My husband’s cancer diagnosis felt like a theft of our future. When Obinna sat me down, his calm demeanor belying the storm in his words, he showed me papers I couldn’t fully comprehend. Stage 3. Six months. Fifteen million naira for treatment in India. The numbers swirled, but my resolve solidified immediately. I would move heaven and earth. My first act of solidarity was to shave my head. I wanted him to see a partner in the mirror, not a pitying wife. That bald scalp was a banner of my commitment. I was a caterer, a businesswoman with three vans and a shop. They were my pride, my children’s security. But one by one, I sold them. I liquidated my jewelry, my safety net. I even risked my father’s legacy, our ancestral house, for a loan. My family called it madness. I called it love.
I presented him with the mountain of cash, a testament to my faith in “us.” His tears felt like a reward. He left for India, and I clung to our video calls like holy scripture. His image on the screen, though thin, was my anchor. Then, the silence began. The unanswered calls, the dead ends, the cold sweat of dread. The hospital’s denial was the first crack in my reality. The final blow came not in a phone call, but on a sunbaked road. Seeing Obinna step out of a luxury car, healthy and dressed in success, was a surreal horror. The woman beside him, radiant in her pregnancy, completed the picture of my nightmare. There was no hospital. No cancer. It was all a calculated lie to fund his escape from debt and into the arms of opportunity.
He offered no real apology, only a clinical explanation. I was too conservative, he implied, to understand his needs. The money was a strategic investment in his new life with a connected woman. He threw some cash at my feet, a cruel parody of payment, and left me kneeling in the dust. Everything—my business, my security, my hair, my dignity—had been currency for his con. For months, I have rebuilt from ash, tending to my children and my debts with a hollowed-out heart. Now, karma has intervened. His new father-in-law’s empire has crumbled, his new wife has vanished, and Obinna stands alone. His messages of remorse are flooding in, carried by relatives and pastors preaching forgiveness. They talk of second chances and building a home. But the home he destroyed was mine. The woman who shaved her head for him is gone. In her place is someone wiser, harder, and unwilling to let the architect of her destruction back inside.
