Amy’s husband, Ralph, was furious when she delivered the black baby boy. He didn’t hesitate to dump her. Years later, DNA revealed the unthinkable.
Amy gripped the two sides of the hospital bed and screamed with all her strength. She pushed, and the piercing cry of a newborn baby rewarded her efforts. She fell back on the bed and panted, sweat trickling down from her forehead. The nurse wrapped the baby in a blanket and brought him to her. Amy was shocked when she saw the baby’s skin color. Confused, she looked up at the nurse.
“Is this my baby? Are you certain?” she asked. The nurse nodded. Amy looked at the other medical practitioners in the room and saw them exchange strange looks. They had the same question as her. The medical staff knew Amy well; it had been in that hospital that she had given birth to her other three children. She was a white woman married to a white man, and they had three white children together. This baby was their fourth child, and he was unexpectedly black. Everyone wondered how that could be.
Amy’s husband, Ralph, came in a few minutes later to see Amy and the newborn baby. His expectant expression turned to bewilderment the moment he laid eyes on the baby. He went out of the room to look at the room number imprinted on a plaque on the door.
He wanted to be sure that he hadn’t gone to a room that wasn’t Amy’s. It was clearly Amy’s room; the room number said so. When he re-entered the room, he was frowning. He couldn’t understand how Amy gave birth to a black baby. He stopped at the foot of the bed; he didn’t bother going to stand beside her. He glared down at her accusingly.
Amy recoiled from his gaze and tried to explain herself. “Honey, I can explain. I didn’t do this. I don’t know what happened,” she whimpered.
Ralph sneered. He didn’t believe a word coming out of her mouth, and he wasn’t going to wait around for her to come up with more lies to tell him. He knew the truth: Amy slept with her big shot employer at the insurance firm where she worked. Amy was shocked when he said this. She shook her head and repeatedly told him that it wasn’t true, but he didn’t care. They couldn’t continue talking because a nurse asked Ralph to leave the room so that Amy could rest.
Amy’s head hurt. She had just had a baby, and she was being subjected to this kind of mental torture. She hadn’t ever imagined that it was possible for Ralph to treat her this way under any circumstances, let alone after all her energy was depleted. When she woke up from a nap that wasn’t restful because of bad dreams, Amy fed her baby. He was truly a beautiful baby, and despite the color of his skin, Amy could see the resemblance he shared with his three older siblings. Months earlier, she and Ralph had selected possible names to call him, and she decided on Samuel.
For the rest of her stay at the hospital, Amy didn’t see Ralph. She hoped that he was pondering their conversation and other possibilities that might have caused their baby to come out a different skin tone than theirs. Ralph was Samuel’s father; she knew this because she hadn’t been with any other men besides her husband. Unfortunately for her, Ralph didn’t seem to think so. Ralph was cold towards Amy and Samuel after they returned home from the hospital.
Amy felt deeply wounded but forced herself to keep a cheerful appearance for the sake of the children. However, a few days later, Ralph packed his bags and announced that he was leaving her. In shock, Amy tried to reason with him. He couldn’t just leave her behind with their children. She begged him to consider all that they had gone through for more than 10 years of their marriage and the children they had together. Ralph was unyielding, and his mind was made up. As far as he was concerned, Amy had betrayed him and wounded his pride. If he let this pass, people would mock him, and he would lose his self-respect. So he left, abandoning his wife and family.
Amy felt her entire world crashing down. She didn’t know how she was supposed to go on without Ralph. She had never suspected that he would be capable of dumping her so callously. She had known him since her college days. They had been friends for a while before they began to date. Eventually, he had proposed, and they had gotten married. They had no problems conceiving when they were ready to have children. By their second year of marriage, children had come easy for them.
Ralph only wanted two children because his idea of a perfect family was two kids, perhaps a pet, and then the typical home with a white picket fence. Amy had always wanted a large family. She had grown up an only child after losing her older sister to a school bus accident when she was four years old. She had felt lonely, and she didn’t want her children to ever know that feeling. Yet, she had respected Ralph’s decision to have only two children.
However, fate had other plans for them. During Amy’s first pregnancy, she and Ralph had been over the moon. They had spoken excitedly all the time about the grand plans they had for the child that they were about to have. Their joy was boundless on the day that they had welcomed their first son into the world. Three years later, Amy was pregnant again and gave birth to a set of gorgeous twins, a boy and a girl. The couple had been happy about this, knowing fully well that Ralph didn’t want any more children.
Amy had taken precautions not to get pregnant again, but five years after the twins were born, Amy had woken up one morning with symptoms she recognized from her previous pregnancies. Terrified and secretly ecstatic at the same time, she had bought a pregnancy kit to confirm, and sure enough, she had been expecting. Ralph had been pissed when Amy broke the news to him.
