I didn’t let her finish. I was too consumed by rage to hear anything she had to say. Her pleading only seemed to pour fuel on the fire burning in my chest. I continued even when her voice was fading.
Then I saw it—dried traces of blood between her thighs. My heart dropped. Gently, I lifted the edge of her skirt and froze. The blood had trailed down from her private area—some stains were faint and dry, while others were darker, thicker, with lines that spoke of something more than a scrape or a fall.
My hands froze mid-air. The stick slipped from my grip and hit the ground with a dull thud. The sight of the blood snapped me out of my fury, replacing it with confusion, fear, and a deep, sudden guilt.
“What… what is going on?” I whispered, more to myself than to anyone else.
Quickly, I reached for Dorcas, positioning her gently as she was crying. My hands trembled as I removed her belt and skirt, pulled down her pants. There, tucked between her legs, was a dirty handkerchief—soaked through and clearly meant to absorb the bleeding.
My eyes widened in disbelief. I rubbed them over and over, praying I was imagining things. But I wasn’t. Reality hit me like a slap: my little girl was bleeding, and I had beaten her without knowing what she was going through. I went to draw the attention of people.
Dorcas was breathing like someone running for her life in a nightmare. Her body was limp, lifeless in my arms. She couldn’t speak, but when I called her name, she’d move her shoulder just a little… as if to say, “Mama, I’m still here.” I put a spoon between her teeth, praying it would stop her from biting her tongue or slipping further away. My hands were trembling. I kept telling her to hold on, that help was coming, that her mother was right here.
When we got to the hospital, they said she needed oxygen first. But there was none. No oxygen. They told us to wait—that it would take a few hours to arrive.
I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t watch my child fade away. We rushed to another hospital, desperate to find oxygen, to find help.