My mom started pushing me out of the house when I was only nineteen. She said I was too old to live in my parent’s house and that the house was too small for us. We are five children from three different fathers. I’m the eldest and don’t know my father. Yes, the house was too small because, at night, we struggled to find a place to lay our heads.

There was an abandoned kiosk behind the house. It was for my mom but she stopped selling in it. I saved some money from the little I was doing to put the kiosk in order so I could sleep in it. Immediately I moved into the kiosk, my mom started bringing in another man. The man looked responsibly younger than my mom. He was soft-spoken and had the eye of an eagle.

He spoke to me nicely and asked what I was doing with my life. My mom answered, “She’s not doing anything ooo. She’s just wasting away in the house.”

The man sent me to his friend who gave me a job as a shop attendant. I did it for only two weeks and this shop owner started being touchy. I was twenty and knew what he was about. I told him, “If you want me to be your girlfriend please say it. Don’t try to force things on me.”

He confessed love and I accepted it. I became two in one—a shop attendant and a small madam. I could pick whatever I wanted from the shop if only I would tell him first. I would pick items and sell them and keep the money. When I closed, this man would bring me home and sleep with me in my kiosk.

One night after sleeping with him and walking him out of the kiosk, I met my mom right in front of the kiosk. She told the man, “Are you happy where your girlfriend is living? One day you’ll break this kiosk and that will be the end of her. Get her a place to live. Isn’t she beautiful enough to have a pleasant accommodation?”

A month later, I was out of the kiosk and living in a single room self-contained.

Oh, I’ve kept a secret from you. I didn’t tell you this man was married. He was a married man with three kids. I knew his wife and kids because they came to the shop often.

I don’t know how his wife got a hint of our relationship, one afternoon, she stormed the shop and drove me away while creating a wave in the process. She screamed, “Ever since you started working here we are always making losses. We forgive you and keep you around here only for you to snatch my husband? Witch, leave here.”

She knew about the rented place. She knew about the things I was picking and selling. She knew my house and knew my mom. After driving away from the rented house, she came to my house to report me to my mom. That was the biggest mistake of her life. It was as though my mom was already prepared for her. The fight that ensued, it took five able men to separate them. The woman was tough. My mom was losing the physical fight but she was the loud one.

Before she left the compound she looked at me and said, “You don’t have a mother if this is your mother.”

I was back to the kiosk where life began but I’d saved enough money to decide what to do with my life. I planned to leave town with what I’d saved and begin life again somewhere else. I was only twenty-two years old.

I was asleep one dawn when I heard footsteps around me. They were faint at first but they got louder each passing second. I opened my eyes and saw a shadow. I heard a voice. A whisper. A hushing whisper.

The kiosk didn’t have a key. I could lock it from the outside but not from the inside. The voice I heard was tiny but the shadow on the wall was huge enough to swallow me in one piece. I got up and reached for my clothe to cover my body. He whispered, “Shhhh don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you.”

There is a moment where your life flashes before your eyes—everything you’ve done against other people reels before your mind’s eye. You begin to count not your blessings but the sins you’ve committed against others. When I saw the size of the shadow on the wall, I thought of death. “Has the wife of the man sent people to finish me up?” “Or the man himself has sent someone to do this work for him because since then I haven’t heard from him.”

And then the voice said, “Shhhh don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you.”

He sounded familiar. He had a cloth covering the lower part of his face, the way a nose mask covers our face. He moved towards me at the corner of the kiosk. His height, his walk, his shape gave more away than he sought to hide. I knew who he was. I screamed, “Ofori, what are you doing here with a mask on your face?”

Ofori is the son of my mother’s friend. My mom owed his mom so much money that they fought and didn’t talk again. I asked if it was his mom who sent him. He started walking backwards in slow motion. I was scared identifying him would make him act aggressively towards me but he kept going backwards until he stepped out and ran away. I sighed heavily with my right hand on my chest, feeling how fast my heart was beating.

I knew I had little time to stay around. I called my mom’s elder sister who was living in Kumasi then. I pleaded with her to take me in. She said no. I told her, “I’m not coming to be a burden on you. I have money to start something. I will work hard and leave as soon as I find my feet.”

When she heard I had money, she said yes to me. I told my mom and a few days later, I left town with my heart beating with dreams, hope and success. My mom looked at the back of my head while leaving and said, “Don’t forget us when you make it. Send something home.”

I got to Kumasi and the first mistake I made was to give my money to my aunt to buy stuff for me to sell. A week later, she told me stories. Weeks turned to months, all I heard were stories upon stories.

“While waiting for the things to arrive,” she told me, “I’ll tell a friend to hire you so you can make money to support the house.”

I was a salesgirl for a while. I met a lady who later became a good friend of mine, Linda. Linda introduced me to insurance sales and when it wasn’t working for us, we started collecting items from shops and were selling them for commission. My life was in a mess. Two years in Kumasi was hell but then, I met a man.

That’s one thing about men. You can go around the world and find nothing but in the end, you’ll find a man. They are everywhere and always ready to jump into an empty life promising to renovate it and make it a better one. I found Justice. He had a car so I knew he would have money. He had money but he wouldn’t give me a lot. He would rather buy me a drink, food and clothes to make me look good.

From one nightclub to another. From one night event to another and from one town to another doing a business I didn’t see the head and its tail. He was all I had because my aunt had wasted my money and was still asking me to support the house. My mom also called asking for money. I did my best but I didn’t carry them as a burden.

All the while I was dating Justice, I begged him every day to give me money to start a business. He said he was taking care of me so I didn’t need to do a business. I kept begging and fighting until one day he gave me  GHC5,000 physical cash and sent another GHC5,000 into my account. A week later, I travelled back home, where there was a kiosk waiting for me.

This time I was determined to do better. I was determined to put my life in order because age was catching up with me. I was no longer a girl.

I sold anything that went quickly. I would leave home and sleep at friends’ places. My mom would come with money issues. My brother would fall sick and I would look at his face and tell him to die because I’m not spending a penny on him. Men came my way and I used money requests to drive them away. Two years later, I had a cosmetic shop. The biggest in the area. I had a lady doing momo for me and my invested capital in the MoMo business was GHC20,000.

If you’ve been to the places I’ve been, everything scares you because you know one simple misstep and you’ll land back at zero. Life is gradual, I came to understand but it isn’t just gradual. You should be wicked along the way. Today, I’m fine. I’m not there yet but I no longer sleep in an unlocked kiosk. I don’t have men calling the shot for me. I’m no longer scared of tomorrow because tomorrow takes care of itself where I am now.

Dating A Narcissist: Lessons From Heartbreak And Abuse

My mom is still my mom. Men are her delicacy. They go today, another will come and she’s fifty-seven. She loves to take from me rather than do anything for herself. I’m taking care of my siblings. Two live with me and I work with them so they can learn good things for once.

It’s a long story to where I am now but I always cut it short with gratitude. It could have been worse but who said it couldn’t be better?

—Hannah

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