When Simon and I met, there was no clue we were going to go through turbulence or that life would be hard on us if we ever decide to fall in love. There were no signs in the skies or inscriptions on his forehead that said, “Stay away from me. I’m a lot of trouble.” Instead, I looked at him and saw a soft human being. Maybe, I presumed soft-spoken people were naturally soft humans so when he proposed to me after knowing each other for a while, I said yes. I didn’t think twice about anything. It was love that was pushing me so I answered, “Aye, I will be your girlfriend.”

Five months later, I was pregnant. It was unexpected. It wasn’t part of the plan but we were calm about it. He asked what we were going to do about it and I asked him, “What are we supposed to do about it?” The two statements are the same.

“What are we going to do about it?”

“What are we supposed to do about it?”

A question to a question yet he sensed the answer in my question and started acting right. Who said you can’t answer questions with questions?

He talked to his father about it and the first question he asked him was, “Where does she come from?” “She’s an Ewe dad.” I could imagine his father laughing at his choice. “Of all the women alive in this world, it’s an Ewe you decided to impregnate? No, it can’t happen. You’re the man. Convince her to get rid of it. You both can’t have a child because you can’t marry. Over my dead body. Simon, I thought you knew this. Didn’t you learn anything from your cousin’s situation? What made you think yours would be different?”

His father threw him out of the house to go and do the right thing. He came to me, narrated the story and his father’s conclusion on the matter and again asked me, “What are we going to do about it?” This time my answer wasn’t a question. I answered, “You will allow your father to dictate to you who to love and who to impregnate? Are you not your own man? Do you still feed from your father that you’ll allow him to dictate to you?”

These questions infuriated him so much he started throwing a fit. It was that day that I learned the story of his life. He was very angry but out of the anger came the justifications. His mother died when he was a boy. His father didn’t marry again but decided to dedicate the rest of his life to raising him and his junior brother. Looking at the sacrifices his father did for him, there was no way he was going to disobey his father. He whispered to himself, almost with a tone of disappointment; “I should have known better.”

I was busy judging him but I hadn’t said anything to my own parents to also know their reaction. Unlike Simon, I had both parents alive but they got divorced while I was just a girl. I lived with my mom but my dad never shirked his responsibility towards us. He paid our fees, paid our medical bills and gave us monthly allowances. We spent our vacation with him, me and my sister. He remarried but the woman he married loved us from here to the moon and wanted to keep us but my mom objected, saying, “I won’t allow the devil to raise my kids.” According to her, my dad divorced her because that lady pushed him to. We were too young to take sides so we swayed wherever love could find us and love found us on both sides so we went either way.

I went home and told my mom about the pregnancy. She asked me, “Is the man ready to marry you?” I answered,”He wanted to but his father is pushing against it because of my tribe.” My mom asked their tribe and I told her, “They’re from Kwahu, the town you only hear about during  Easter festivities.” My mom bowed her head and squirmed in her seat; “It’s good his father is against it. I wouldn’t allow my daughter to marry from that tribe. You, kids of today, find any man on the street and decide to get pregnant for them. What’s in a Kwahu man that you’ll love to spend your eternity with him? You really don’t know about those devils. You should have asked.”

My mom didn’t accept but she didn’t push me to abort. She was graceful towards the pregnancy and urged me to keep it. “The baby doesn’t come from them. It’s only God who blesses our womb with babies. Keep it. We will raise it an Ewe.” My dad laughed when he heard the stands of my mom and Simon’s dad. He said, “They are all silly people. Your mom is lucky I’m not still her husband. Maybe this would have been the reason we would break up. What’s the dignity in preventing two adults from marrying each other because of tribal sentiments?”

The die was cast. There was no way I and Simon were going to amount to anything. We kept talking but we always steered away from our future. We knew we won’t end up together but we were scared to talk about it until one day I asked him, “We are over, right? Clearly, the tides are against us but I hope you don’t abandon your child. It may grow up to forgive you but that would be over my dead body and I mean it. It will call you father, I’ll ensure that but you’ll have to do your fatherly duties.” He agreed and we officially broke up.

I gave birth to a girl, Enyonam. If you are an Ewe, you’ll understand why I chose that name for her. I asked Simon to come and name her and claim her. He was willing to but his father was against it. I waited until Enyonam was four months old. I was waiting in vain. They were never going to come. I gave up. I moved on with the joy of a mother. The world may forsake you but what you carried in your womb for nine months won’t.

I had a call at dawn. It was Simon calling. I didn’t want to wake Enyonam up so I sauntered through the dark to the living room to receive the call. I picked up the call and I was greeted with wailings. Simon was crying. His words weren’t coming out clearly. I kept asking what the issue was and he kept trying to say something but each word was swallowed by the sound of his cries. I kept quiet, waiting for him to regain his composure. He pushed one last time and what I heard was, “My dad is gone!”

