This year is not too old, but it has been a very terrible year for me. Everything I touch doubles. You might think it’s a good thing, but wait until you hear about the things I’ve touched and they doubled. It’s not money. It’s not investments that promise future yields, but rather investment in problems. I’m coming from Adoley’s house. She’s pregnant and telling me she has no choice but to give birth. “I’m not getting any younger,” she said, “and I told you I’ve let a baby go before. Please bear with me; I will keep this one.”

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I pleaded with her that one more wouldn’t destroy anything. I said I would take her to the best hospital and ensure they do it right. She said no. She looked into my eyes and said no hospital on earth does it right. “What they remove from inside you is not the only thing they remove. They take a piece of you with it, a piece you’ll never forget. So no, I’m not doing it again.”

She spoke to me softly, like she pitied me. I looked like a vegetable in front of her, asking her to do the unthinkable because a man like me couldn’t have a child with her.

Before I left her place, I asked her to continue thinking about it. I even threatened her with the future, that men don’t marry born ones, so she should be careful about the decision she’s taken. We have dated for close to two years—me and Adoley.

A few weeks before Adoley called to tell me about her pregnancy, that was the beginning of January, when we were still haggling with our New Year’s resolutions, Matilda called. She asked me to come home. I asked, “This time?” She responded, “Whenever you get the time.”

I pleaded with her to tell me whatever it was on the phone because I didn’t know when I would get the time to visit. She said, “I will always be home whenever you’re ready to visit.”

Matilda came to do national service with us. She smiled like the sun, and one day her smile entered my heart and made a place somewhere on the right side of my heart. I proposed to her over lunch I bought with my own money. She said no and later said she would think about it. A few weeks later, she was in my bed as my girlfriend.

We dated secretly until she finished her national service. Because I was the one supporting her, she called often, so we kept the relationship going until she called that day asking me to go see her. It took me close to two weeks before I was able to go. She looked different. I thought she was going through certain problems that had changed the way she looked. I asked if she was sick. I touched her cheeks to feel if she was warm. She said, “I’m pregnant, so yeah, you can call me sick.”

I quickly stood up out of shock. “You’re what? When last did we even do it that you’re pregnant?” She mentioned the date and time and where. I didn’t know she was keeping records. I asked, “So what are we going to do? Do you know a place we can go?”

I was so sure she wasn’t going to have it because Matilda is such a young lady who has all her life ahead of her. She answered, “Somewhere we can go? To do what?” I looked at her in a way that told her the answer. She responded, “No, that’s not the plan. I will have it. It’s against our tradition to do that. Once you do that, you kiss your fertility goodbye.”

“Damn traditions!” I screamed. “This is a real problem we have here. What has tradition got to do with it?”

I said a lot. I even threatened her with abandonment. And then I used God’s name to beg her to do it. “Look at the God in the sky and let go, Matilda. You know a man like me can’t have a child with you.”

I said a lot. I preached a lot. I made a lot of promises, but nothing could change her mind. I left her place deflated. I was a lost man who was looking for his way back home, but when I finally got home, my home looked so big but was hard for me to fit because my problems looked bigger. My wife welcomed me home. I looked around and saw our first child. He was so busy watching cartoons on his tablet, he didn’t see me walk in.

My wife was two months pregnant then. Our second child was on the way coming. It took four years to make it happen, but it finally did. We were both happy when it happened. We even went to church to give special offering to God for the new seed he’d sown in us. Little did I know the year ahead was indeed pregnant. Three pregnant women in my little life. Where do I go, and where do I share my story?

That wasn’t the end of my woes.

In late January, a friend gave me an amount to give to a colleague at work. I went to the office and the colleague didn’t come to work. He was on leave. I asked if I could put the money in his account, and he said he didn’t want that, so I should keep it until he returned. I kept it for several days until I felt I could put the money to use to earn something on it. I’m not a betting addict, but I know how to put winning odds together.

By the time I realized, all the money was gone. Little by little, hope after hope, GHC 6,200 was wasted on betting just within three weeks. My colleague asked for his money, and it turned into stories. It became a huge fight in the office until it got to the authorities. To resolve it, they decided to deduct from my salary until I was done paying.

This year hasn’t been easy for me. It looks like the year that tricks you into making one bad decision after the other. Three pregnant women demanding from a single source, and that source is also blocked because of what I owe. My wife understands my lies and she puts up with it, but not Adoley and Tilly. They pull me by the shoulders, knees, and toes. What annoys me most is Adoley’s mom, as if her daughter only smelled my presence and got pregnant. She calls to threaten me, asking me to come home and see the family officially.

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Tilly’s father wants to meet my family, but he’s calm about it. He says at least someone from my family should be aware for future sake. I respect that man a lot for his patience, but it doesn’t make anything less disastrous than it already is. When this is all over and I still have my marriage, I will enter the sea to cleanse my soul and then swear in front of the roaring waves that never will I touch any woman again apart from my wife.

—Bra Boat  

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