He had called her careless and stupid for letting a mistake like that happen. He was angry for a long time, but as her delivery date had drawn closer, Ralph became warm and tender again. Unfortunately, that had puffed into the air like smoke the moment that Amy gave birth to baby Samuel, who had dark skin unlike any other member of the family.
With Ralph gone, Amy pondered on how to raise her children alone. They were so young. Her first child was nine years old, the twins were almost six, and then there was Samuel. Amy didn’t know how to make her life work like it used to. She struggled a lot with taking care of the children and providing for them. Some of her neighbors, who used to envy her family and knew that Ralph left her, whispered behind her back. They mocked her, calling her an unfaithful wife and a hypocrite who used to present a perfect work-life balance in public, but all of that was in shambles. Amy didn’t know who to turn to at such a distressing time in her life. She called her friends asking for help, but none of them could assist her. They were all busy with their families and the things going on in their lives. The most they did was offer words of comfort and ask her to stay strong.
Every night, Amy cried into her pillow. It felt as if someone was gutting her insides. It was such intense pain, and it drained her. She didn’t know how to summon the strength to keep going. Nothing in her life was motivating her to keep fighting. Instead, her responsibilities made her feel exhausted. Her children were depending on her. Their lives also changed with their father gone, and they needed her to reassure them. Baby Samuel was just a helpless innocent baby, and she still had to go to work on top of all of this. At work, Amy was distracted.
She couldn’t perform excellently, and at random times, tears would start streaming down her cheeks. It made her colleagues uncomfortable. There was a day she almost made a grave mistake with a report. When her superiors saw this, they called her into their office and asked her to take an indefinite leave without pay. Amy wanted to protest this because she needed the money to provide for her children, but she saw the stern face of her superior and caved in. She knew they were right, and she was grateful not to be fired.
Amy constantly tried to get in touch with Ralph. She texted, called, and left numerous voicemails. All of them went ignored and unanswered. It was as if he wished into thin air. She tried to reach out to him on social media handles but couldn’t find him. That’s when she realized that he had blocked her everywhere. Amy was frustrated, angry, and sad at the same time.
Even if Ralph wanted to ignore her, what about their children? He had been gone for six months, and not once had he sent any money for his children’s upkeep. Due to the challenges and turmoil she was facing, Amy was always tired or sad. To cope with the heartache and the situation, she constantly took unplanned naps. As a result, she didn’t tend to many of the house chores, and her home was in disarray. She barely managed to feed the children every day.
Amy’s nine-year-old son, Jeremy, took initiative. As young as he was, he started picking up after his mother. He picked up fallen toys and put them in the toy basket. He gathered his dirty clothes and those of his siblings and put them in the washing machine. He used the vacuum cleaner to tidy up, and he wiped the kitchen surfaces with a clean cloth.
In the morning, he made cereal for himself and his siblings and made sandwiches for them after they returned from school. Whenever baby Samuel was crying and Amy continued to sleep, Jeremy would rock him in his rocker. Sometimes that worked, and baby Samuel fell asleep, but other times it didn’t. That meant baby Samuel was either hungry or he needed a change of diapers. At those times, Jeremy would carefully carry Samuel to Amy. He would wake her and ask her to feed Samuel. His actions touched Amy, who had no idea that her oldest son was so industrious.
Inspired by her son Jeremy, Amy began to make a bigger effort to be present for her children. She forced herself to do many of the chores but assigned lesser ones to Jeremy and the twins. She went grocery shopping and filled the kitchen cabinets and refrigerator with food. However, there were days when she broke down in tears whenever she remembered Ralph, and that was often. It was hard to put him out of her mind when it was in that house that she had raised a family with him. He had left that same family without a second glance. It was tougher for her whenever the six-year-old twins kept asking for their daddy. Jeremy was intuitive enough to know something was wrong, and he didn’t ask for his daddy after the first couple of weeks so that he wouldn’t upset his mom, but the twins were less tactful.
On the seventh month after Ralph left, the principal of her children’s school invited Amy for a chat. The principal’s name was Philip, and he was an attractive mixed man in his early forties. He had invited Amy to find out what was wrong. He had noticed their children’s academic performance dropped, and they were withdrawn from the other children.
They kept to themselves and looked sad. Amy didn’t mean to, but she broke down in tears and cried profusely. Her heart ached so much she didn’t see the point of pretending that everything was okay when it wasn’t. Besides, she wanted to get the pain off her chest. She opened up to Philip and admitted that she was barely keeping it together. She felt like she was falling apart ever since her husband left her. She told him everything and held nothing back.
Philip listened attentively. He was moved with deep compassion for Amy and her children. He offered to take all of them for an outing and treat them to a meal. The kids were excited when they learned they were going out to a recreational center. They dressed in their best clothes and promised to be on their best behavior. As the kids were having fun, Philip and Amy talked some more. He told her about himself. He had lost his wife to childbirth complications. Fortunately, the baby had survived, and she was the same age as Jeremy, Amy’s first child. Philip confessed that he hadn’t raised his daughter alone. He received a lot of support from a community he had stumbled upon.
