I’m always the last person to know when someone is pregnant. It took me months before I realized I was pregnant with my own child. My mom has this gift. You can get pregnant today, and tomorrow she will look at you and tell you you’re pregnant.

She came to visit to attend a funeral in town. The very moment she set eyes on the house help, she asked me if I knew the house help was pregnant. I said no. She told me to speak to her because she suspected she was pregnant.

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I didn’t want to take my mom’s word for it. I started observing her myself. She was on the phone all day talking to someone. She seemed dull most of the day. I told my husband, “Do you also notice changes in Adobea? My mom thinks she’s pregnant.” My husband asked how my mom knew. “Did she speak to her and she confirmed she was pregnant?”

I answered no and told him about my mom’s special gift. I told him I was going to monitor her for a while and see if it was true. The next morning, when Adobea passed through the hall, my husband shouted, “Adobea, are you pregnant?” She replied, “Ei, me? How can I be pregnant? Please, I’m not. By who? No, I’m not.”

My husband turned to look at me. I frowned. He said, “We have to ask instead of keeping quiet. None of us is a doctor.” I was happy she wasn’t pregnant because I was the one who had brought her to live with us. She had come to Accra to learn fashion design. She had saved some money and enrolled with a seamstress nearby. A few months later, the owner of the shop said she wasn’t making enough money and would be closing the business.

Adobea was left stranded, and through a recommendation from a friend, I brought her into our home to help us and earn a salary. She was very hardworking. I liked her very much, and my husband liked her too. Just two months after she started working with us, my husband increased her salary.

We were even thinking of enrolling her in a proper fashion school, but our little girl—the reason we had employed her—hadn’t started school yet. So we decided we would enroll Adobea once our daughter started school.

She denied being pregnant, but because I trusted my mom’s judgment, I sat her down and spoke to her woman to woman. I asked if she wanted to have the baby. She laughed. “Auntie, I’m not pregnant ooo. I’m fine.”

I said, “No problem. I’ll buy a pregnancy test kit when I’m coming back from town today. You’ll use it, and we’ll see whether you’re really not pregnant.” So she confessed that she was pregnant and intended to keep the baby. She was only twenty-three. She didn’t have money or even a place of her own to stay.

I asked about the man responsible, and she told me she wasn’t sure. I asked, “How many men are there that you’re not sure?” Tears started rolling down her cheeks. I told her that if she was willing to keep the baby, then she should take me to the man responsible so I could have a conversation with him.

When my husband came home, I told him my mom had been right. “Adobea has indeed confessed that she’s pregnant.” The first question my husband asked was, “Who’s responsible? Did she tell you?”

Early the next morning, I saw both of them talking in the hall. My husband said he was just asking her questions. I said, “This is a woman’s issue. Why are you so interested in it?”

Later that day, I asked Adobea to open up to me about the two men. She said one was her boyfriend, but the other one had raped her. “Where? When did that happen? Why didn’t you tell me? Is it one of the guys around here?” She burst into tears, and that ended the conversation.

I went to work on Friday. When I came back, I found her asleep while my daughter was lying next to her. I had to hold her and shake her for several seconds before she woke up. “You left the door open and you’re sleeping? What’s wrong with you?” She looked dazed and confused. She walked to her room, and I noticed a bloodstain on the sheet she had been lying on.

I quickly followed her. “What’s wrong with you? You stained the sheet. Are you bleeding?” She told me she had gone to the hospital to get it done. That didn’t sit well with me. If she had gone to the hospital, who had she left my daughter with? She said she had gone with my daughter and that one of the nurses had helped look after her.

Her story wasn’t consistent. It felt as though she was hiding something from me. I took her phone and checked the call log. The most recent calls were with my husband. My husband had called her first, and the call had lasted four minutes. Hours later, she had called him, and that call had lasted almost two minutes. Then, a few hours later, my husband called her again.

What could they possibly have been talking about?

I called my husband. “Have you spoken to Adobea today?” He asked why I was asking him that question, and I told him I had been trying to reach her for hours, but she hadn’t answered my calls. He said he hadn’t called her, but he was also going to try and see if she would answer.

He called her, and I picked up the call instead. “Herh, are you still not home? Why aren’t you answering your madam’s calls?” I ended the call and went to Adobea. I pleaded with her to tell me the whole truth.

She said it was my husband who had given her the money to go to the hospital and had also shown her where to go. I asked, “Was he the one who raped you?” She replied, “Auntie, no. Ei, how is that possible? He didn’t do anything. He gave me the money because he said I’m too young. No, Madam, he didn’t do anything.”

I felt she was lying. The fact that she kept overexplaining herself said more than she intended. My husband admitted that he had given her the money, but only out of kindness and nothing more. I asked him why he hadn’t spoken to me about it first, and he started fumbling. So I accused him of being the one who had raped Adobea, and he nearly hit me.

“How can you say such a crazy thing? All because I helped her? What do you take me for?”

For weeks, I’ve been pleading with Adobea to tell me the truth. I’ve assured her by heaven and earth that I wouldn’t hurt her if she confessed. I can see the truth in her eyes, but her lips refuse to speak it.

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My husband is still acting offended because I accused him wrongly and, in his words, lowered him to the level of sleeping with a mere house help. His theatrics don’t bother me. The fact that he’s insisting on sacking Adobea from our house reveals more than he’s trying to hide.

I’ll get to the bottom of this, and he knows what I’ll do when I find out the truth. That’s why he’s guarding it with all his might. But the truth is mighty. No one can fight against it and win. The right time will come. Or you think I’m simply overthinking all this?

—Josina 

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