We lived in a compound house where everybody knew what everybody else cooked for supper. I was happy in my marriage. On Saturdays, my husband, Mark, washed clothes with me. He carried the basin outside, rinsed the children’s uniforms and hung them on the line. When they dried, he collected and folded them. If it was my turn to sweep the compound or scrub the bathroom, he either helped or did it himself.

People noticed. Others said I must have used juju on him. The older women were particularly offended when they saw him washing. A few called him aside to advise him to stop. Some of the men complained that he was making them look bad in front of their wives.

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My husband didn’t listen. He continued to help.

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One day, I washed his clothes, and he hung them on the drying line. Later in the afternoon, when I checked, there was an empty space in the middle of the line, indicating that a shirt had been removed already. I thought my husband had removed it. A few hours later, when I went back to remove the clothes from the line, I realised the space had been filled. There was a black shirt there. I still felt maybe it was my mind deceiving me.

My marriage turned on its head after that day. My husband became easily agitated and shouted at me and even at the kids over the least mistake. He stopped helping around and stopped giving us money. When I complained, this man threatened to beat me. Sometimes, it was funny, so I tried to laugh until he held me by the neck one day and said, “Laugh again, let me see. Go ahead.”

His fingers tightened until I couldn’t breathe properly. When he finally released me, I sat on the floor, coughing. I called his dad and told him. He didn’t believe me. He asked what I had done for his son to go that far.

He came from work one day, and food was not ready. He didn’t give me money for food, yet he was angry that the food was not ready. I asked him, “What money did you give me that you’re angry food isn’t ready?”

My husband reached for the pot on the stove and kicked the soup off. He pushed me out of the kitchen while screaming, “What kind of nonsense question is that? Then stop cooking.”

Our beautiful marriage turned into an embarrassment. No one in the compound house could believe what was happening. There was an old woman in the house called Aunt Adwoa. One day, while we were fighting and shouting, she came to knock on our door.

“Mark, stop that,” she screamed. “Stop treating your wife like your enemy. What has come over you?”

My husband turned the fight on this woman, nearly beating her. He shoved her off and told her to focus on the issues in her own house and leave his alone. After things calmed down, this woman called me and said, “Who your husband has become within this short period is not normal. I suspect something. If you can pray, pray hard. If you know how to speak to the soil, then ask questions.”

I had always thought about that, but it also felt strange anytime I thought about it. I prayed and fasted. Nothing happened. My husband even started drinking. He would come home drunk and cause a fight. My kids were miserable. They were always running away from him.

One evening, after a fight that brought everyone in the compound to our part of the house, I packed my things and left with the children. To me, the marriage was over. I had tolerated abuse for over two years. I was tired.

When I got home, my mom welcomed me. She said she had been thinking about me and knew a day like this would come when I would run home. She said, “Never go back to that house again unless he decides to rent another place. Whatever was happening came from that house.”

It took my husband over a month to come looking for us. He begged us to go with him. He said he didn’t know what had come over him. He was almost crying. He didn’t look like the tiger who had been terrorising us for months. My mom told him, “If you want your wife, then leave that house. Your problem comes from that house.”

So my mom didn’t agree for us to follow him. One day, my husband came to see us and said he wouldn’t go back until we followed him. He stayed with us for over three weeks. He was sweet, funny, and helpful, just like he used to be. I begged him that we should leave that house. I had money saved. I told him we should rent a new place, and he agreed.

The day we went back to pack our things, Aunt Adwoa called me aside and said, “It’s in the shirt he wears. The person used a shirt. I know who did it, but listen to me. For this to end, don’t let him wear anything from this house.”

Then it hit me. That very day when the shirt disappeared and came back on the drying line.

I didn’t remember that particular shirt, but my husband didn’t have a lot of shirts, so it was easy. While packing, I packed those ones separately and burnt them when I had the chance.

My husband had never been violent again.

One year later, Florence ran mad. Florence was one of the co-tenants. Her room was directly adjacent to ours. We were hardly friendly with each other. She would greet me, and I would respond, and that would be all for the day. She wasn’t even married.

When she ran mad, I heard about it, but I didn’t think much of it until I met Aunt Adwoa one day at the market and she told me everything. She said, “Florence is now suffering the consequences. She did it, and she will not get better until she confesses.”

I was shocked. “Florence? No, it can’t be true. What did I do to her?”

I asked if there was something I could do to help Florence, and she said, “You’re a fool. If you want to die, then try it.”

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The day I told my husband everything, he was shocked. He told me that when I left the house, it was Florence who cooked for him and sometimes washed for him. He only had to stop her because the house started talking.

If I didn’t believe in spiritual issues before, the story of my marriage made me realise there was another world out there. Today, people call me superstitious, and I tell them, “It’s because I know what I’ve been through.”

I leave my clothes on the drying line and watch them until they dry. You get close to my things, and I will bark at you. They say I’m going crazy, but anyone in my shoes would go crazy too.

—Anita  

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