I knew the baby was not mine the first time I saw it. It looked too alien to be mine- pure dark skin with a mop of shiny black curls that belonged to neither me nor my husband. We were both light skinned to the point where we got mistaken for an oyinbo couple and the combination of our light brown hair couldn’t have resulted in the dark black hair of the baby.

The doctor gave me the child and I whispered to him that there must have been a mistake. This child was not mine. He only shook his head and laughed, saying that I did not like the baby because it did not look like an oyinbo and blabbing about recessive genes. Recessive genes ke! What kind of dominant recessive gene would produce such a child that looked nothing like any of its parents? A mother knows her child and a child knows its mother. There ought to be some connection between both of us, but I felt no maternal pull or sense of responsibility to the child. That child was not my child.

The doctor sent me home to my husband and explained everything to him but I was not satisfied. He could exchange medical grammar with my husband and make him believe the nonsense that spewed out from his mouth, but as far as I was concerned, that baby was not mine. They had swapped my baby at the hospital and given me someone else’s baby to care for. The audacity! 

My husband would not shut up about the baby. He would continue repeating the rubbish the doctor had told me.

“The baby is yours, ours.”

“Recessive genes this.”

“If anything should happen to that baby, I would be really cross with you.”

All gibberish. It was only when I shocked him with the possibility that the baby could be from another man that he finally carried his mouth away from my ears. Of course the baby was not from another man because it wasn’t even from me to begin with. This baby belonged to an entirely different family.

 I dropped the oddly silent baby into the cradle we had bought for our baby and went to the room I shared with my husband. Thankfully he was already on the bed, nearing sleep. He kissed his teeth as I undressed and turned his back to me. I didn’t bother acknowledging him. Two could play this game.

Tomorrow, after I go to the hospital to get my real baby back, I would deal with him. For now, I was too fatigued to care.

                                           ********

I heard the baby crying from the other room and I cursed. Silly woman I thought out loud. My wife, for whatever reason was convinced that the baby- our baby wasn’t ours. Shebi it wasn’t me who was watching as the doctors delivered her of the child? Shebi it was not be that held the crying baby when she passed out? She even had the bold mind to suggest that she had slept with some other man, just to shut me up. But I did not blame her. She was an illiterate and would not understand complex biological knowledge such as recessive genes. Did she even know what genes were?

She was fast asleep so I didn’t bother waking her up. Shebi she said it was not her child? It was my child and I would take care of it. I stood up and went to the baby’s room, making my presence known with the loud eerie creeping of the door. The crying did not stop.

“Shh… don’t cry baby…” I whispered in a lullaby, unsure of what to do, but its crying only intensified. The baby was hungry and I had no means of feeding it. It continued crying, wailing as though somebody was plucking out its limbs before abruptly stopping, leaving the room feeling dead and empty.

I reached out to carry the baby, but as my hands came in contact with it, I froze midway; staring wide-eyed at what had once been my hungry crying child. In place of the baby was a creature that looked like the offspring of a raccoon and a lemur, with a brown and black frizzed coat, a stout nose and beady eyes that gleamed golden.

My breath seized and I pulled my hand back, not wanting to encounter whatever creature this was. Perhaps my wife had been right, this was not our baby. Heck, this wasn’t even a baby.

Before I could turn to leave the room, the creature let out a loud guttural sound, almost human-like and its mouth, wide and sharp with fresh silver fangs closed down on me. I didn’t even bother screaming. My eyes fluttered and the last thing I saw before my eyes closed into nothingness was the creature’s gleaming golden eyes.