The name alone made her pause, as if it still had the power to stir something in her chest.

“I met him at a party in Osu. He had this… this bad boy vibe about him. You know, he had tattoos, wearing those sleeveless motorcycle jackets… looking like he was one of the big boys. Honestly, he looked like the kind of man you always told us to avoid. But that night…” she gave a dry laugh, “…I was so drawn in by him. Sort of like a moth to fire. And when he smiled at me… I was gone. Honestly.”

The women around her exchanged subtle glances.

“What followed was… it was like a whirlwind. We didn’t really talk, to be honest. It was just lust and fire. We’d meet, and just… have sex. Over and over again. That was it. No conversations. No real getting to know each other. Just naked bodies and heat.”

Rose quietly reached over and placed a hand on her back, gently rubbing.

“Six months in, and… after one of those nights, I was lying there, just exhausted but… happy, I guess. Then he turned to me and what came out of his mouth… I never would have expected it…

“Nana Akua.”

“Hmm?”

“I want to marry you.”

Nana Akua froze as she looked up at him.

“…What?”

He propped himself up on one elbow. “I’m serious.”

Nana Akua’s laugh was soft and uncertain. “Dzimah, come on. You barely know me.”

He shook his head. “No. I know what I need to know. I know how I feel when I’m with you. I’ve never wanted anything beyond this. And I think… I think we can make something real out of it.”

Nana Akua sat up slightly, her heart thudding now. “You… want to marry me?”

He nodded. “See, I have a house. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s mine. In the Volta Region. Small quiet town. We could go there and start afresh. No noise, no drama, no one disturbing us or anything like that. Just you and me, every day. We could… build a life together.”

She stared at him, lips parted, unsure what to say.

On one hand, a part of her screamed that this was mad. Reckless. Completely irresponsible.

But on another hand… the idea of slipping away with him, disappearing from the noise of her family and those annoying church folks, living in a house where no one expected anything from her, where she could just spend each day enjoying the love and tastiness of this awesome guy…

It sounded way too good to turn down.

She smiled and whispered, “Okay, baby. Let’s do it. Let’s get married.”

She looked up at them, a sad smile tugging at her lips. “Like a fool, I said yes. No questions. I thought… this was passion. This was what love felt like.

“So we left. Moved to a small town in the Volta Region. Did a court wedding just a few weeks after arriving. Nothing fancy. Just a signature and a kiss. I was so full of excitement and… lust. It felt like I was living in a dream. I didn’t care about anything else. Nothing mattered. Not the church I’d walked away from. Not the bridges I’d burned. Just him.”

She looked away for a second, swallowing hard. Then her voice dipped to a near whisper.

“We were happy for about a year, just picking up from where we left off, with the focus on sex and all that. We stayed in that bubble, and it… it felt so good. The dream felt so good. I didn’t know that the dream would soon become a nightmare.”

The ladies looked at each other, concern etched on their faces. They could already tell where this was heading.

“It started one evening,” she continued. “A church down the road was having a crusade. Nothing too fancy, just speakers and a lot of chairs under a tent. I remember hearing the praise and worship from our place. And honestly… I didn’t even care for it. I wasn’t suddenly ‘touched’ or anything. I just thought ‘let them do their thing and go’, that was it.”

She paused, brushing a tear from her eye.

“But Dzimah… hmm, Foli was furious. Like, proper furious. He called it ‘noise pollution’, said they were disturbing his peace. I thought he was just venting. I told him to calm down and just ignore them. As long as they weren’t going to set up a church building or do all-nights every single day, there was nothing to worry about. But this man didn’t listen to me. Not at all.

“Instead, he got up, stormed out, and I followed him, just to see what he was doing. Pastors, he marched straight to the crusade grounds and began insulting them. Shouting and calling the pastors scammers and clowns, saying they should take their ‘fake healing drama’ elsewhere. He even smashed a few chairs and stuff. It was that horrible.”

The ladies gasped quietly, exchanging shocked glances.

“It was so embarrassing. And so unnecessary. So I pulled him aside when we got home, and I told him all that… and… and…”

“Dzimah, why would you do that? Why? Come on, babe! You can’t just storm into a church meeting and destroy things! That’s just wrong!”

The couple stood in the living room, with Dzimah’s chest heaving and his eyes wild with fury as an upset Nana Akua spoke to him.

“I know how annoying it can be. The loud music, the shouting. I get it, I really do. But that was not necessary, Dzimah. You embarrassed me. You embarrassed yourself. Now everyone’s going to look at you someway bi.”

He still said nothing. Just looked at her. Slowly. Darkly. Like something had shifted inside him.

Then, finally, his voice came.

Low. Cold.

“Why are you defending them?”

Nana Akua blinked. “What?”

“I said why… are you defending them?” he asked again, every word dripping with growing venom. “You think they’re saints or something? You think these clowns aren’t scammers? Making fools out of people, begging for offerings, faking miracles—you think they’re better than me?”