“What? What happened to him? He had an accident? Was he sick all this while?” He couldn’t explain through tears so he hang up the call. I could understand his pain. Mom gone, dad gone, that’s your world coming to an end. I sent him a message, “You can always come around if you need a place to cool off.” When I gave birth he came to see us and paid the bills. That was the last time I’d seen him.

Three days later, I heard a knock on my door and it was him. He stayed the weekend with us. We didn’t say much. He cried often and I allowed him to cry. I remember one Saturday afternoon, he was carrying Enyonam close to his chest while singing her a lullaby. Enyonam was crying, his lullaby wasn’t doing anything to stop the tears. He stopped singing and broke into tears himself. While tears were coming down his eyes, Enyonam stopped crying and stared at him. I said, “She has stopped because it’s your turn.” We burst out laughing and that laughter reminded me of what it would be like if we ended up together as a family. I quickly dashed inside the bedroom and began my own round of tears. I didn’t want them to see me crying. How selfish of me.

His dad’s death brought him closer. He cared more about us than before. He came to visit often and when he came around, he overstayed. He was lonely and was craving companionship but it was hard for him to admit that. I told him to get a girlfriend. “You’re not growing any younger. You need to start building something today if you want to settle down eventually. Look for who your dad’s soul would be pleased with and start something with her.” He answered, “He’s dead and gone. I don’t need to please him again.”

On Enyonam’s first birthday, he was there with us. He was everywhere in the photos we took. You look at the photos and we looked like a beautiful family. My mom was there too. My sister and her boyfriend were also there. My sister’s boyfriend couldn’t believe that we were not married.

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By the time Enyonam was two years, Simon had relocated and the distance between us had widened. He didn’t call often. I guessed he had moved on with his life but he didn’t move away from his responsibilities towards his daughter.

One late night I called his phone. He didn’t pick. My heart was in flames and he was the only person I felt could help. I called again and again and again until he picked up the call. His voice coarse, he asked me, “Have you been calling for long? What’s the matter?” I broke up into tears. I tried to talk but the words won’t come out clearly. I was choking. I was dying. His voice came through the phone with a tint of worry. “Talk to me, what’s wrong with Enyonam?” I answered calmly amidst sobs, “It’s not Enyonam. It’s my mom. She wasn’t even sick. I spoke to her only yesterday. Why could she be dead today?” While I cried out loud, he kept quiet and listened to me. He told me, “You can come around with Enyonam if you need a place to cool off.”

After my mom’s one-week rite, I went there and spent a week with him. I didn’t cry as he did. I was stronger. We didn’t even talk much about my mom except about the funeral arrangements and the usual stuff. We slept in the same bed throughout the period. We were fighting the urge to start a fire but the fire between us won’t stay under the ashes. Once in a while, the flicker would glow in the night until we couldn’t hold it any longer. We started shuperu and couldn’t stop it. We did it every night. He’ll come home and meet well-prepared dishes. I’ll serve him like a wife will do for a husband. He’ll look at me and I’ll see contentment in his eyes yet we didn’t say much about the future. The two obstacles were gone but talking about it felt like we were happy they were gone so we were hushed about it until my mom was buried.

She was buried on Saturday. On Monday, I did a test to confirm the lingering discomfort I was feeling in my body. For a whole week, I felt uneasy heavy and bloated. I tested and I was pregnant. I was confused as to how to break the news to him but It was that pregnancy that gave us the courage to talk about the future. He was like, “Is there a reason we can’t be together?” I answered, “No. My dad has never had issues. Unless your father’s people say no.” He answered, “My dad was the only one whose opinion mattered. The rest don’t have an opinion.”

We had our traditional marriage before the pregnancy showed up. We got married over the dead bodies of our parents and it was a bitter-sweet moment for both of us. I wished she was there to witness the endless possibilities between two different tribes. I cried a little but once we moved in together, we left their memories outside of us and lived like we had everything that mattered in life.

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After the birth of our second child, we had a small court wedding to give legal backing to our marriage. We’ve already done seven years and counting. My husband doesn’t have his parents. My mother had to die before I could have a husband. It doesn’t matter anymore. What matters now is that my children have a father. Not just a father but a loving father who’ll do everything to put them first before anything. Love is not the tribe of the person. It’s not even about the person you want to live with. Love is a goal, a desire to make a relationship work regardless of the obstacles. It’s a journey that ends in death yet is kept alive by memories. If we let go, we both would have missed the opportunities to experience love and its glory but here we are, married over the dead bodies of our parents.

–Solace

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