I shaved my head completely the day after my husband, Obinna, told me he had Stage 3 cancer. It was my way of standing with him, of ensuring he wouldn’t face the indignity of hair loss alone. Looking at my reflection, I didn’t see ugliness; I saw the raw face of my fear and my unwavering love. That simple, drastic act was the first step on a path I believed was about salvation, but which turned out to be a road to ruin. My world had already shifted with his diagnosis, a quiet earthquake that promised only loss. He spoke of a treatment in India, a miracle with a price tag of fifteen million naira. The number was terrifying, but the alternative was unthinkable. I was a caterer, a woman of modest but proud means. My business was built on long hours and determination, not vast wealth. Yet, the man I loved needed a lifeline, and I was the only one who could throw it.
So, I began the dismantling of my life, piece by piece, to build his escape. I sold my three delivery vans, the backbone of my catering service. I leased out my beloved shop in Surulere, the place that carried the scent of my dreams. My gold jewelry, saved for a secure future, went next. When it still wasn’t enough, I stood before my village meeting and pledged my father’s old house as collateral for a loan. My family pleaded with me to see sense, but my love was a fortress against their logic. A house without Obinna, I told them, would be a tomb. I raised the money, a crushing weight of cash that represented every sacrifice. I handed it to him, and his tears of gratitude felt like a blessing. He promised a lifetime of repayment, his voice thick with what I mistook for love.
He traveled to India with his brother for the treatment, while I stayed in Lagos with our three children. For three months, our connection was a fragile digital thread—video calls showing him in a hospital gown, looking frail. I prayed, I fasted, I worried myself thin. Then, the calls stopped. The silence that followed was a void filled with dread. When I finally called the hospital in India, they had no record of my husband. The floor dropped away beneath me. The truth found me on a dusty Lagos street months later, in the form of a sleek black G-Wagon. Inside was Obinna, not sick but thriving, his skin glowing, his confidence restored. Beside him sat a pregnant woman. My dying husband was very much alive, and he had a new wife.
He explained with chilling calmness. There was no cancer. It was a strategy. He needed capital after a business failure and knew I wouldn’t give it freely. So, he concocted a story that would guarantee my total sacrifice. The fifteen million was his ticket into a new life with Cynthia, a woman whose politician father offered connections. He tossed some money at my feet, a pitiful fraction of what he’d taken, and drove away. The betrayal was absolute. Now, six months later, the tables have turned. Cynthia’s father has been arrested, his assets seized. She has fled, leaving Obinna in ruins. Suddenly, he remembers his “true love” and wants to come home. Everyone urges forgiveness for the sake of the children and propriety. But when I look in the mirror and see my hair, still patchy and struggling to grow back, I don’t feel grace. I feel a calm, cold resolution. The door he walked out of with my life in his hands is now permanently closed.
