It was 2008. I was twenty years old and in love with a man who promised me heaven on earth. Fynn. He was a fine man and was working in an organization that paid him well above the money he needed as a young man. I think he was thirty years or so. The age difference didn’t matter to me. All I felt for him was love. I was in school but I went to his house every weekend to be with him. Sometimes he will come for me at night in school and we’ll roll through town like Bonnie and Clyde. I was his handbag. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for me and there was no risk I couldn’t take for him. 

I suspected him of cheating when one day I saw a lady’s dress under his bed. It didn’t fall there by accident. From the look of things and how it was well folded, it looked like someone was trying to hide it there. My earring fell down and dashed under the bed. I was looking for the earring when I found the dress. I thought it was for him so I picked it up and it got unfolded. That was when I saw that it was a woman’s dress. The first thought that came to my mind was, “Someone is sharing my man with me. Who could that be? At what time does she come around that I haven’t seen  her?”

“Fynn! Fynn!!”

He was outside doing God knows what. He walked in and immediately when he saw the dress in my hand his face dropped. He asked me, “Where did you find this dress?” I asked him, “Whose dress is this? That’s the question we need to answer.” He started fumbling. He scratched his hair and wiggle his lips. I screamed, “Are you lying to me?” He answered, “No, I’m not lying. My sister came here and she might have left it here. You can call her and ask her.” I didn’t know any of his sisters. I didn’t know a brother or any relative. I’ve heard about them but haven’t met them in person. I looked at his face sternly and said, “The day I catch that woman with you, she’ll see the worse in me, I promise you. What do you need in another woman that I don’t give it to you?”

I was twenty and fierce. At twenty, I’d been through a lot in life that I thought nothing could ever scare me again. My mom died in my hands while my dad had travelled to another town. She was sick. I woke up at dawn and saw her choking. I gave her water. I was told later that it was a bad idea. But what good idea can a thirteen-year-old girl have? She got worse. She started foaming while shaking vibrantly. I got scared and screamed. My brother woke up from the other room. He came to find us on the floor helpless. He ran from door to door and started knocking on the doors of neighbours. By the time they rushed to us, my mom had gone cold in my arms. They took her to the hospital but she didn’t come back home alive.

My dad married another woman a year later and that was when our lives—the lives of me and my brother started falling apart. This is not the story of my family. I will leave them out. I don’t want to tell another story today. This should be my story. 

From there I started living on the benevolence of others. Men who took advantage of me and women who gave me less than they promised. My dad paid my fees until I completed SHS and left it there. He wanted me to learn a trade afterwards but I wanted to go to school by all means. I worked a lot of jobs. My beauty drew in a lot of men who helped along the way but they also took their pound of flesh. So at twenty, I knew a lot of hotels than a girl my age should know. At twenty, I knew a lot of rooms of men than a girl my age should know. I could look at a bed and conclude, “This bed will make noise when we are on it.” Ninety-nine per cent I would be right.

Fynn was the good one. When others used me and discarded me, he came with a dream and a promise of forever. “I want you for life.” “You will be my wife someday and have my kids.” Whoever tried to separate us will end up six feet below before he/she succeeds.” Those words…those words made me feel like a part and a parcel of him. He didn’t just say them. He acted them out. He was the one paying my fees. He was the one giving me a monthly allowance to survive on campus. When I need books, he was the one who bought them. When I needed a place to have my attachment, he held my hand and took me to his office and they took me in. He was mine and I didn’t see anyone coming in between us.

But he changed along the line. He missed my twenty-first birthday. He didn’t even send a text to say happy birthday. He was too busy he forgot. He didn’t visit me in school like he used to. He didn’t pick me up at night. Our Bonnie and Clyde days were over. When I asked for money, he gave it to me but when I asked for his presence, he gave me nothing but excuses. My heart was breaking but I had no one to talk to because he was everything I had. I didn’t even have girlfriends. 

One early Saturday morning, I woke up and decided to go to his house. It was around 6 am when I left campus. The night before that morning he called to tell me he would travel so I won’t see him over the weekend. Something told me he was lying. He didn’t get his act right. When I asked for details about his travelling he fumbled. It looked like he didn’t even know where he was going. I got the drift that he might be lying to me so I set off that morning to go and check if indeed he travelled.

