My husband had a child with a lady before we met. They were not married. They were dating when she got pregnant. The child was only a few months old when he died, and not long after that, his relationship with the child’s mother also ended terribly.

Several months later, I came into the picture.

I loved him very much right from the start, but it got to a point where he became very nonchalant about our relationship. He didn’t make plans for us and didn’t care what happened in our relationship. When I complained, he told me I was overthinking the situation. That should have been my first sign not to carry the relationship beyond where we were but I relied heavily on the love I had for him and married him.

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Three years later, and we didn’t have a child. Anytime I saw my period, it was like I’d received a letter announcing the death of someone dear to me. I felt something was wrong with us, so I told my husband we needed help.

He asked, “You and who? Have you forgotten I had a child before you came into the picture?”

He said the problem wasn’t from him, so I should look for the solution myself. But wherever I went, they asked about him. I asked him in a very candid conversation if he wasn’t worried about our childlessness, and he said, “A child will come, if only you resolve your problem.”

I was under huge pressure, even from my own parents. I was going on thirty-five and still had no sign of a baby. I changed hospitals. Once you told me there was a better place, you would see me there the next day.

So I met Andrews, the only doctor who listened to my problem and related to me like a friend. He asked me to call my husband, and I did. He took his time to explain to him why he ought to visit with me.

“Your wife is fine. You have to come so we can see your condition too. Maybe there’s something we can do to help.”

My husband gave him the history of how he had had a child before and how the baby died a few months before he met me, and concluded, “If she’s fine, send her home. We’ll have a child in God’s time.”

Andrews gave me his card and told me he had a private clinic, so I should call and visit him there. I visited twice every week. We became friends, and then passion grew between us. The first time happened in his office before we took the rest outside to places where there was darkness and loneliness.

Just five months after having an affair with him, I got pregnant. He said, “You see, the problem is not you. He’s the problem.”

And then he asked me if I was going to keep it. I asked him if he was one hundred percent sure the pregnancy was his.

“Because I do it with him too. What if he’s the one who miraculously got me pregnant?”

He said he didn’t mind if I decided to keep it. It was a gift he would gladly give.

“And you won’t make noise about it someday?” I asked him.

He answered, “I’m worried you would be the one to make noise about it.”

When I told my husband I was pregnant, he said, “You’ve wasted your money and worries for nothing. This is the God’s time I was talking about.”

Very straightforward, without joy or any sort of emotion. The smile on my face faded. He switched to being nonchalant again. My complaints of pain didn’t bother him. I begged him to visit the hospital with me, and he gave me a thousand reasons not to.

Andrews would call, even when I asked him to stop calling me. He would ask what I was doing and if the baby was healthy. And then he would send money.

I said, “Is this your way of making noise about my pregnancy? Are you claiming us?”

I was scared when I was in the labour ward to deliver. It was a boy, and I was scared he might resemble Andrews and the truth would be obvious. My husband wasn’t with me even when I’d pleaded with him to be with me. He brought me to the hospital, called my mom to come over, and went back home.

I woke up to see my baby next to me. My mom said, “Eiii, a boy, and you resemble your mom like that? Look at his eyes and nose.”

I breathed in, turned, and looked at him. I didn’t see what my mom was talking about. I told her to take me home with her when I was discharged.

When my husband came to visit and I told him I was leaving with my mom. He added, “I was even thinking about it. It would be best that way. She can take care of you better.”

His first child after four years of marriage, and he was still nonchalant about it. The day I went back to my room at my parents’ house, I told myself that I’d come back to where it all started and would never go back to that marriage again. It was like a certain light flickered in me and birthed that realisation.

Andrews called. He asked for a DNA test to be sure. I told him I didn’t need that assurance for anything, as far as I was the one who carried him for nine months. He begged me. I kept saying no to him because I was also scared of the answer we would get.

The baby was four months old when we did the DNA test. It wasn’t his. He looked disappointed but I felt relieved.

For four months, I could count the number of times my husband had visited me at my mom’s place. I told my mom that I wanted a divorce. She screamed, “Hey, you can’t say that. Divorce in my house? No. What do you want the ghost of your father to say? That I watched you get a divorce? Never.”

I narrated all the troubles to her and asked her how many times she’d seen my husband around. He hadn’t even sent money to buy diapers. My mom still defended him.

When the baby was six months old, he visited, and I hadn’t returned from work. He didn’t call. He didn’t wait for me. He told my mom to tell me he had visited and then left. When I called, I told him I needed a divorce. He asked why. I listed everything that had gone wrong and then added that I had cheated on him because of that.

He asked, “So you mean the baby isn’t mine?”

I answered, “You can find out for yourself.”

Is There A Man Out There Who Doesn’t Cheat?

He said I was lying about the cheating to get a divorce. I didn’t argue. I still stuck to my guns that this wasn’t the kind of marriage I anticipated when I agreed to marry him. Even when he was trying to get me to stay in the marriage, he still acted nonchalant.

Our baby is four years old now. We finally got the divorce a few months ago. We are not enemies. We’ve agreed on how we are going to co-parent the child.

Andrews is in the shadows, asking to marry me. He has even told my mom to talk to me, and my mom has been on me since, telling me God is giving me unmerited grace to marry again.

I smile. Of course, she doesn’t know what God and I know, so she can call it grace.

Not Andrews. Not in this life or the other one.

—Joan

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