I was in Kumasi while dating him. He lived in Accra. We had met years ago through a friend but didn’t build a relationship until we met again online and started talking. He said he was looking for someone like me, and I told him someone like me didn’t have a job, so I would like to find a job before I entered into anything serious.

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He was helpful, I must admit. He sent my CVs to places I couldn’t go, and out of that I had some interviews. When I came to Accra to do an interview, I spent the night with him and left after the interview. He was nice, very helpful, and very thoughtful. Anytime I was leaving, he told me he couldn’t wait for the day the two of us would be together.

One day I got an interview that turned into a job. I was very happy. When I called him on the phone, I was screaming like my head didn’t exist. “I got a job in Accra!” I screamed through the phone. He also screamed along, and soon it was a shouting crusade.

Then the truth finally dawned on me that I didn’t have the money to relocate to Accra. I didn’t even have any relative in Accra to accommodate me for a few months. So eventually, I agreed to move in with him and start the job, save enough money, and find a place of my own.

I came to Accra and the job wasn’t anything like I expected it to be. The salary was small, but I tried to manage until I found a new place. Aside from that, the salary didn’t come at the end of the month. When the month ended, the boss would disappear and later come with excuses. I worked for four months and I had been paid for only one month.

I couldn’t do it anymore, so I decided to resign and dedicate all my time to finding a new job. I thought it was going to be easy, but time and tide proved that Accra is not a place you stay and dream. There was a lot of pressure on me to get a job because my boyfriend had grown to resent me.

He stopped giving me money. I didn’t complain. I would call my mom and ask her to send me something. She always told me to come back home if things didn’t work out, but going back home felt like failing to me, so I told her I would make it and make her proud.

My boyfriend came home one late night with a pizza. I was sleeping, but I could smell the pizza through my hunger, yet he didn’t give me any. In the morning, when he left, I ate the two pieces he left in the box. I was so hungry I didn’t think twice about it.

He came home and asked for his pizza, and I said I had eaten it. He threw me out of the room to go and buy his pizza for him. I knocked and begged. He didn’t open the door until morning, when he came out to see me seated in front of the door. I entered and quickly went to the bathroom to take my shower.

He entered the bathroom trying to have sex with me. “You threw me out because of pieces of pizza and now you want to sleep with me? Never.” I fought him until he left the bathroom. When I stepped out, he was there holding a belt and started hitting me with it. “Stupid woman, leave my house. Who takes care of you here? Do you pay for light? Do you pay for water? And you want to deny me what belongs to me?”

He said all that while hitting me with the belt. He left marks on my skin, my heart, and my mind. I had a home in Kumasi, so why should I stay with a man and suffer? Finally, I called my mom and told her I was coming back home. I couldn’t go with the marks on my skin, so I stayed a few more days and, while he was out, I packed my things and left.

He didn’t call to ask where I was but his call came in a shocking different way. Just a week after I had returned to Kumasi, I realized I hadn’t seen my period. I looked up to the heavens and smiled. “God, please, not what I’m suspecting. I beg you.”

I didn’t hear God’s voice, but the sun’s rays were calming, assuring me everything was fine. I checked and I was pregnant. My mom came to see me on the floor crying. She asked what the matter was. She thought I was still brooding over my unemployed situation. She said I should stay calm and another job would come. “I’m pregnant. That’s the news,” I told her

She asked, “Have you talked to the father about it and he wouldn’t accept it?” I told her my story and what I survived in Accra at the hands of that guy. She screamed, “And you didn’t tell me any of this? I thought you said you were living with a female friend.”

One thing I love about my mom: she has been through a lot, so she hardly judges anyone. My dad died when she was pregnant with me. My brother’s father didn’t accept responsibility. She met another man and got pregnant for him. That man accepted the pregnancy, but later the child died, and the man also disappeared. She stayed single to take care of me and my brother.

She told me, “I did it alone twice and I didn’t die. You’ll survive.”

I gave birth to a girl who looked like me. My mom asked if I was ever going to tell my ex that I had his baby. I answered, “I’m happy that you don’t know him. I would have been scared that one day you’d tell him. Now I’m safe in my conviction that he’ll never ever know about it because I’m not the one to tell him.”

My daughter was learning to walk when I got another job in Accra. This one was better. My mom again did everything she could to raise money for me to rent a small place. I left my daughter with her and came to Accra.  Two years later, I got a new place and went for my daughter.

Seven years later, life is better. I’ve changed jobs to a better one. I have a piece of land I’m building on. I bought a car last year and my daughter is in a better school close to my workplace. A few days ago, I bumped into my ex.

He didn’t even see me, but I called him and he ran to the car as if his savior was calling. Immediately he saw my face, he screamed, “Yaa Rose, I thought you left Accra long ago. You’re still here?”

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We talked like friends and laughed like long-lost friends, as if he wasn’t the one who beat me while I was pregnant. As if he wasn’t the one who made me sleep outside his door because I ate pieces of his pizza. In that moment, nothing mattered. He said he had a wife. I said, “Yeah, I can see from your finger. Congratulations.”

Before I drove away, I looked at him one last time and breathed in so deeply. Tears started falling while he walked away from me. I drove away telling myself, “He’ll never know the amazing child he gave me. It’s his loss. I’ll keep all that love and more to myself. He’ll never know.”

—Yaa Rose

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