“No—Dzimah, I didn’t say that–”

“You’re probably a church girl yourself, aren’t you?” he demanded, the fierce look on his face growing more unpleasant. “The way you’re talking about those senseless idiots, I’m sure you were one of them until I came around, abi?”

Her voice wavered as she stared Dzimah in the face. She had never seen this level of rage from him before, and it was not pleasant at all.

“Baby, please, just calm down and listen to–”

“Oh, now you want me to calm down,” he said, stepping closer. His face was twisted now. “You have the nerve and the audacity to talk to me like that? To rebuke me? What kind of woman thinks it’s okay to challenge her husband like that?”

“I wasn’t trying to challenge you, I was just–”

“Shut up!” he roared.

Accompanying that violent roar, was a violent strike across Nana Akua’s cheek.

She gasped, staggering back as the sting from that strike bloomed instantly. Tears welled up from shock that this man she once longed for had just laid his true self bare.

“Now you listen to me, and you listen well. A woman must never—never—talk down to her husband. I don’t care if it’s about church, or politics, or flipping chairs. You keep your mouth shut when I speak. Understood?”

She nodded meekly, holding her cheek as the tears rolled down her cheeks.

He grabbed her arm roughly. “Don’t ever talk to me like that again, if you know what’s good for you. Try it again, and you go see.”

With that, he stormed out of the living room.

“He hit me. For the first time.”

The room was stiff with shock. Pastor Rose drew in a sharp breath. Dzigbordi covered her mouth, eyes brimming with tears. Ewurama sat up straighter, visibly shaken.

Stories like these were unfortunately very common to hear, but they never ceased to shock them.

Nana Akua looked down.

“And from that day forward, he was never the same again. He stopped calling me his queen. Stopped touching me with affection. Suddenly, I became like a maid. I cooked, cleaned, served him. All in silence. And God help me if the food was too hot or too cold. He would beat me at the slightest thing. If I spoke too much, I was ‘disrespectful’. If I kept quiet, I was ‘acting proud’.”

She let out a shaky breath.

“He made me feel so… inhuman. Like a slave with no rights. It was just so mindblowing how… things switched so quickly. From laughter, jokes and lovemaking almost every night to me becoming like a curse to him. At a point, I won’t lie, I kept thinking that it was my punishment for all the things I did. For how I treated people at church. For how I insulted and offended so many people. I thought this was just my hell to live in quietly.”

Maame Ama’s grip tightened as she shook her head. This was so unfortunate to hear.

“But…” Nana Akua continued, eyes darkening, “…what I haven’t told you yet… that’s the worst of it. That’s the part that still wakes me up at night.”

The women held still.

“That’s the part that made me finally run once I had the strength to.”

Her words fell like a thunderclap in the quiet room.

Maame Ama, voice low but steady, asked, “What happened, Nana?”

Nana Akua took a deep breath.

“I got pregnant.”

The women held their breath.

“For the first time in a long time in that house… I actually smiled. I was happy. I thought that maybe… maybe this would change things. Maybe the idea of us having our child would soften him. Give us a new beginning.”

“So, I told him. I told him one night after dinner, expecting him to pull me into his arms or at least… say something kind…”

“Dzimah, my lord, please, I have something to tell you.”

Sitting at the dining table with a plate of rice and stew in front of him that he had barely touched, Dzimah didn’t look up. He just kept swirling his drink in the glass, his mind seemingly elsewhere.

“I’m pregnant,” she said, a small smile on her lips.

That got his attention. His hand froze mid-sip, the glass hovering inches from his mouth. Slowly, his eyes lifted to meet hers.

His expression: cold, unreadable and flat.

She tried to hold the silence, hoping it would melt into something warm. “Our family… it’s starting to grow now,” she added, voice almost a whisper. “I thought you’d want to know.”

He didn’t blink. Just stared.

Then, with a voice like a slap, he spoke.

“You’re a very stupid woman.”

The smile vanished from her face. “What?”

“Are you deaf? I said you’re a very stupid woman,” he repeated, louder now. “You think I want a family? You think I asked for that? When I said let’s get married, you think fatherhood was what I had in mind?”

Nana Akua’s mouth fell open. “I-I… I just thought… I thought maybe this would… would be a new start for us. Something to… to bring us together.”

He stood suddenly, his chair screeching against the floor. “Get rid of it.”

Her heart plummeted. “No… Dzimah my lord, please. I beg you. Please. If you don’t want to be involved, that’s fine. I can handle it alone. I’ll raise the child myself. Just… please, don’t ask me to–”

“Oh, so now you’re giving me options?” he spat, stepping around the table. “You think you can challenge me again? You really haven’t learned anything, have you?”

She stood as well, backing away slightly. “I’m not challenging you—I’m begging you. This is our child–”

“Shut up! Stubborn fool!” he snapped, his voice rising like a whip. “Always talking. Always trying to act like you have a say. You don’t. If you won’t obey me, then I’ll do things my way.”

Without warning, he grabbed his plate and flung it to the floor. The crash rang out through the house—rice, meat, and ceramic shards scattered across the tiles.

Nana Akua gasped, hands flying to her mouth.

