In December 2019 when I was coming to Ghana, my sole aim was to get to the land of my birth and get a woman I could marry before leaving. My dad had asked me about marriage. My mom had told me she had someone for me if I didn’t have anyone in mind. The woman I had in mind got married a year earlier so I came to Ghana with an empty heart, determined to go back with a heart full of love.

I met my schoolmates, I called the numbers of all the ladies I’d loved before. They all had a story to tell. They were either seeing someone else or they had given birth for men who didn’t love them the way they thought. I called my mom, “You said you had a woman for me. I’m ready to meet her but before that, how’s she like? Can I see photos of her before I meet her?”

She showed me photos. She gave me the history of how she was born and how she helped to raise her in a God-fearing way. She said, “She’s not only beautiful. She’s well raised and her roots are in God’s promises. You’ll love her.”

She was Aboagyewaa. She couldn’t look at my face when we met. She was shy. Beautiful. Soft-spoken and my kind of woman. My mom had already done eighty percent of the job so I had very little to do to make her accept my proposal. It was a small town we lived in. Nothing could stay hidden. For the short period that I stayed with her, everyone got to know she was my girlfriend.

When I was going back, she cried. I told her I wasn’t going for long; “Just a year. You’ll see me again in December. When I return, I’ll marry you so I take you with me.”

She cried until tears welled up in my eyes. She kissed me. I kissed back. We couldn’t let go. She whispered, “Let’s do it. We can go to my place.” I answered, “I don’t want to go back with memories of what I can’t always get. We had a short time together but that’s alright. The next one won’t be like this.”

She insisted. She was doing everything to put me in the mood. I was enjoying it. I was in the mood even before she started but I didn’t want to create memories that would haunt me when I was alone and cold in someone’s land.

We were talking every day when I got back to my base. I was sending her money and even paid the school fees of her two siblings. I didn’t want her to worry about things money could solve so immediately she asked, I sent it to her. One afternoon, my dad texted; “Why did you do that? We gave you a woman to nurture and you decided to get her pregnant? Do you know what this will do to our positions in the church?”

I called my dad immediately. “What are you talking about? Who got who pregnant?”

According to my dad, Aboagyewaa’s father called to announce to him that their daughter was pregnant and I was responsible so my dad should quickly arrange for a knocking rite to be done before the pregnancy swells up. I laughed out loud. I told my dad, “Maybe the man is trying to test your faith because Aboagyewaa can’t be pregnant. I didn’t touch her. I can swear with any deity you’ll ask me to swear with. I didn’t touch that girl.”

When I called Aboagyewaa on the phone she spent most of the minutes crying. She asked, “If you’re not the one then who did it? I haven’t slept with any man. I was single until you came along. Now I’m pregnant and you think it’s not you? The last time we spent the night together what did you to do me? What did you put in the drink you gave me? I knew something happened. I felt used When I woke up but didn’t say it because I thought it was your way of doing things.”

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I was burning with rage. I was talking to this girl every day so if she was indeed pregnant for me, what stopped her from telling me herself? And the night she was talking about, we were three in the room. I shared the hall with my brother while she slept in the bedroom alone. That night she wanted sex. I told her I couldn’t do it while my brother was in the room with us.

My parents believed her. My dad told me, “We will do the knocking rite for her. When you come home in December, you’ll marry her. We won’t allow you to drag our Godly reputations through the mud. We won’t lose our standings in God because of your carnal desires.”

I was very angry. When I shouted on the phone my dad shouted back at me. I called my mom. She said, “No need to deny it. You’re not a boy. We are complaining because it is not right. It’s always marriage before pregnancy but don’t worry. We’ll right the wrong for you.”

They didn’t listen to me. Even my brother felt I was responsible. I had to spend hours on the phone with him explaining. In the end, he told me, “Don’t worry. There’s DNA to prove your innocence.”

True to their words, they were going to perform the knocking rite. I didn’t want things to get messed up so I told them to wait for me to come to Ghana in March 2020 to do everything myself.  And then Covid happened. Everything turned on its head afterward so I couldn’t come to Ghana. I stopped picking up Aboagyewaa’s calls. Her dad called to banter with me one day but I blocked him.

She gave birth to a boy. My dad sent me a photo and said, “And you were denying it? See your photocopy.”

All I saw was a fresh baby who looked like a potato. There was no resemblance whatsoever. I called a family meeting on the phone. I spoke to them calmly but firmly. I asked them to stop following blindly and believe me as their child. “Dad, I’m sending money. Do a DNA on the baby as soon as possible. Let’s lay this matter to rest before COVID eats the world away.”

The DNA was delayed for months but finally, when the result came out, it showed I wasn’t the father. They took samples from my brother. The family protested. They used my dad too. The result was still the same.

When I called Aboagyewaa, I asked why. She was crying. “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know who did that to me. I haven’t slept with any man in years. How’s this possible?”

I was in Ghana in 2022. The world had moved on but I was still interested in the issue. I needed closure. I needed to know why and also, who made her pregnant. So when I came back home, I looked for her and we talked. She agreed she made a mistake because of how everything happened so fast and according to her, they’ve been able to find the man who did it. I asked who and she told me, “We are keeping it a secret because of the issues surrounding the pregnancy.”

“So you knew it was him and you gave the pregnancy to me?”

“No, I didn’t know. I don’t want to go into details. A lot of things happened. He did a lot of things to me that I was unaware of.”

“You mean you were drugged and raped”

“I mean I’m not saying anything for now. I have a son I love. I want to focus on raising him the best way that I can.”

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I still don’t believe her. She’s a woman playing the victim in a game she’s the referee. They believed her because “It’s only a woman who knows the father of her child.” This woman doesn’t even know who slept with her so how would she know the real father of her son?

I’m coming back again this December. I still need a woman I’ll spend the rest of my life with but I’ll take my time. I won’t meet who others want me to meet or choose someone because my mom thinks she’s an angel. I’ll take my time and see if I can get lucky this time. I want a woman I can start a family with but I would lie to do it on my own terms and in my own appointed time. No pressure fashioned against me shall prosper.

—Agyepong

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