I heard the metallic scrape of the gate as someone from outside unlocked the smaller pedestrian entrance with a spare key.
Musa stepped back respectfully, lowering his head as Obinna walked in slowly, adjusting his wristwatch like nothing was wrong.
He looked at me standing in the middle of the compound with a travel bag hanging from my trembling hand.
His face showed no anger.
Only disappointment.
“Nneka,” he said calmly, closing the distance between us step by step, “why are you outside with a bag?”
My throat felt dry, but I forced the words out.
“There is a woman under our bed.”
He did not react the way a confused husband should.
He did not laugh.
He did not ask what I meant.
Instead, he sighed softly, as if I had mentioned something minor and inconvenient.
“I told you not to look,” he replied.
The air suddenly felt heavier, thicker, harder to breathe.
“She looks exactly like me,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “She is pregnant.”
Obinna glanced briefly at Musa, who nodded once and returned to his bench like a machine completing an instruction.
Obinna turned back to me and reached for my bag gently.
“You are shaking,” he said. “Come inside. Let us talk properly.”
I stepped backward.
“I am not going back into that room.”
His expression changed slightly, not into rage, but into something colder.
“You already went into that room,” he corrected quietly. “You crossed the line.”
A breeze moved across the compound, but it did not cool my skin.
I felt sweat gathering at the base of my neck.
“What is she?” I asked. “Who is she?”
He studied my face carefully, almost clinically, like a doctor examining a patient.
“You were not supposed to find out before the ninth month,” he said.
The words made no sense at first.
“Ninth month of what?” I demanded.
“Of your marriage,” he replied.
My stomach tightened painfully.
He gestured toward the house.
“Come inside before the neighbors start noticing you standing like this.”
I looked toward the high walls surrounding the compound.
They suddenly felt taller than before.
“I am not going anywhere with you,” I said, though my voice lacked strength.
Obinna’s jaw tightened.
“You think you are the first?” he asked quietly.
My heart skipped.
