I would wake up in the middle of the night, check my husband’s side of the bed, and he would not be there. I would step outside because I could hear his voice coming from somewhere in the darkness. He would be there making calls, and his voice would be so low that it was almost as if he did not even want the mosquitoes flying around him to hear a word he was saying. If I went back to bed before he received the call, I would wake up hours later and find him still on that same call.

Usually, the calls came through right after dinner. I whined, “What call are you on that cannot wait until the next day? I am a pregnant woman. Do you want to kill me with this your sitting outside at night?” I earned the title of a nagging wife, but it still did not stop him from taking those calls.

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One evening, my blood pressure shot up after something as simple as walking down the street. We live in a mountainous area where the roads rise and fall sharply, and even a short walk feels like running ten thousand miles on a treadmill. The doctors advised me to do everything possible to stay calm and collected if I wanted to keep both myself and the baby safe. That advice contributed to the decision my husband made to rent an apartment for me. It was away from the mountains but close enough to home that he could visit me and still get to work easily.

This was my fourth C-section and my fifth pregnancy. I had carried twins before and lost them. I had a miscarriage at four months. Another baby died in the womb when I was six months pregnant. I lost them all but one. When I found out I was pregnant with this child, I wanted to terminate the pregnancy. I was tired. Tired of carrying babies and never having a baby to show for it. I was advised to keep it because maybe, just maybe, God had decided that this would be the pregnancy that proved He is still a miracle worker.

My blood pressure kept rising, and to make matters worse, gestational diabetes found its way into the picture. Because of the complications, my doctor suggested putting me through an early delivery. I moved out of the house when I was thirty-four weeks pregnant, and my C-section was scheduled for thirty-five weeks.

I have my baby in my arms now. We are fourteen weeks old, strong, healthy, alive, and doing all the things babies do. Yet my heart is haunted. It hurts so much that it sometimes feels as though someone is driving a knife through my chest, and every time I see my husband, the pain becomes worse.

Back when I was pregnant and my husband kept taking those suspicious calls, I went through his phone whenever I had the opportunity. I searched every corner of it and eventually learned that there was another woman occupying his attention.

When I moved out of the house, he brought her into our matrimonial home. She walked into my home and probably made herself comfortable there as though it belonged to her. I fought with him over it, but he told me, “You two should accommodate yourselves and live in peace.”

His mind had already been made up. Begging him was not going to change anything, and I was already at a critical stage in my pregnancy, so I did not push any further.

That woman is now thirteen weeks pregnant for my husband. He confessed it himself. He told me she wanted to keep the child, and then he went on to plead for forgiveness.

My husband and I have come from far. I was there when he was earning four hundred cedis a month and had almost nothing to his name. I was there before he started his degree. I helped hold things together at home so he could focus on school. I stood by him through that journey and now through his master’s degree. Once, he me nothing has been working in our lives for the nine years we have been together.

I Called My Girlfriend And Another Man Answered The Phone

I am still living at the place I moved into before giving birth, and I have not seriously considered going back. The thought crosses my mind sometimes, but I shiver whenever I imagine returning to the same house where he brought his mistress.

He comes to see the children and me. He stays for a while and tells me to forgive him because he is just a man who has sinned greatly. I feel absolutely nothing when he says those words.

All I know is that something inside me has died, and I do not know whether it can ever come back to life.

—Lily
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