I am Adewale Ajayi, 43, and as I sit on this creaking cane chair in my late father’s compound in Surulere, I know my life will never be the same again.
I am divorcing my wife, Adesuwa, my partner of 17 years, because of a ghost from her past, a ghost with flesh and bones, named Damilola “Dami”. The so-called “best friend” she swore was like a brother.
You see, one month ago, a careless whisper found its way to my ear. My sister, Bola, Adesuwa’s childhood friend and my own blood, confessed during a heated argument that Dami was never just a friend. He was once her “friends with benefits” before I ever knew her. And the worst part? Bola had known all along but kept mute for almost two decades.
I still hear the words echo: “Adewale, na small thing nah, it was in the past…”
Small thing? Small thing!
When Adesuwa and I started dating 18 years ago, we made a pact: we’d cut off every ex, every “unfinished business,” every old flame that could light a new fire. While I burnt my bridges, she kept one smouldering under my nose.
The betrayal hit me like a trailer with failed brakes on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. That night, I lay awake listening to her breathe, wondering how many times I’d been the fool at my own table.
To make matters worse, Dami and I are almost mirror images, same lanky height, same light skin that people say I got from my mum’s Brazilian bloodline, same gap tooth. The same laugh, even. For years people joked we could pass for brothers. Now, that joke sits on my chest like an ogbanje spirit.
I didn’t waste time. I called my lawyer, Bamidele, a no-nonsense man who chews palm nuts while drafting divorce papers. I also did what many say is “too much”: I took DNA samples from my three children, Ewatomi, my precious 16-year-old daughter who’s the carbon copy of Adesuwa; and my twin sons, Korede and Ayotunde, both 12.
I pray every day that the test proves they’re mine because the thought that they might not be? I’d rather drink acid than face that reality.
When I confronted Adesuwa, she wept so bitterly, her knees on our parlour floor, her makeup staining the Ankara wrapper she’d tied. She swore she loved me. She swore Dami was just “a shoulder to cry on.” She begged me to remember how she laboured for 16 hours with Tomi, how she stayed up when Ayo was sick with malaria at six months. But every tear felt like salt on a festering wound.
I threw her out of my house, I drove her straight to her parents’ home in Abeokuta and told them everything. Her mother burst into tears. Her father looked like he’d swallow his tongue from shame.
And I told the children, too. People say they’re too young, but what’s the point in pretending? Even children in Nigeria know betrayal before they can spell it.
Since then, Adesuwa has been calling me every day. Her voice is hoarse, like a rooster in harmattan. My in-laws say she barely eats. Bola, my sister , traitor in wrapper, has tried to reach me through her husband, Kunle. I told Kunle to tell her she’s dead to me. E no concern me.
Neighbours whisper that I am wicked. That I’m breaking my family because of an old flame that died long ago. But how do you live with a lie that has worn your surname for 17 years? How do you sleep beside someone whose heart might have always belonged to another?
Right now, I’m waiting for those DNA results like a condemned man waits for a Governor’s pardon. If they come back clean, this marriage is still dead. If they come back dirty? I don’t know if I’ll find the strength to stay standing.
But one thing I know: the gates of my grandfather’s house will never open to deceit again. Let her find solace where she left her heart, with Dami the “free spirit” who never married because he was “born to wander.”
May the wandering never bring him back to my doorstep.
So help me God.
