Chapter 20 TURNING POINT

Few months after Sobrina robbed her friend and ran back to the University of Science for her third academic year, and few months after she was invited to the popular student's fellowship where she had met Pastor Melvin, She began to feel a terrible pain in her abdomen one afternoon after lectures.

The pain kept getting worse and making her restless. She went to a pharmacy near her house off campus on her way home. She was describing how she felt to the pharmacist when she suddenly fainted. The pharmacist took her phone, found her parent's contact and called them. She was told to treat Sobrina who had no money, on credit, with the promise of later payment. When Sobrina came around, she managed to walk the short distance to her one room apartment, she was feeling a little better. The pain became worse than it had been, few hours after she arrived home, the pharmacist had refused to give her any treatment.

Sobrina couldn't breath or rest, she understood she needed urgent help, she called Pastor Melvin who was the only other person she knew around, and explained her predicament. It was already 9pm, but accompanied by the president of the fellowship and a female member, he took the fellowship's vehicle and drove quickly to her place. They took Sobrina to the University's hospital where she began to receive treatment.

Her mother arrived at the University from home to watch over her the following day. She was diagnosed with chronic stomach ulcer and was placed on drip. The hospital staff were doing all they could for Sobrina when she began to writhe in pain - crying, screaming, grabbing her stomach - two days after she was admitted. She was held down by two nurses.

"Madam, there's only one medicine we can give to this girl to save her life, we don't have it in this hospital at the moment, it's an injection sold for two thousand, you need to quickly buy it from a pharmacy in the city", they informed her mother.

Sobrina's mother insisted she had no money. Pastor Melvin who had visited that morning and was watching and praying from outside, inquired about what the medicine was called. He rushed off at once towards the city in search of it. By the time he returned, Sobrina had passed into unconsciousness.

When Sobrina opened her eyes later, she was lying in an obscure position, her hand was swollen around where the intravenous drip was inserted. Pastor Melvin was seated by her bed reading from a book. Her mother was no where in sight.

Sobrina had no complete memory of that day, but she was eternally grateful to Pastor Melvin, who stood up, relieved as she awoke, and left without saying a word.

Sobrina began to recover. Her mother who couldn't afford a two thousand worth of medicine to save Sobrina's life, owned a big booming restaurant business back home. Her father was gainfully employed - a high ranking officer in the police force. It was a mystery to Sobrina that her mother couldn't afford a little medicine to save her life.

Sobrina traveled back to her parent's few weeks after she was discharged from the hospital, and when she was returning, her parents gave her the money with which to refund Pastor Melvin for the medicine that had saved her life. That, plus two thousand extra for transportation and pocket money as was their custom. The same attitude which had driven Sobrina to find other means of survival as a student for years, driven her to premature independence and self discovery, driven her to squatting with male students in her first and second years in the University, driven her until she lost her innocence and mastered the act of stealing, whoring and until she had learned to stop depending on them.

By now, Sobrina had lost weight excessively and changed in appearance. She had stopped living as she used to - gallivanting from one city to another in search of livelihood, and from one man to another. She lived solely on the little Pastor Melvin could afford to give her, and on the foodstuff she brought from home whenever he allowed her to travel. She had gotten used to going hours without food, she was badly malnourished.

When Pastor Melvin visited her after she returned from her visit home, she gave him the money her parents had asked her to refund him with, and to her amazement, he refused to take it. He asked her to keep the money.

It was the first time in her life a man would be consistently kind to her without wanting something in return. And so Sobrina finally fell helplessly in love with him.