Our marriage was only two years old when he got a chance to travel abroad. Travelling abroad was my dream. When I met him and was in love, I told him my desire to walk in the snow with my husband by my side. We’d kiss while snow fell and melt on our lips. He told me he had a desire to travel too. “I don’t think life can be made on this side of the world,” he told me. “We’ll travel and make it outside and pass through here once in a while,” I added.

When the time came for him to travel, I felt half of our dream was coming through and it felt great that it was happening at the early stage of our marriage. I did the sign of the cross and thanked God for the miracle.

We took every penny from our joint account to help him travel. I added my personal savings too when the going got tough. He flew out of the country somewhere in April. I was with him at the airport. I didn’t leave the airport until he called to tell me hours later that he had arrived.

I was scared of the loneliness back home. A home without him looked gloomy. A home without his laughter, his voice and his scent felt like a room without a door. I was scared to go in and not be able to come out so I spent hours at the port before late in the night, I walked through the darkness of the room to my bed and slept. I didn’t bathe because who was I going to impress with my freshness?

Two years later, in a text message that read like a tribute to a dead hero, he said, “You’re a great woman who deserves more than I’m giving you. I’ve lied, I’ve lived a double life, I’ve had different women to match the different weather here. A wife as golden as you don’t deserve a whittling husband like me. I’m calling it quits so you can love again, a better man than me.”

That was how our marriage came to an end. He stole my dream and lived it with a woman who wasn’t me. I could imagine him kissing that woman in the snow but in my imagination, the snow didn’t melt on their lips. It fell on their eyelids and made them look old and grey. I wished that was enough to kill them before their age.

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I opened myself up to love again. I’m a woman and love to be loved. I love to have a man’s name on me. I want to be owned by a man. It shows I’m wanted. I’m desired. Bearing my own name makes me light.

I needed something to make me heavy. Pregnancy and raising a family were the only heavy things I could think about so I married again. Charles. He didn’t travel abroad to leave me. He entered another woman’s room and never came back to love again. Snow doesn’t fall in that woman’s room, yet, Charles pretended it was another country and stayed there for good.

Our son was four years old. I was a few weeks pregnant but both of us didn’t know. Our marriage was five years old. I caught him cheating twice with the same woman. He promised the last time was the last time he was going to cheat but it didn’t stop there. When the woman relocated out of town, he created reasons and made excuses to be able to see her. He might have loved that woman more than he loved his family. When I caught him the third time, I asked what I should do to stop him from cheating.

“Divorce,” he said. When we are no longer married, I would have no reason to cheat.”

He didn’t say it exactly the way I’ve said it. Something worse. Something heartbreaking but I didn’t hear all his words. Once he mentioned divorce, my mind switched off. The beating of my heart got so louder it swallowed every sound around me. I begged him to stay. I promised not to accuse him of cheating again. I wanted the marriage to work so badly because I didn’t want to carry the burden of being divorced twice. I felt they’d judge me. They’ll point fingers at me and say I’m the problem, the fault and the reason men leave my life.

When I discovered I was pregnant, I wanted to use it as a scorecard to make him stay but he told me, “Don’t worry, I’ll still take care of them as if I never left.”

I got rid of it because I didn’t want to carry his baby while he was out there having fun with another woman. Our marriage came to an end because of that woman but guess what, they were not able to marry. The woman married another man while she was still dating my ex-husband but this is not their story. This is mine. I won’t share the space with them.

But let me say this. When he was broken and probably crying, he wanted to use me to wipe his tears. He came for the boy one day and brought him back late in the night. He wanted to sleep over because it was too late. I asked him to go and check if his car was locked. When he stepped out, I locked my door. I had started something with Bright. I didn’t need a distraction from a man who left me when all I needed was him.

Bright was on and off but I understood him perfectly. At that moment in my life, I’d grown to accept that you can’t push a man to choose you. I’d come to a place where I loved to have a man but wanted a man who would see my worth, weaknesses and still stay because I’m worth more than my weaknesses. I had a son. I was two years older than Bright. I had two marriages under my belt. He had every reason to think carefully before making the leap and I allowed it.

We dated for a year before agreeing to get married. He came with his people to perform the knocking rite. It was the happiest day in the life I was living at that time. The dowry list was moderate. I agreed to help him get the things and also help with the finances of the marriage ceremony. It was going to be a small traditional wedding where only core people would be invited.

Three months after the knocking rite, Bright said no. “My dad is the problem and my mom too. They think I’m making a mistake,” he told me.

After going back and forth with it for months, we agreed to let it go. He was kind. He brought me all the things he had bought for the marriage. I asked, “Where’s the husband who’s supposed to come with these things? He laughed. I thanked him and closed the door behind him but I didn’t close the door to marriage. I was only thirty-eight. The leaves were falling but it wasn’t harmattan in my life yet.

I met Abu. He didn’t care that I had a son but when I told him I’d married two and a half times and it all didn’t work, he stopped his glass midway to his mouth and asked, “What happened? Why did they leave you?”

He didn’t pick up my calls again after that night. My love history drove him to hide under a rock but I haven’t given up on love yet. I’m a woman. I love to be married. I miss a man’s presence in my bed, that husky voice in the morning that greats me good morning. The manly smell that says a man lives here.

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I miss a man’s grip on my wrist. It feels like a handcuff sometimes but I love to be in a man’s prison. I miss having a man’s name on me, of course, that man shouldn’t be my dad. So I’ll keep going. I’ll keep meeting new people. Three, they say is a lucky number. Who knows, maybe three and a half is a magical key that opens doors to bliss and happiness in marriage. I wait. It’s all I can do.

— Abrefi

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