Episode 1

From the outside, my marriage looked perfect. People envied me. They said I was lucky to have married Kemi—a woman so beautiful, so calm, so soft-spoken that neighbors called her “angel.” But inside my own home, I was living in a prison of silence.

Since the night of our wedding, Kemi had never allowed me near her. Not once. On our wedding night, she claimed she was tired, too exhausted from the long day. I understood. But the next night, and the next, and the next—it was always the same. Excuses. Headaches. Stomach pain. Tears. She would curl up on the bed, her back turned to me, leaving me cold and confused.

At first, I thought it was shyness. Then I thought it was trauma. I tried to be patient, to love her gently, to wait until she was ready. But weeks turned into months, and months into a year, and nothing changed. We had never shared a bed as husband and wife. She never let me touch her.

I buried my pain in silence because I didn’t want people to laugh at me. How could I tell anyone that my own wife—the woman I paid bride price for, the woman who wore my ring—had never once let me inside her arms? So I smiled outside, but inside, I was dying.

Then, one morning, Kemi came out of the bathroom holding a stick in her hand. Her face pale, her lips trembling. She dropped it on the table before me. Two red lines. Positive.

She was pregnant.

I stared at it, my whole body going numb. Pregnant? Pregnant?! How?! I had never touched her. Never once. My mouth went dry, my head spinning.

“Kemi…” I whispered, my voice shaking. “What is this? What are you trying to say?”

She sat down slowly, her eyes refusing to meet mine. “I… I don’t know how to explain.”

“Explain what?!” I shouted, my voice cracking with pain. “We have never—NEVER—been together as husband and wife. So tell me, whose child is this?”

Tears filled her eyes, but she kept silent. My chest was burning, my fists clenched so tight my knuckles turned white. I wanted to smash something, to break the walls, to scream. But the worst pain wasn’t the betrayal—it was the mystery.

Who?

Who had touched her? When? Where? How could she carry another man’s child under my roof, eating my food, sleeping in my bed, while denying me the right that belonged to me as her husband?

And why—why did she look more afraid than guilty?

That was the beginning of the storm.

Because Kemi’s pregnancy wasn’t just a betrayal. It was a secret darker than I could imagine.

And the father of her child… was closer than I thought.

From our wedding night onward, Kemi had never allowed me near her. First, she said she was tired. Then headaches. Stomach cramps. Tears. She curled away, her back to me. I thought it was shyness, maybe trauma. I tried to be gentle, patient.

Weeks turned to months, months to a year. Still, no intimacy. I laughed outside, but inside my house I was a ghost.

And now, this stick on the table. Proof of something impossible. Proof of betrayal—or something worse

One night I asked her directly: “Do you have someone else?”

She shook her head, tears spilling, but she kept silent.

The next morning, I began my search. Kemi’s routine seemed normal: work, church, home. No strange messages, no late nights. But absence of evidence wasn’t proof of innocence.

When I went to the clinic where she’d had regular checkups, the receptionist refused me politely: “Sir, medical records are confidential.”

I left with a fire in my chest. There was something here. Something she wasn’t telling me.

On my third visit, I managed to see Dr. Lado, a woman with sharp eyes and a calm voice.

“She once came here for counseling,” the doctor said carefully. “For vaginismus — involuntary contractions. She was terrified of intimacy. She asked about therapy… and about assisted reproduction.”

I felt the ground shift beneath me. “So you’re telling me—?”

“There are procedures like IUI, IVF. But I cannot disclose details without her consent.”

I walked out dizzy. Vaginismus. The word echoed in my skull. All these years, I had stood outside a locked door without knowing the lock was made of fear, not rejection.

That night, Kemi laid a bundle of papers on the table, her hands shaking.

“I didn’t cheat,” she whispered. “I went for treatment. I wanted to heal. I wanted to be a wife to you. But the doctor suggested IUI as a temporary option… I thought if I had a baby, maybe people would stop asking questions. Maybe you wouldn’t hate me.”

“Who donated?” My voice cracked.

“It was anonymous,” she said. “But the clinic chooses donors genetically close to the husband’s background.”

My heart froze. 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 all but blood.

“You work here?” I asked, stunned.

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Don’t tell me—”

“No! I didn’t donate,” Chidi swore. “But I managed donor records. Kemi collapsed once in the parking lot. I helped her. She begged me to keep her secret. I only matched her with a safe 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. That’s you?”

He froze. The rag slipped from his hands. “You found out.”

“You donated?”

“Yes. Years ago. For medical students’ fertility research. I never knew who received it.”

“You knew it was Kemi?”

He shook his head firmly. “Never. I swear.”

His words burned through me. Could it be true? That fate had twisted the threads this cruelly — that my wife carried life from an anonymous donation, and the donor turned out to be family?

At last, Kemi agreed to meet with me and Dr. Lado together.

The doctor laid down a file. “Here is the IUI consent form. It lacks the husband’s signature. She wrote: ‘My husband will sign once he is ready.’”

Kemi broke down. “I thought if I gave you a child, maybe you would stay. I was too ashamed to tell you I couldn’t let you touch me. I chose secrecy over healing.”

For the first time, I heard not just her words, but the terror beneath them.

The rainy season came. Together, we attended therapy. Kemi faced her trauma. I faced my pride.

One evening, she placed my hand on her belly. “If you can’t accept this child, I will raise it alone. I don’t want you to feel trapped.”

I held her hand tighter. “Kemi, I’ve been standing outside the wrong door for too long. If there’s another door called forgiveness and healing, then let’s open it together.”

She sobbed, but for the first time, she didn’t pull away when I embraced her.

Months later, our baby was born. His tiny dimpled chin mirrored Kemi’s. His bright eyes mirrored mine.

I held him close, and for the first time in years, I felt warmth instead of emptiness.

“Kemi,” I whispered, “we took the long road. But home… is where we choose to come back.”

And outside our window, the rain finally stopped. Dawn rose over a house that had once been divided — now stitched back together by truth, pain, and something stronger than both.