We should have filled the silence between us. Instead, we lied. Though we did not do it with our tongues, we acted like we were fine, holding hands as we sat on the chaise lounge, watching a movie and eating popcorn. We no longer smiled, but we seemed content. We have never changed, never talked.
The silence that surrounded us every day started because ten times we tried to have children; ten times we failed. We stopped trying, becoming what we were, letting the silence comfort us when we were at home. I thought, like me, he was resigned. We might never have kids, but we would be happy. We no longer made love, but we still held each other naked while we slept, as though clinging to the memory of what was, of what will never be.
But he wasn’t.
He had other plans that did not involve me. I knew when he started to see something else; when our silence was no longer enough for him. He chose to move on but instead of picking me up with him, where I sat in grief holding on to the little fragments of what could have been, he chose to move on without me.
I knew when he started seeing someone. He became different—he was the Obi of old, the one who always had light in his eyes. He was the one I was excited to move into our big house in Lagos with. We bought it twelve years ago, excited with big plans to have a large family. We planned everything except the silence echoing through the house now.
At the start, I was happy to see the man I had fallen for 17 years ago—the one filled with life and ambition, the one with whom nothing was impossible. My Obinna. My Obi. But I didn’t know he was getting his joy from someone else. He came home after three days away and lied he went on a trip. There wasn’t any trip. I knew through his secretary who called because he had told her too he’d be home. My heart felt like a furnace in my chest. That cannot be my Obi. My Obi never lied.
He came back with flowers. They looked red – the flowers – but I can’t say because I was seeing red long before he came home. I looked at him; he saw himself in my eyes and knew that I knew. I reached out and struck him. He looked shocked, then angry, then shocked again, and emotions swirled across his face.
I screamed, grabbed him and shook him. I knew I should be calmer. I knew I should be patient. I knew that just like him, I was feeding his anger, but something in me had broken. The strings that held me together had come undone. The silence no longer held me as its prisoner, and so I talked. I said things I don’t remember, but things he would always remember.
I watched his eyes shift from anger to pain, then to sorrow and pure agony. “I have never done this before,” he said. He shook his head as I rattled on. He looked at me in sadness and disbelief. Then, he separated himself from me, walked up the stairs, into our bedroom, and started packing things into a large suitcase.
I followed him, face twisted, index finger out, tongue babbling accusations.
Tears rolled down his cheeks. “I can’t live like this,“ he said.
I should stop but I did not care; I continued talking until the front door slammed shut with a loud bang.
After a while, reality dawned on me: here I am, no children, no husband.
***
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