He didn’t look at her again as he walked away.

Maame Ama’s heart pounded. “What did he mean by that, Nana Akua? That he’d do things his way? What did he do?”

Nana Akua looked her dead in the eye, tears welling again.

“I… I should have known… I should have known… it happened the next day…”

Nana Akua wiped the sweat from her brow as she emerged from the kitchen, her hands raw and pruney from scrubbing pots and cleaning out the cabinets. She was exhausted, but at least she had finished everything for the day.

Well, almost everything. There were a few plates in the sink that needed to be washed, but a brief pause was needed.

She paused at the doorway, eyes catching Dzimah lounging against the far wall, scrolling through something on his phone. He looked up just as she entered.

 He looked her up and down, scorn written all over his face. He snorted. “I hope you scrubbed well.”

Then, with a dismissive flick of his fingers, he pointed toward the dining table where a tall glass of water sat. “Drink something. You look like you’re about to collapse,” he ordered, before pushing himself off the wall and sauntering out of the room without another word.

Nana Akua hesitated briefly, staring at the glass. But her throat was parched, and she needed that hydration. So she shuffled over and picked it up, drinking gratefully. Having emptied the glass in one go, she sighed softly as she set it back down.

She then made her way back to the kitchen, rolling up her sleeves as she prepared to finish what was left before nightfall.

Just as she reached for the first plate, however, a strange, heavy fog seemed to settle over her mind.

The edges of her vision blurred. Her hand slipped off the plate.

She blinked, confused. Her knees buckled.

The kitchen spun.

Then everything went dark.

**

Nana Akua stirred with a sharp gasp, her entire body throbbing. The searing pain in her abdomen was almost blinding.

Slowly, disoriented, she blinked until the room came into focus.

She was in the bedroom. Lying on the floor.

She tried to move, but the pain was overwhelming. A groan escaped her lips, raw and involuntary. Her arms trembled as she tried to push herself up.

The ache in her womb felt unnatural. Almost like it was deep.

And hollow.

Then she saw him.

Dzimah.

He stood by the door, arms folded, a dark smirk playing at his lips.

“Now you know who’s in control,” he muttered, voice low and sharp like a blade.

Her eyes widened. “Wha—what did you do to me…?”

He tilted his head, almost mockingly. “Oh, so you don’t remember, eh? That’s too bad. Maybe next time you’ll think twice before talking anyhow to your husband.”

She clutched her stomach, panic rising with each breath. “Dzimah…” Her voice cracked. “What did you do?”

He stepped closer, crouching slightly. “You drank the water. That was all I needed. While you were out, I brought in two guys– ‘doctors’, let’s call them.” He sneered. “They gave you anesthesia and… you know, took care of the little problem.”

Her breath caught. “No… no, no, no—”

“Don’t act surprised, fool!” he spat. “I told you I didn’t want that thing. I told you. But no, you had to defy me yet again and play perfect little mother. Well, that’s not gonna happen anymore.”

Nana Akua’s face contorted in horror. She gripped the floor, chest heaving, unable to speak as the shock gripped her.

He straightened. “You’ll regret the day you were born if you ever try to cross me again. Ever.”

He stared down at her for a moment longer, then turned and walked out of the room, the sound of the door closing behind him echoing like a final judgment.

Her body trembled as the full weight of what had happened sank in.

She was no longer pregnant. She had lost the child.

In circumstances beyond anybody’s worst nightmares.

A sound began to rise from her throat—low at first, then building until it erupted into a soul-wrenching wail.

A mother’s cry, but there was no child to cradle. Only silence. And pain. And grief.

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye to my baby. I didn’t even get to say goodbye to my baby!”

The raw, anguished scream from Nana Akua sent a shudder through the room, as she completely broke down, destroyed by the awful memory.

The three women and Ewurama were already in tears, deeply traumatized by this awful story. From the moment she mentioned his name, she knew it had something to do with abuse.

But this? This was beyond mean. This was evil. Monstrous. Vile beyond human comprehension. As mothers, they could not even begin to imagine how horrible such an experience would be, having your child ripped away from you without your permission.

By the very father of that child.

They moved at once, wrapping their arms tightly around her. A sobbing Rose held her head against her shoulder while Dzigbordi stroked her back, her own face drenched in tears.

Maame Ama, equally as teary as the other two, gripped her hand with all the strength of a sympathetic woman. “Oh my God…” she whispered. “Oh, Nana…”

“We’re so sorry, Nana,” Rose whispered, her voice thick with hurt. “You didn’t deserve any of that. It doesn’t matter, you didn’t deserve this.”

Dzigbordi and Ewurama were too overwhelmed with grief to say anything.

And Nana Akua continued to mourn. Mourn the child that was so callously stripped away from her.

They didn’t try to stop the crying. They didn’t rush her silence. They let her weep, let her scream, let her feel the pain.

And with hearts cracked wide open, they all wept with her.

Oh my God… oh my God… what a heartbreaking story. This Dzimah guy is pure evil! How do you do such a thing?! Ugh, what a devil!