I used to call her “Madam Kathy” until she asked me to drop the madam and stick to the Kathy. It’s a Ghanaian thing to accord elders with some respect when you’re calling their names. The age gap between me and Kathy is eight years and she is also my superior at work. As time went on, she became a friend, the only colleague who talked to me after work.

She would like to know what I was doing during the weekend. In the night, she would be on the phone with me, texting and asking questions. I never for once thought about a relationship because Kathy was married and looked happy in her marriage, except, as she told me, her husband was always travelling, leaving her and their two kids to manage through life alone.

One day we talked about relationships. I told her I was single. She screamed, “At your age? No, you need a girlfriend. If you don’t find one, I’ll force one on you.”

We laughed over it as if it was a joke but the days ahead proved that she wasn’t joking. She would point to a lady in the banking hall and wink at me. I would wink back and we would both laugh. When the lady comes to my desk, Kathy would text, “That could be your last chance. She’s a catch. Take her number.”

One day she collected a lady’s number for me but I never called the lady. A month later when I told her I didn’t call, she said, “Tell me the truth. You’re not into women, right?”

The way she said it and the seriousness attached, I burst out laughing. “How could you say such a thing? I love women but I’m not ready. The last one I had did me dirty so I’m taking my time.”

Telling her about my previous relationship opened up the line for us to discuss our past. On a night when she couldn’t sleep, she called me on the phone and we talked the whole night. She told me about a man she should have married but didn’t have the patience to wait. She spoke about their good days and the day everything went wrong. She told me, “I regret a lot because it was my fault we didn’t happen. He was serious about me but I thought he was lying to me.”

I tried being motivational. I told her, “Things shaped up well for your good in the end. See where you landed, a husband and a beautiful family. You can’t complain.”

“A beautiful family you say? I can’t tell you everything but beauty and my life are worlds apart.”

That was the first hint that things were not as good as I thought. Yeah, talking to her every night and day made me ask myself a lot of questions. Like, “Where’s her husband that she’s always on the phone with me? Wouldn’t he be jealous or angry if he found out?”

I asked those questions but then, I found Kathy to be so pure to make a mistake with her marriage. She wouldn’t talk to me if it didn’t please her husband, I told myself. Plus, I liked her, obviously not in a romantic way but I loved who she was in my life. Apart from being a friend, she was also my mouthpiece at the office. She carried my name to high places. He mentioned me at places only angels could fly.

One late night, I received a message from her. She said, “I can’t sleep.”

During the day she told me her husband was in town and usually when he was in town we didn’t talk. She dedicated her time to him until he travelled again. I read the message severally waiting to see what next she would say. I responded, “I thought your husband was in or he didn’t come?” She responded, “That good for nothing man? He’s here snoring. That’s all he does.”

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Kathy has never called her husband good for nothing or did anything to suggest her husband was good for nothing. I pulled the brakes. I said, “Kathy?” She responded, “Yeah. Are you surprised he’s good for nothing? What good husband would come home from travel and snore away leaving his wife awake? Anyway, let’s stop talking about him. I miss you. When are you coming to see me?”

I didn’t know where Kathy lived because I’d never gone to her house. Those messages sounded weird. “Or she’s drunk?” I contemplated for a long while before I responded, “It looks like you’re not thinking straight. Sleep tight. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“You mean you’ll see me tomorrow? Yaaaay!!!”

I got it. It wasn’t Kathy who was chatting with me. I turned off my data and slept. I didn’t actually sleep. I lay in bed thinking of the conversation we just had. “Could it be her husband? What would make him do that?”

When Kathy came to the office the next morning, I rushed to her office to ask what was wrong with her. “You were acting weird last night. What was wrong with you?” Just as I suspected, she asked me, “What did I do last night? I slept very early because I was tired.”

I showed her the chat. She shook her head in disbelief while reading the messages. She showed me her phone. The messages were not on hers. She said, “I didn’t do it but I know who did. Don’t worry. I will handle it from here.”

Three months later, they were separated. As I write this, they are divorced.

While going through a divorce, I tried my best to talk her out of it. I felt guilty. I felt I was the hand that pushed them to fall from the precipice. I shouldn’t have shown her the messages because I knew it wasn’t coming from her. Through it all, she kept saying, “It’s deeper than what you think. It’s not you. I’m just tired.”

It wasn’t me but it was my messages. I showed her the messages. I was pleading with her to give it another chance. She didn’t listen. She went through with the divorce and as I speak, she comes to work without wearing her ring. We are fine but anytime I think of it, or see her ringless finger, I swallow a lump of guilt down my throat because I was the instigator.

I Didn’t Tell Anybody Because I Enjoyed It

While I’m here feeling the guilt, Kathy keeps thanking me for giving her the courage to leave a marriage that wasn’t working. She said, “I like you more than I did years ago because you’ve become part of my story. The part where I found my liberation.” It’s a good thing to her but to me, I’m full of guilt because I helped put asunder what God has put together.

—Joel

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