We got a housemaid when my kids started school and had to be picked up early. She was Annette, a lady a friend recommended to me. She had been selling food by the roadside and worked very hard for her sustenance. That was what I liked about her. She had also attended SHS and could read very well.

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When I brought her home, my husband didn’t like her. He said she was too young and didn’t look refined. We were desperate. I was overworking myself to death trying to send the kids to school and bring them back home. I told him, “Let’s manage with her until we are able to secure someone permanent.”

But within a week, Annette proved to all of us that she could manage the home even better than we could. She did everything apart from cooking, which I told her I would handle, but after spending a few weeks with her in the kitchen, she took it from me. We would come home and meet dinner well served. The kids would be comfortable and their homework done.

I increased her salary and bought gifts for her every month. I would give her salary plus a dress, shoes, or something she would love. When her phone got spoilt, I bought a new one for her. And because she was comfortable, she started growing nicely. She talked about going back to school, and I was ready to support her.

Because of her, I could travel without worrying about how my home would be kept. She was capable, and my kids trusted her very well.

Two years after living with us, she woke up one day and said she was leaving. I thought I had done something wrong or my husband had said something to her. My husband didn’t engage her often, but that day even he begged her to stay. She insisted there was something she had to do, a dream she had to pursue.

I took her out, bought her new clothes, and asked her what she wanted so I could get it for her. I was seeing her off nicely so that one day, if she changed her mind, she could come back. I drove her to the station to pick a car. We waved goodbye, and she left. I found myself crying on my way back home. “It’s going to be hard,” I told myself. “It will be hard to find someone like Annette.”

A year later, the woman through whom I found Annette contacted me and told me Annette had given birth. I was surprised but not shocked. I told my husband about it, and he said, “So she left to pursue marriage? Why are ladies like that?”

I didn’t know for a fact that she left for that reason. I texted her and congratulated her. She asked me how I knew, and I told her it was a small world. She sent a voice note thanking me and said she had missed working with me. I told her she could come for a visit.

Several weeks after that chat, I was scrolling through my WhatsApp messages when I saw her chat. Her profile photo caught my attention, so I tapped on it to enlarge it. She was in my morning coat, sitting on my bed. The way she had posed, it looked like someone had taken the photo. I looked closely and, to my shock, there were toes appearing at the edge of the photo.

It set my mind ablaze and my emotions on fire. I didn’t need anyone to tell me those toes belonged to my husband. I had dated him for over four years before we got married nine years ago. You could cover my husband in a thick shroud, and I would still be able to identify him.

I started my own investigation, and the first clue I found was mobile money. My husband had sent money to Annette only a week ago. I checked his phone, but there were no messages between them. I checked his call log, and they had spoken five days ago.

Everything was shaping up for heartbreak, and I was ready for it. A few days later, I quickly checked his phone before he could delete anything. Annette was asking him when he was going to visit because he hadn’t visited them the previous month. My husband had responded that he wasn’t sure but would ensure to visit during his next trip.

I wanted to wait and catch them red-handed, but the pounding of my heart and the noise in my head wouldn’t let me wait. He had returned from work and was eating when I calmly started narrating my findings. He stopped eating and listened. He asked, “Who is feeding you with all these folktales?”

One after the other, I brought out my evidence—the photo with his toes, the mobile money transactions, the call logs, and the message he didn’t delete. He got up and walked out of the room. I followed him.

“KB, this is a girl you wanted me to push out of this house the very day she stepped foot here, so what changed?” I asked. He kept walking away from me. “You didn’t even want to talk to her because you found her disgusting, so what changed?”

He kept moving, picked up his shirt, and turned to walk outside. “You even put her in my dress. You wanted her to look like me so it would be easier? Shameless man, you had to do it with her in my bed.”

He had no answers to any of the questions.

I called the woman through whom I found Annette and told her everything. She screamed endlessly. She said she would take me to Annette’s house so I could confront her. I told her, “Oh, it’s not her fault. Who knows what my husband told her to get her? He might have even used threats. Leave her alone.”

Families sat down on the issue, and his father suggested that we should bring in the child to live with us so his son wouldn’t have any reason to contact the lady again. I thought he had sense until he said that. I didn’t want to disrespect him, but I asked if he would say the same thing if it were his daughter. He answered, “I’m only trying to bring peace.”

It’s Not God’s Law For A Man To Apologize To A Woman

We are in court fighting it out. He doesn’t want to sign the divorce. He’s thinking about the properties we’ve built together. He’s scared I will get the better part of everything. To me, it’s not about what we’ve built together or what I will get, but knowing that it hurts him to lose those things, I’m insisting on getting them. By the time this is done, he will have to start life afresh. There will be nothing left in his name, and I’ve told him exactly that.

—Nancy 

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