I lived close to his mother, who had been living alone since her husband died. I’m in the same church as his mother and usually went to church with her and came back with her. When she needed help with anything, I was the one she called. In the evenings, when I didn’t have anything to do, I could go to her house and keep her company.

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She always talked about her son in Accra and said, “Look at a good woman like you here. By now, Yaw is in Accra following women who were not raised well like you were.”

When time allowed, she showed me her son’s photos. I liked him when I saw him. I even told myself a man like him wouldn’t be alone because ladies would be all over him. Then one day, I was with her when her son called. After talking to him for a while, she told him, “There’s a new friend I’ve made here, just the kind of woman you’ll like. Talk to her.”

It was an on-the-spot kind of thing, but I took the phone and we started talking. He asked my name and what I did for a living. He said his mom had said good things about me and thanked me for keeping her company. I also said good things about him, and then the conversation ended.

Weeks later, his mother said, “The way my son has been asking about you, I think I should give you his number to call him so he will stop asking me about you.”

I took the number, but I never called. I didn’t even save it. She also didn’t ask if I had called or not. One day, this unknown number called. I asked who it was, and he mentioned his name as “Yaw.”

“Oh, Yaw, Aunty Cece’s son?”
“Yeah. If I didn’t call you today, my mom would have disowned me, so here we are.”

We talked for a few minutes, and I promised I would also call him just to keep his mother happy. People you talk to often slowly become people you love because one day you’ll talk to them and won’t want to put the phone down. We talked early mornings and late nights. He said he would come to visit because of me so he could see me.

He came during the Christmas holidays, when the town was busy with both church activities and entertainment. We went out on Friday night, and he had quite a lot to drink. I don’t drink alcohol, so I sat and watched him make himself happy. But we talked deep into the night, got home, and sat outside talking. When I entered my room, it was already 1 a.m.

The next day was no different. That day, he proposed. He said, “If my mom thinks you’re a good woman, then she can’t be wrong.” I was so sure I loved him too, and in my mind, we had already started building a life together. I accepted his proposal and made plans to visit him in Accra.

We didn’t say anything to his mom, but somehow she got the hint and concluded the two of us were up to something. She advised me to stay true, while she advised her son not to mess me up.

We talked on the phone every day when he returned to Accra. For two months, not a single day passed without us talking. The passion between us went through the roof. He wanted me to be with him in Accra, and I wanted the same, but our work schedules made it difficult.

On his birthday in March, he begged me not to disappoint him. He wanted to be with me and take me to places in Accra that would make me happy. So a day before his birthday, on a Friday evening, I packed a few things and left to see him in Accra.

Indeed, he showed me what Accra was. He drove me around until I could no longer remember where we were. At night, when we settled, we had sex. I was happy doing it, and the way he was into it made me believe he was happy too. The next day, we continued—it was like the only thing we could do. When his mom called, he asked me to be quiet so she wouldn’t know I was with him.

We were young and in love—or so we thought. We decided to keep it from her until something more concrete developed. I came back home on Sunday, and the first crack in our relationship began to show. He stopped calling. I was the only one calling. Our calls didn’t last more than two minutes. It was a struggle to even get past one minute.

He said all was well, and I believed him until it got worse and worse. I couldn’t explain his behavior. He wouldn’t say anything about it. I asked if I had said or done something wrong while I was with him. He maintained that it wasn’t about me but about him and what was going on in his life.

It got to a point where I also stopped calling, waiting to see if he would call. We went three days without speaking until he texted to check up on me. I asked, “Yaw, please tell me the truth. I’m not a child. Whatever it is, I will handle it.”

He asked, “Can I be honest with you and not break your spirit?”
I answered, “Just go deep with the truth, and I will be fine.”

So he told me the truth. According to him, I had exceeded his expectations during intimacy. He said the way his mom praised me, he thought I was a novice who didn’t know anything, so he was the one coming to “train” me, only for me to show up and make him feel like he didn’t know much. “It didn’t feel like you hadn’t done it in a long time like you said. I’m sorry, but that’s how I felt. Are you sure you don’t have a boyfriend? My mom might not know, but you can tell me.”

I asked, “Is that all?”
He answered, “I’m sorry if I didn’t say it right, but… but… hmm.”

I said, “That’s fine. So what are you saying, is it over?”
He replied, “That’s not what I’m saying, but don’t worry, we will talk.”

He never called again, and I didn’t call again for weeks. I had moved on, but his mother would see me and ask how things were going and if we were still in touch. I wished I could look her in the eyes and tell her that her son was an asshole, but Aunty Cece is a good woman. She didn’t need to hear that about her son, and she also didn’t send me to go and exceed expectations, so I kept quiet.

So yes, the relationship came to an end because I showed up fully. Women like me can’t be marriage material because how dare I show him more than he anticipated?

And then he started calling again, saying he had missed me and wanted me to visit him—after we hadn’t spoken for God knows how long. I asked him, “Visit you as what?”
He answered, “Are you not my girlfriend again?”

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I laughed. “You abandon a woman for weeks, show up, and claim her again?”

To me, we are over for good, but he started using his mom again to reach me. He tells her I don’t pick up his calls anymore, so Aunty Cece should advise me. That woman, may God bless her soul, she just doesn’t know her son. I do, and I don’t think he’s good for me. The sad thing is, I can’t tell her why, so I keep telling her that Yaw is lying, we do talk.

—Mansa  

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