The commotion woke me.

I dragged myself out of bed, refusing to be coerced otherwise by the urgency of it all. The bangs were heavy and consistent, sending a vibration through my apartment. I had slept early the night before after an evening out with the boys. And as such evenings go, I had a bit too much to drink.

“Egbon, egbon!” I heard a voice I recognised as my neighbour’s, the one with the beautiful daughter that teased boys on the streets with her grace. She calls me egbon even when I am not sure she wasn’t older than I am.

I opened to see her, wrapper around her chest, breasts heaving up and down like a marathoner.

“Omo mi o, Tinuke, e gba mi o,” she uttered in rapid bursts and fled down the stairs. I took her cue and bumbled down, taking the flights 3 at once, nearly missing my steps.

In her apartment was Tinuke lying on the floor, bunched in a foetal position, her hands pressed hard against her tummy. She groaned as tears masked her pretty face. I took in the scene: Tinuke wore a short bandage skirt that had shifted way too up revealing boy shorts underneath and a loose tank top that exposed half her left breast. I ignored the peek of her nubile nipples and bent across.

“Tinuke, Tinuke!” I called out. She responded with a slow nod and I instantly felt her pain.

“Egbon, e jo, e gba mi, hospital. Ko je ki n sun moju!” Her mum shouted, at the same time twisting my arm as if to say “do something!”

I nodded mechanically like a lost agama and carried Tinuke in my arms. “E lo si yara mi, e mu kokoro moto lori table, e je ka lo,” I said, urging her to return quickly with my car keys.

Tinuke’s mum fled to my room as I lifted her daughter and made for my 1997 Camry, the one I nicknamed ‘Lampard’ after my favourite Club legend.

I drove like a criminal in flight to Jah Cures, the private hospital that stood like a sentry at the entrance of our street.

It was 6.18am.

“Please nurse, my daughter,” Tinuke’s mum screamed as we barged into the reception. She half dragged the one nurse in sight towards me with Tinuke groaning and twitching in my arms. I looked at her and saw her eyes rolled up into her lids, with her mouth half open. The pains seem to be overwhelming her as we awaited attention.

“Calm down madam. Oya, oga please put her here,” the nurse said without a worry and pointed us to what looked like an examination table.

I laid Tinuke down and she immediately curled up in a ball again.

“Is there a doctor on duty?” I asked the nurse who by now had gone back to her desk.

“Doctor is coming,” she replied without looking at me. In one swoop, she scooped up her phone, turned and went up a flight of stairs behind a brown door.

We waited.

And waited.

No doctor came. Just a cleaner who went about mopping the reception like we didn’t exist while Tinuke’s groans punctured the atmosphere at intervals. Her mum kept calling her name and telling her she will be fine, “Doctor n bo,” she kept saying.

Then I heard it.

It sounded faraway and then took on a momentum I could trace up the stairs.

Pa. Pa.

Pa. Pa.

The claps went in threes, reminding me of my High School Assembly Prefect and her usual “your hands” as we went into devotion on the Assembly Ground.

Pa. Pa.

“Amen amen, blessings and glory, with thanksgiving and honour, honour and power, belongs to the Lord, forever and ever aaaammmeeen”

The song filtered down the stairs.

“What?!” I exclaimed. A devotion? In a hospital? When there was an emergency?

I shot up, galloped past the cleaner and up the stairs in a fit of anger.

Then I saw them.

Right in the middle of the floor were what looked like the entire hospital staff, eyes lifted to heaven, hands in rhythmic clap. They were having a devotion.

I froze.

“Really?!” I blurted out in shock. “Like, seriously?!”

My shout stopped them mid worship and they all turned to look at me.

“Like really really? Someone is downstairs, an obvious emergency and you guys are here having devotion? Seriously?!”

“Er, mister, please…”

I didn’t let the one who spoke finish his sentence. I just burst into laughter and walked down the stairs.

“Doctor nko?” Mama Tinuke asked as soon as she saw me.

I laughed again.

“Egbon?”

“Mummy Tinuke, doctor n lead devotion loke.”

“Devotion bawo?” She screamed and ran up the stairs.

I sat by Tinuke, rubbed her hands and whispered, “Babe, hold on, your mummy will bring a doctor now.”

And she did. In less than 10 seconds, I heard commotion upstairs.

I smiled.

I trust Mummy Tinuke.

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The End.