Episode 1
From the outside, my marriage seemed perfect. People envied me. They said I was lucky to be married to Kemi—a woman so beautiful, calm, and soft-spoken that the neighbors called her an “angel.” Inside my house, I lived in a prison of silence.
Ever since our wedding night, Kemi hadn’t let me near her. Not once. On our wedding night, she said she was tired, so tired from a long day. I understood. But the next night, and the next, and the next—it was always the same. Apologies. Headaches. Stomach aches. Tears. She curled up in bed, her back to me, leaving me cold and confused.
At first, I thought it was shyness. I thought it was trauma. I tried to be patient, to love her gently, to wait until she was ready. But the weeks turned into months, and months into a year, and nothing changed. We had just settled into bed as husband and wife. She wouldn’t let me touch her.
I kept quiet because I didn’t want people to laugh at me. How could I tell anyone that my own wife—the woman I paid my bride price for, the woman who wore my ring—had never let me into her arms? I smiled on the outside, but inside, I was dying.
Then, one morning, Kemi came out of the bathroom with a stick in her hand. Her face was pale, her lips were trembling. She lowered it onto the table in front of me. Two red lines. Positive.
She was pregnant.
I looked at it, my whole body numb. Pregnant? Pregnant?! How?! I had never touched her. Not once. My mouth was dry, my head was spinning.
“Kemi…” I whispered, my voice shaking. “What is this? What are you trying to say?”
She sat up slowly, her eyes refusing to meet mine. “I… I don’t know how to explain.”
“Explain what?!” I cried, my voice breaking with pain. “We’ve never been together as a couple. Tell me, whose child is this?”
Tears welled up in her eyes but she remained silent. My chest was on fire, my fists clenched so tightly my knuckles were white. I wanted to crush something, break the walls, scream. But the worst pain wasn’t the betrayal—it was the mystery.
Who?
Who touched her? When? Where? How could she bring another man’s child under my roof, eating my food, sleeping in my bed, while denying me the right to belong to me as his wife?
And why—why did she look more scared than guilty?
That was the beginning of the storm.
Because Kemi’s pregnancy wasn’t just an infidelity. It was a secret darker than I could have imagined.
And the father of her child… Closer than I thought.
Since our wedding night, Kemi hasn’t let me near her. First, she said she was tired. Then a headache. Stomach cramps. Tears. She’s been away, her back to me. I thought it was shame, maybe trauma. I tried to be kind, patient.
Weeks turned into months, months into a year. And yet, there was no intimacy. I was laughing so hard outside, but inside my house I was a ghost.
And now, this stick was on the table. Proof of something impossible. Proof of infidelity—or something worse.
One night I asked her directly: “Are you with someone else?”
She shook her head, tears welled up, but remained silent.
The next morning, I began my search. Kemi’s routine seemed normal: work, church, home. No strange messages, no late nights. But the absence of evidence is no proof of innocence.
When I went to the clinic where she had regular checkups, the receptionist politely turned me away: “Sir, medical records are confidential.”
I left with a fire burning in my chest. There was something here. Something she wasn’t telling me.
On my third visit, I saw Dr. Lado, a woman with sharp eyes and a calm voice.
“She came here for counseling once,” the doctor said carefully. “For vaginismus – involuntary contractions. She was afraid of intimacy. She asked about therapy … and about assisted reproduction.”
I felt the ground shift beneath me. “So you’re telling me—?”
“There are methods like IUI, IVF. But I can’t reveal the details without her permission.”
I walked out, dizzy. Vaginismus. The word rang in my skull. All these years, I had stood outside a locked door, not knowing that the lock was made of fear, not denial.
That night, Kemi laid a sheaf of papers on the table, her hands shaking.
“I didn’t cheat,” she whispered. “I went for treatment. I wanted to get better. I wanted to be your wife. But the doctor suggested IUI as a temporary option… I thought that if I had a child, maybe people wouldn’t ask anymore. Maybe you wouldn’t hate me.”
“Who donated?” My voice cracked.
“It’s anonymous,” she said. “But the clinic selects donors who are genetically close to the husband’s background.”
My heart went cold. Anonymous. Close. Familiar.
I traced the donor files through the lab. There, in the hallway, I saw him – Chidi, my childhood friend, my brother in everything but blood.
“Do you work here?” I asked, stunned.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Don’t tell me—”
“No! I didn’t donate,” Chidi swore. “But I manage donor records. Kemi fell in the parking lot once. I helped her. She begged me to keep her secret. I just matched her to a secure profile – DF-112.”
“DF-112? Who is that?”
Chidi swallowed hard. “It’s linked to a contact number … your cousin, Dayo.”
I found Dayo cleaning his motorcycle. “DF-112. Is that you?”
He froze. The rag disappeared from his hands. “You know.”
“Did you donate?”
“Yes. A few years ago. For fertility research by medical students. I don’t know who received it.”
“Do you know Kim?”
She shook her head tightly. “Never. And, I swear to you it’s worth it :).”
Her words burned in me. Could it be true? That fate had twisted the threads so cruelly – that my husband had brought life from an anonymous donation, and the donor had become family?
Finally, Kemi agreed to meet with Dr. Lado and me.
The doctor filed a file. “Here’s the IUI consent form. It was missing the husband’s signature. He wrote: ‘My husband will sign when he’s ready.’”
Kemi went downstairs. “I thought if I gave you a child, you might stay. I’m ashamed to tell you that I can’t let you touch me. I chose secrecy over healing.”
For the first time, I heard not just her words, but the fear beneath them.
The rainy season had arrived. We attended therapy together. Kemi faced her trauma. I faced my pride.
One night, she placed my hand on her stomach. “If you can’t accept this child, I’ll raise him alone. I don’t want you to feel trapped.”
I held her hand tighter. “Kemi, I’ve been standing at the wrong door for so long. If there’s another door called forgiveness and healing, we’ll open it together.”
She sighed, but for the first time, she didn’t pull away when I hugged her.
Makalipas ang ilang buwan, isinilang ang aming sanggol. Ang kanyang maliit na dimpled na baba ay sumasalamin sa kay Kemi. Ang kanyang maliwanag na mga mata ay sumasalamin sa akin.
Hinawakan ko siya nang malapit, at sa kauna-unahang pagkakataon sa loob ng maraming taon, nakaramdam ako ng init sa halip na kawalang-kabuluhan.
“Kemi,” bulong ko, “Tinahak namin ang mahabang daan. Ngunit sa bahay… ay kung saan pipiliin nating bumalik. ”
Sa labas ng bintana ay tumigil na rin ang ulan. Bukang-liwayway ang bukang-liwayway sa isang bahay na dating nahati — ngayon ay pinagsama-sama muli ng katotohanan, sakit, at isang bagay na mas malakas kaysa sa pareho.