When you are young, you think you know how your life would be when you grow up. “I will marry at twenty-five,” I planned. “We’ll have our first child—a girl and name her Daisy. When our second born is a boy, we’ll name him Jacob. Jacob because it sounds cool. It’s also in the bible so he won’t grow up and go about breaking the hearts of women. By twenty-nine, I would have finished giving birth so I will spend the rest of my days walking at the beach with my husband, leaving footprints in the sand and watching the sun set on the beautiful life we’ve lived.”

We make beautiful plans like these without making room for problems because, in the mind of the child, life is perfect. Problems don’t exist because we can wish them away. Life is rosy until we begin playing on the dusty turf of life. It will leave you tired. Beaten. Weary. You’ll walk back home with dusty feet because life is like that. It takes prisoners.

I was twenty-seven when I started dating Maxwell. My previous relationships ended badly so I was careful with him. He wanted sex. I wanted six o’clock outings that ended with him walking me home. He wanted to kiss at any given time. I wanted to just hug and go away. He was touchy. I learned to withdraw. Through all these, he didn’t love me any less—or so he made me believe. Our relationship was a year old when he cornered me in his room and said, “I’ve been loyal. I’ve been faithful. What else do I need to prove for you to make a way for me?” I asked, “Which of your ways have I blocked?” He said, “Your legs. They are closed too tight.” I asked, “Ain’t they supposed to? We are not married, remember?”

I don’t know what he said that made me believe him or made me open what was close for him. That day, he got what he had always fought for. You could see he was happy. His body language told a story of victory. The expression on her face said, “At long last, the wall of Babylon has come down.”  I asked him, “Are you happy? You’ve had your way. Does it make you feel any different than you already are?” He smiled. There was this unexplained joy in his posture.

Obviously, it didn’t make him any different. It rather made me different. I got pregnant. I remember rushing to his house with the test kit in my bag. “Maxwell see, what you did to me that day had lighted the two red lights on the strip of my life. See.” I showed it to him. He said, “You can’t be serious. It happened just once. Did I even cum? I don’t remember. How could you be pregnant?” We argued about it. “Once doesn’t make a woman pregnant,” he said. I responded, “No problem. We shall see after nine months.” He denied responsibility. When push came to shove he said, “Give birth. We’ll do DNA afterward. If it’s mine, I will claim it.”

He wasn’t my problem. I had a job that paid. I was in a position to take care of my child without his support. My problem was my parents. I was living with them and these folks made life hell for me. As if I wasn’t the one paying the utilities of the house. As if I wasn’t the one giving them weekly allowances for their upkeep. It got worse when my junior sister got married three months later. They called me a disgrace. They compared me to my junior sister and called me a shame to the family. My dad: “Even your little sister knows how to wait. She had the sense to get married first.” My mother: “You shamed me. How would I face my peers in church? How would they take me seriously? How can I fail at raising my own and yet advise them on how to raise their own?” 

For weeks, they didn’t talk to me, my mother especially. I survived. I did what a daughter is supposed to do. I kept giving them their allowances. I kept paying the utilities of the house. Things thawed a little when I gave birth. My mother was supportive. They could hate what I did but they couldn’t hate the outcome of the mistake I did. She was with me at the hospital until I was discharged. She brought me home. She made a bed for me and helped bathe the kid. At some point, she asked, “When is the father coming to claim the kid?” I said, “There’s no father. He’s not coming. Let’s take it like that.” My dad didn’t talk a lot but he warmed up to the child.

I thought my sins had been forgiven. You know, some sins get washed away with time. I believed it has gotten to that time where my sins get washed away. Everything was calm until my junior sister also gave birth and came to live with us. They turned against me and my kid. They started comparing again. My mom stopped everything she was doing for me and shifted her attention to my junior sister and her kid. It didn’t bother me. I thought she had the youngest baby so she needed more attention. It got worse.

My child would be crying while I’m in the kitchen cooking. My mom wouldn’t care. My sister’s baby would be in the cot sleeping soundly. She would walk up to the cot and say, “This baby likes sleeping. Won’t she wake up and eat?” She would lift the baby up and carry her behind her while mine would be lying there all alone. She even started comparing the babies; “When a baby has a father, it draws on her face. See how pretty she is.” I closed my ears to all these insinuations pretending it didn’t hurt.

I was going to work one morning so I bathed the kid and sent him to my mom just as I did every day. She said, “I and your sister would go for weighing today. I can’t carry two babies so take him to work for today.” I thought it was a joke. I said, “But mom, Adjoa can carry her own daughter?” My sister chirped, “What’s wrong if she helps me carry her? Why do you always want good things for yourself? You’re becoming selfish.” My mom spoke nasally, “Did I ask you to give birth to a fatherless son? You would have been in your husband’s house by now if you lived your life well?” 

I’ve had labor pains and I know how it feels like but the pain I felt that day was sharper than what I went through at labor. “What? Mom, What did I do to deserve this from you? Am I not your daughter too.” No plea worked. No words got her mind changed. I didn’t go to work that day. I made a complaint to my dad and he told me, “It’s your fault. Deal with it.”

I was in my parents’ house but I felt all alone. I cried in my room and came out with red eyes. My child was a year and a half old when I started sending him to school. Pain does two things to us—it either softens us to bear more pain or hardens our hearts to ignore the pains we’ve already been through. I got hardened. I closed my mind on them and started living my life by myself.

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 My sister had been with us for several months but she had never contributed to anything. She doesn’t pay bills. She doesn’t pay for food and she doesn’t give my parents a penny. Yet, she has full-time work and has a husband who is supposed to help her financially. The light went off recently and they came to call me. I laughed in my head. I didn’t even step out. My mom came to tell me, “Haven’t you seen that the light is off? The prepaid is finished.” I said, “Ok.” I was still lying in my bed. She said, “We are waiting for you?” I said, “Ok.” We slept in the darkness that night. They got angry but I didn’t care. 

Currently, I’ve stopped everything I do in the house. They don’t like me. They shouldn’t like my money. My sister thinks I’m jealous of her. Far from it. She’s the one they want. she’s the one they help. I don’t have a problem. My dad thinks I’m fighting my sister’s presence. My mom thinks I’m envious of my sister. My heart is clean. I just can’t stand the way they treat me and my kid. I made the mistake but for how long am I going to pay for it? 

Soon I will leave this place to a place of my own and withdraw all my support. I don’t mind if they cut me off. If my child grows up knowing he’s not liked by his own family, it will break my heart. It’s the reason I want to leave and not come back. Am I doing the right thing?” 

–Karen

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