I’d just finished lectures and was descending in the lift when this man joined me on the next floor. He greeted me courteously, and I flashed him a smile. He asked what course I was studying and whether I was finding it easy.
I answered, “You know it’s a master’s programme with plenty of assignments. It’s not easy, but we’re hanging in there.”
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By the time he asked the next question, the lift had reached the ground floor. We both walked out, and just when I was saying goodbye, he asked me to follow him. He got to his car, gave me his complimentary card, and asked for my number.
I responded, “I will give you a call.”
“Oh, let me have it, just in case you forget to call.”
“I won’t forget to call. Trust me, I will call you.”
It turned into a mini argument of give me your number versus I won’t give you my number.
There was this guy walking towards us from the opposite direction. He came from behind the man but was directly in front of me. When he got to where we were, he put his arm around my neck and told the man, “Are you done? Can I take my wife away now?”
The man looked at him, looked back at me, smiled, and walked away while this new guy gently pulled me along with his arm around my neck.
A few steps later, he removed his hand and said, “That’s what these old men do, ooo. They want all the women to themselves. Greedy men.”
Then we both burst into laughter.
I thanked him, and before we parted, he said, “Don’t call him. He’s no good.”
The whole thing looked funny, but I liked the way this guy had cut the conversation short for me.
Several weekends later, I was walking around campus when I heard, “Ei, my wife… long time.”
I turned around, and there was the guy who had rescued me from the man. We talked. He asked if I’d called the man.
I replied, “I wouldn’t shame you, my husband. All that effort you put in shouldn’t come to nothing.”
I asked his name.
“Paapa.”
I told him my name, and anytime we met after that day, I called him Paapa, and he called me his wife. When he got my number, he saved it as “Wifee Campus” and asked me to save his number as “Husbee.”
I said, “Don’t let your girlfriend see that, oo, or else you’re done.”
When we talked that day, we talked about relationships. He said he was single. I said I was in a relationship, but the man wasn’t in Ghana. He told me he wasn’t surprised I was in a relationship. “A woman like you can’t be single, obviously.”
Then we talked about who a woman like me was.
He came to my graduation with a bouquet of flowers, and we hugged. My dad was there. My mum and my elder sister were there too.
Later, my dad asked who he was, and I said he was a friend. He said, “I thought he was your boyfriend. And he brought you flowers.”
I responded, “How can I have another boyfriend besides Kofi?” Then my dad said, almost jokingly, “Don’t make every man around you just a friend because of another man who is away. Time and opportunity pass very quickly. Make Kofi permanent or give way to others with good intentions.”
I thought about that advice for so long that I even wrote it down and read it to myself occasionally.
When Kofi called one day, I asked him, “You should have been home two years ago. You keep postponing. What happens to me?”
“Are you bringing up this marriage topic again? I thought we settled it.”
“Yes, we did, but you know I’m not getting any younger, and there’s pressure around me too.”
“Well, if you think you can’t wait and there’s someone you want, marry him. I will come, but I still don’t know when.”
One day, during a conversation, Paapa told me he still had my number saved exactly the way he had saved it. The only difference was that he had removed the word Campus.
I asked if he was serious about making me his wife, and he answered, “That’s the only thing I’m sure of in life, that if I have you, you’ll be my wife.”
“You have me then. Do as you please.”
“How about Kofi?”
“We broke up. I’m a free woman.”
It was after this conversation that I called Kofi and told him I wanted to move on.
He answered, “Fine. If that’s what you want.”
Less than a week later, Kofi was posting another girl on his status with the caption, “The love that never leaves. Thank you for being there.”
I laughed when I saw it. I even thought he was doing it just to hurt me. But guess what? My heart was already beating for the new thing I’d started with Paapa. He was here. I saw him every day. He made me part of his plans. He asked for my opinion on everything he wanted to do. I was sure about him.
I’m not very superstitious, but I looked at how we met and told myself, “It’s not for nothing that he called me his wife right from the start. And it’s not for nothing that my dad saw him and gave me that advice.”
We are married now with two kids, a boy and a girl. I got pregnant the very month we got married. Right after the first child, the second one followed. We didn’t even have time to be husband and wife before parenthood came calling.
After the second one, we agreed we were done. The man who called me his wife even before he knew me is now the father of my children. Who says the universe can’t pull a prank on us?
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I’m glad I listened to my dad’s advice, and I’m also happy Paapa was patient in love. If I had made Kofi my all and my world, I would have been wallowing in pain now. He married the girl he posted on his status. Maybe he had both of us and was waiting for me to get frustrated and walk away—and I did.
I’m happy I did because when I fell like a drop of dew, I landed in an ocean, right where little drops of water dream of being.
—Sarpomaa
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