Philip introduced Amy to the community. He took her to their weekly physical gathering. It was a community of families committed to growing together and helping out one another. There were married couples with stable homes in that community as well as many singles. Everyone was so welcoming and friendly. They cooed over baby Samuel, whom Amy had brought with her to the gathering. When they heard Amy’s story, everyone was willing to pitch in however they could. Amy’s major problem was that she couldn’t afford to pay a sitter to watch her children while she worked. Her savings were fast dwindling, and if she didn’t return to work soon, she wouldn’t be able to provide for them, pay the bills, and renew the rent in three months. Hearing this, the stay-at-home moms in the community came up with a schedule to watch Amy’s children. There were about five moms who volunteered, and each of them would watch all four children for one working day.
After a few weeks of attending the community gatherings with Philip and receiving their amazing support, Amy felt like herself again. She was eager to get back to work and build a life for herself and her children. When she returned to work, she performed better than she ever did before, and her superiors were impressed. After exceeding several sales expectations, Amy landed a double promotion. She shared the news with the community, and they celebrated with her. A few months after that, Amy stabilized and was able to afford babysitters to watch the children whenever she was busy. The moms in the community still offered to watch them. They told Amy that her children were easy to love. They praised her for raising them to be well-mannered. Amy thanked them with grateful tears in her eyes.
Amy saw Philip often because he was her children’s principal. They saw each other at the community’s weekly gatherings, and they were friends. It dawned on Amy some months later that she was in constant communication with Philip. They texted daily, talked on the phone, and went out together with their children. Amy knew Philip’s daughter and was friends with her. In the eyes of the little girl, Amy was a mother figure whom she deeply admired. Amy tried not to think of what her closeness to Philip might mean. He was a nice man, and she valued his friendship. That’s what she told herself.
Over a year after Ralph had left, Amy discovered that she and the children had fallen into a rhythm. They helped out with chores, she cooked and helped out with homework, and their performance at school and extracurricular activities were better than ever. They went grocery shopping with her and took care of one another. Whenever they sat down for a meal and Amy saw how close her children were, her heart swelled with pride. It was as if they didn’t need Ralph anymore. This led Amy to another discovery: Ralph wasn’t as helpful at home as she had thought. Amy currently earned a lot of money, which was equal to three times what she and Ralph had brought in when they had lived together. At that time, Ralph had earned a bit more than Amy, but most of it had gone to paying for his needs. Ralph had liked to buy designer items that he couldn’t afford because he wanted people to perceive him in a certain way. Amy had been the one who provided more for the family, paid the bills, and did most of the things, but she hadn’t noticed because she had loved Ralph and his presence had meant a lot to her. Also, after nearly two years of being separated, Ralph still hadn’t sent divorce papers. She suspected it was because he didn’t want to pay alimony or child support. She chose to ignore him for the time being.
Philip, Amy, and their children were at the park for a picnic one Saturday afternoon. As the children played together, including Samuel, who was three and an adorable toddler, Philip watched them with a strange expression. Amy asked what the matter was. She was worried that he might have noticed something wrong with any of her children. He quickly assured her that it wasn’t the case at all.
“Your children have interesting eyes. I was admiring them, that’s all,” he said. Amy breathed a sigh of relief. She told him that they got it from her dad’s side. Philip frowned. He pointed out that if it was the case, it was proof that Samuel was Ralph’s biological son since he had the same unique pair of eyes. Amy had been too distraught after Ralph left to consider taking a DNA test to prove his allegations wrong, but because of Philip’s observations, she felt a nudge to find out the truth behind Samuel’s dark skin once and for all. She called the hospital and booked an appointment for DNA testing. She submitted Ralph’s old comb as a sample. The hospital ran the tests. The DNA revealed the unimaginable: Samuel was Ralph’s biological son, and his skin color was hereditary.
Amy didn’t understand what the doctors meant by hereditary. They explained to her that Samuel either had grandparents or great-grandparents who were black. Amy was confused. Neither she nor Ralph had any of such. She was still pondering this the next day when Ralph called her out of the blue. He told her that he had just found out from his mom that his biological father was a black man. He had been the person her mom was engaged to, but after he passed away in an accident, his mom had married the man’s best friend, a white man. His mom had seen no point in telling him since he was born white, but she had been suddenly pricked in her heart to reveal the truth. Ralph begged to return to Amy and the children. He was willing to be a father to all of them, including Samuel.
Amy refused. He had abandoned them for three years. She divorced him but allowed visitation rights. The children weren’t keen on spending time with their dad. They preferred Philip. Soon after, Philip and Amy started dating. The children, including Philip’s daughter, were so happy.
