They watched her with spite building up in their chest. The family rose was worn-out overnight. Lily turned an eyesore.

Her mother could swear it was pregnancy. The symptoms corresponded. Nauseous, with swollen hands and feet. Her horrid show of exhaustion irritated her entire family.

Of course, she wasn't alone in that plight. In an African home, unwanted pregnancy was near abominable. And Lily's parents were African to the bone. Not to mention Uderika, and his wife, who didn't bat an eye before sending their daughter, Chidinma, away from home.

Lily wanted a holiday. Somehow, the twenty six year-old knew her time was near. Where else could she spend these last days apart from the secure bosom of her loved ones? But apparently, that was a mistake.

She got up from the parlour where the family meeting held, to go inside. Her mother hissed and spat on her way. Her father wore the cloak of disappointment over his face with the solemn look of the aged. Her siblings, the four boys she helped to raise, could not hide their wounded pride.

Alone, she walked the dimmed corridor towards her room. Her legs were heavy. Her breathing, laboured. The pain she felt previously in her joints had tripled. But it was nothing compared to the throb in her chest. Every step away from her family drove a blade into her heart.

Lily managed to get on her bed. She turned to the wall, and moments later, tears trickled down her eyes. She sniffed lightly, took a deep breath and exhaled.

An hour later, when her youngest brother sought her attention concerning a pending debt, Lily was quiet and cold.

Terrified, he swung around and dashed into his parents room.

Hastily, they all charged into the hospital carrying Lily's frozen body. The doctor confirmed her dead upon an arrival. 

Their lamentations rose to the pity of bystanders. Her mother's wail, unrestrained. No one said anything about a pregnancy.

Days later, at her burial, her fiance shows up with his family.

“She loved you all so much, she wanted to spend her last days with you...and not me.”

Without a clue, they all gaped at him with mixed feelings. 

"It was late when we found out. She couldn't tell you she had breast cancer.

Lily said that if she did, her mother may leave before her.

She said the treatment would be useless...it was the final stage. All she thought about was how much of that money could be used to better the lives of her younger brothers.

She loved you all...and I sincerely hope she didn't regret it."

They were all dead in tranquility as cold realization washed over them. They could not look at one another anymore. Somehow, Lily's family felt they were responsible for her end. And her mother would run off a day later to bring the young Chidinma home and reconcile her to  her parents. Yet, even that could not give her peace.

Lily's mother never stopped wishing that she knew better.