I met her through a friend. When I started developing affection for her, my friend warned me that she had a child, so I shouldn’t get close. I asked him, “What’s wrong with a woman who has a child?” I don’t want to repeat his answer here, but that didn’t stop me from going ahead with my plans to make her my girlfriend.

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I was a stepchild. It took another man to marry my mother and make me his son. My life got better because another man decided we were worth the love and the effort. I didn’t fall for Lucy because of this view, but that’s what I told my friend when he suggested I should stay away from her.

When we started talking about love and the way forward, Lucy told me how she lost the father of her daughter months before the child was born and how she had been trying her best to give her daughter a better life. I asked her to be with me, and she declined at first. But as time went on, she accepted to be my girlfriend.

A few months after we started dating, they changed her station. She was posted to another place in Accra to teach, which meant she had to get a new place. She could try to commute, but that would take a serious toll on her, so we started looking for a place for her.

When we got a place, I paid half of the rent, and she paid the rest. I rented a truck, helped pack all her things, and took her to her new station. She felt so indebted that she gave my number to her mother to call me and say thank you. Her mom used the opportunity to ask me when I was going to marry her, and I told her God would show the way.

Due to her new location, I only visited on weekends, and when she had the time, she also came to visit on weekends. When my job got tough and I was moving in and out of Accra, she was the one who came every weekend to visit.

She came with her daughter, and I treated that girl as if she were mine. No one ate in the house until she had finished eating. Whenever I was coming from town or visiting her at her new station, I made sure I got something for her. She called me “uncle” but later changed it to “dad” without any prompt from anyone.

We had dated for a year when Lucy asked me about marriage. She was worried that in the future I would call her a “born-one” and not marry her. I told her, “I knew you had a daughter and still chose you, so what will stop me from marrying you? It’s just not the right time. Give me a year to put things right.”

When her mom called, I told her the same thing. I consistently assured her I wasn’t going anywhere. She was scared. It had happened to her before, and she was trying to avoid a recurrence. I understood, so I told her to be patient with me.

When I said she should give me a year to prepare, I meant it, so I started putting money away for our marriage. She was aware of it because I showed her. When I had money, I bought pieces of cloth and gave them to her to keep. I’m a diligent man, and I try to keep my word. She was so happy with the signs that she stopped talking about marriage for a while as we continued our love story.

Because my weekends became very tight, I didn’t visit her place for close to a month, so she was the one coming to visit every weekend. One evening, my job took me to her area. It wasn’t planned, but I decided to go and surprise her. It was a Friday, and she was preparing to come to my place right after school, but instead she came home to meet me in front of her door.

Her daughter was the first to run and hug me, and then she stood there asking why I hadn’t told her I was coming. “My bag is ready. I was just coming to pick it up and come to your place,” she said.

Because she didn’t know I was coming, she hadn’t prepared any food for us, so in the evening, I held the girl’s hand and walked out with her to get food. When we got to the main street, there was a taxi parked by the roadside. The girl said, “Ei, that’s Uncle Matthew.”

I asked how she knew him, and she said, “He comes to sleep in our room sometimes.” I paused. “In your room? Where you and mommy stay?” I probed. She answered, “He sleeps in mommy’s bed, and I sleep on the floor.”

My heart started beating faster. I couldn’t stay, and I couldn’t move. I took a picture of the taxi, thinking of asking her about it, but on our way back home, that tiny voice in my head whispered, “Don’t ask her anything. It will be her word against her daughter’s word. Just keep your eyes open.”

It was a Thursday evening, a day before she was supposed to come to my place for the weekend. I went there unannounced. I saw the taxi parked in front of the house. I knew he would be there. I knocked gently on the door, and she asked who it was. I replied, “It’s me. Open the door.”

It took her over an hour to open the door. She was talking to me from inside, asking why I didn’t tell her I was coming. She started apologizing, saying, “Please don’t harm us.” I asked, “Us? You and who are ‘us,’ and why are you talking like that? Just open the door.”

Immediately she opened the door, the man was the first to come out. I held him by the shirt and asked him to stay there. I asked her, “Who is this man, and why is he in your room at this time?” She couldn’t say a word until I released him. I went inside, picked a few things I had there. Her daughter was sitting in a chair with her face buried in her lap. I stroked her hair and walked away.

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I thought her mom would call and ask why, or she herself would call and explain further. None of that happened. We both moved on as if nothing had happened. I thanked my stars that I found this out before I made a bigger commitment. I also pray for her daughter anytime I go on my knees. She doesn’t know what she did, but she saved me from a disaster.

—Ato Anderson

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