MY JOURNEY TO BECOMING WHOLE

THE CALM BEFORE

Trigger Warning: This chapter contains references to arranged marriage, family rejection, and emotional abuse. Reader discretion advised.

Before the marriage date, he approached me for the first time.

He looked calm. Innocent. Hands in his pockets, head tilted like a boy. “My name is Kelvin,” he said. “I’ve been seeing you often. I would like to marry you.”

That was it. No dating. No courtship. No “do you like me?”

Where I come from, when a man says that and he comes through elders, paths have been cleared for him. No need for further talks. The talking was already done in rooms I wasn’t invited into.

A date was fixed for the marriage.

I told my best friend. I told cousins. Mom informed her church people. Extended family started calling. I was the first to get married in the entire family. The first bride.

I was somehow happy but not excited. Happy because I thought I was finally going back to school. That was the deal, right? “I will see you through school.” Those were his words. School was the wedding gift I wanted.

Before the marriage, he took me to meet his family. All his sisters were married. All his brothers were married. He was the last child. The baby. The one they all spoiled.

His eldest sister didn’t want me.

She disliked me from the start. Her face said it before her mouth did. Later I found out why: she had already arranged a wife for Kelvin. A girl from her church. A girl she could control. He refused to marry her.

So I became the enemy before I said “I do.”

After the marriage, we went to his parents’ house in the village. We spent the night there. The next morning we headed back to the city. To his house. To our house.

The first month as his wife was not bad.

He provided everything I wanted. Food in the pot. New wrappers. Even data for my small phone. He came home at 6pm sharp. He asked about my day. He called me “my wife” with a smile.

I started to think maybe the aunties were right. Maybe I was lucky. Maybe this was my escape. I brought out the JAMB brochure I’d hidden. I placed it on the table.

“Next year,” I said. “I want to start.”

He looked at it. He looked at me. He said, “We’ll see.”

That should have been my first warning.

The second month, everything changed.

Kelvin became worried. Restless. He stopped coming home at 6pm. He started coming home at 10pm. He stopped asking about my day. He started pacing the parlor, looking at me like I was a problem he couldn’t solve.

It started affecting me. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. The house that felt like escape now felt like a waiting room.

Then one night, he stood over me while I was washing plates. The kitchen was silent except the water running.

“Are you barren?” he asked.

The plate slipped from my hand. It didn’t break, but something inside me did.

“Barren?” I whispered. We’d been married eight weeks. Eight.

He didn’t repeat it. He didn’t have to. He walked away, leaving that word hanging in the air like smoke.

And just like that, the happiness I once felt vanished into thin air.

I stood there with my hands in soap water, and I understood what “frying pan to fire” really meant.

The frying pan was waiting two years for school.

The fire was calling me barren at 19.