I live with my parents. When our relationship started, I told her about it, and she didn’t have a problem with that. She also lived with her parents and a seven-year-old girl she said was her sister’s daughter. My parents didn’t have any problem with me bringing my girlfriend home as long as they knew about it.

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So I took her home, introduced her to my parents, and told them she was the lady I was dating. From that day, she visited very often, anytime she wanted. The reception from my parents was always warm. But she had one problem. She had a problem with where my room was located in the house. You have to walk through the hall before getting to my room.

Most often, she would walk in while my parents were seated and watching TV. She didn’t like it. She felt awkward. It made her feel as though she was disrespecting my parents and also made her feel guilty. She said my parents were judging her anytime she entered my room. So it became very difficult for her to visit.

Where her room was located in her house was very convenient. It was an outhouse, about a metre from the main house where her parents lived. I could enter freely, and her parents wouldn’t know. She only had to make sure her parents weren’t in the hall or standing where they could see through the window.

So before I entered her room at night, she would check around and give me the all-clear. If her parents were somewhere they could see me, I had to wait until they had gone back inside. For several months, I went to her house, sometimes even spent the night there, and left at dawn.

When the relationship started getting serious, I begged her to introduce me to her parents, even if I had to sneak in. She said she wanted to be very sure about us before doing that.

“I don’t want to take you to them, and tomorrow we’re no longer together.”

I agreed with her, but I was very optimistic that our relationship was going somewhere and needed her to act, especially since I had already introduced her to my parents.

A year passed us by silently. Her parents still didn’t know me. She still wasn’t sure about us. She told me, “I want to introduce you today, and tomorrow we’re getting married. So if you’re ready for marriage, then let’s go.”

I applied the brakes and decided to put one or two things together so that when I met them, I would perform the knocking rite.

She fell sick. For a while, I didn’t see her. Finally, she agreed for me to visit her at home. When I got there, I met her mum and the little girl sitting outside. I greeted them and asked to see Maabena.

Her mum asked if Maabena knew I was coming, and I said yes.

She told the little girl, “Go and tell your mother that someone is looking for her.”

The girl ran as quickly as she could, called her, and came out with her. When the little girl wanted to linger around, my girlfriend asked her to leave, and she did.

I asked her, “Your mum asked her to go and call her mother. Why does your mum call you her mother?”

She retorted, “Isn’t she my daughter? My elder sister’s daughter is what to me?”

I nodded.

The visit was short. Her dad passed by. She introduced me as a friend, someone she worked with. Her dad nodded and shook my hand.

When she got better, we resumed our hide-and-seek. One early morning, I was sneaking out of her place after spending the night there, not knowing her mother was watching through the window and had seen me leaving.

She screamed, “Abrantiɛ, what do you want here? Where are you coming from so early this morning?”

I quickened my steps, trying to get to the gate and rush out. She kept screaming, so out of respect, I stopped. She walked out of the house and came to stand next to me.

She asked, “Are you coming from my daughter’s room?”

I stood motionless, not knowing whether to tell the truth or lie.

She screamed, “Maabena! So you’ve started harbouring men in your room again, right? This is what you did that gave you a daughter who doesn’t have a father. You’ve started again, right? Abrantɛ, I said, where are you coming from?”

My girlfriend came out. Her dad followed. I stood with my hands behind my back like a humble thief who had been caught in the act.

Her dad said, “Aren’t you the guy who came to visit when she was sick?”

I nodded.

Her mum screamed, “I knew it. You want to give her another child? Are you ready to marry her?”

I was so confused and ashamed at the same time. We are not kids, so on a normal day this shouldn’t have been a problem. I told them we had been dating for a while and that I had only come to visit. I also told them I didn’t know the little girl was her daughter.

She stood there with her finger on her lips, unable to say a word. Her dad walked away, called his wife, and asked her to leave us alone.

When it was just the two of us, I looked deep into her eyes and asked, “Why did you lie?”

She walked away.

I loved her so much that I wouldn’t have minded if she had told me the truth right from the start. She said she loved me too and didn’t want to lose me. That was why she lied.

I asked, “What else don’t I know about you?”

She apologised and begged me not to leave her. I asked questions about her daughter. I asked who the father was and where he was. She said she was going to talk about it later when the dust settled.

It’s been months. I still want to continue the relationship and possibly marry her in a year, but to date, she still hasn’t mentioned the girl’s father’s name to me except to say, “I don’t know his whereabouts.”

Her parents, after seven years, don’t know the man who got her pregnant. She was only twenty-one when she gave birth and has managed to keep the man’s identity a secret until now. Even when I said marriage couldn’t happen if I didn’t know who the man was, she still didn’t mention his name or explain his current situation.

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That’s where the problem is now. I love her. She tells me to forget about the past and let’s make a new beginning, but I can’t let something this huge go and pretend it didn’t happen. It makes me feel like my back is exposed.

But in her defence, she says that if I want our relationship to work, what’s ahead is what’s important, not what’s in the past.

I’m asking here, isn’t this a big issue we ought to address before we take any step forward? Isn’t it important for me to know who the man is before any permanent decision is made?

—Emmanuel 

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