I couldn't help but imagine how Emma was doing.

On their first birthday, I celebrated Emma too. I mostly cried that day, I wondered how she was faring in a foreign land. I hoped that Anthony sometimes told her about me.

In the years that followed, I stopped talking about them. Anthony never called me for once in those gruesome ten years he walked out of my life.

Ava didn't know she had a twin mother ensured I never told her about her father, she believed Anthony would never return.

And as days turned to months and then years. A part of me surrendered to the fact that I had lost my husband and daughter forever