I was far from his compound when I spotted his car outside. I screamed in my head, “I knew it. I knew he was lying to me.” I rushed to the door and turned the door knob. It was locked. I started knocking. I heard his hoarse voice; “Who is that?” I didn’t talk. I kept knocking. I heard his footsteps approaching the door. He was behind the door asking who it was. I said softly, trying to disguise my voice, “It’s me. Your car is burgled.” He quickly opened the door and I stooped through his armpit and entered the room. He was trying to catch me but I was far gone. I screamed, “Who is that girl?” while charging towards the bedroom. He caught me right at the entrance. I looked through the net and saw a woman’s figure in his bed. 

I charged forward but he was retraining me. The woman got up. I saw fear in her eyes. The kind of fear I had in my eyes the night when my mom was dying. I knew I had conquered her. While he was trying to hold me back, I saw the woman dressing up. I pictured her in the dress I saw under the bed and she fit perfectly. He wouldn’t allow me to go in so I was stuck in the hall displaying. When the lady thought she had had enough, she tried to come out to face me and it turned into a fight. She wasn’t fighting. I was the one fighting her. The idea was to disgrace her. I held on to her hair and pulled her outside, we both fell off the little stairs and landed on the floor.

Fynn was trying hard to separate us but my grip was too tight. I tore her cloth and pulled her hair. She was standing there almost naked while trying to cover her breast. The people in the house came in. A woman gave her a cloth to cover up. She was crying. I felt I’d won. She said, “What did I do to you? Do you know me? Ask him if he ever told me that he had a girlfriend. You’re trying to disgrace me? I swear you’ll never know peace in your life for doing this to me. If you don’t suffer the consequences, your kids would.” I charged toward her and I was caught midway. She continued, “Mark it on the wall, you’ll never have kids of your own and if you get them, they’ll be your source of sorrow.”

Those words didn’t get to me. I was bent on fighting the enemy encroaching on my territory. I went back inside when I realized everyone was sympathizing with her. I got my man back only to lose him a year later. I had completed school and living my life. It hurt but I learned to move on. Time did what time does. It was four years later when I got married to the man I’m with now.  He’s a perfect man. He was calm from the beginning. He fell in love with my fierceness and thought I could protect him. We dated for only a year and got married. 

One year later, we had our first child—a boy we named Caleb. Caleb wasn’t a normal child from day one. Something wasn’t right with him but we were assured that everything would be alright. “Babies are not all the same. However they are, they all grow up into beautiful adults,” they said. Nine months later, his neck wasn’t firm. He couldn’t sit and couldn’t say words babies his age were saying. We started going to hospitals with him. At some point, we felt doctors were just doing trial and error so we left the hospital and sought spiritual help. Several herbal baths later, he was still the same. He was a year and a half before he could sit still. Two years later, he wasn’t walking. Babies his age were learning to run but he was still stuck on the ground.

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Our hearts were breaking. At night he won’t sleep. He would make noise all night until the morning comes. Neighbours called him “The child of an owl” because they heard him at night screaming. What was supposed to be our happiness had turned into our sadness and shame but we didn’t give up. We did all we could and gave him the love he deserved from his parents. He walked when he was three. He’s five but can’t talk. He still drools at his age.  

Throughout this phase, the only words that keep echoing in my head are what that girl told me the day we fought. Our child is five. We started trying for another one when he was only one year old. We’ve done everything but nothing is happening. We want another child who will at least give us the confidence that we are capable of having healthy and normal kids but that is not happening. All we had is this one who keeps reminding us that he’s all we got no matter what. We haven’t given up on him. We still seek medical care for him. 

I’ve resorted to prayers but I don’t see the miracle coming. I wake up at dawn and join any prayer happening on TV, radio and even on social media. People talk about their miracles and it keeps me wondering when I’m going to get mine. Sometimes I want to believe is the girl’s curse that’s working but the spirit of God in me says, “There’s nothing more powerful than God so you’ll be alright.” 

My desperation pushed me to look out for Fynn. He was surprised when I contacted him. I asked, “Where’s that girl I fought when we were together?” He answered, “The girl you beat up?” He laughed but I was too serious to laugh along. He said, “She left after the fight and never came back again. Honestly, I don’t know where she is.” I told him, “Please look for her for me. I owe her an apology. Her curse is working.”

That was almost a year ago. It looks like he also didn’t know much about the girl. She was just someone he was having fun with. He doesn’t know any family or even a friend of hers. Her number goes to another person. So he keeps searching. I don’t know but there’s this thinly veiled faith in my heart that when I see her and make peace with her, everything would be alright. I’m on a search for her. Please if you’re here reading this, kindly look out for me. I’ve left my contact with Silent Beads. Please get in touch, I’m desperate. 

—Sel

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