Last updated on October 1st, 2025 at 06:20 pm
Tenant 1-Mama Chidi:
We suddenly stopped seeing Big Mummy. I noticed about a week ago that I hadn’t seen her in the compound or even in her shop. Her shop has been closed, and the girls who assisted her both at home and in the shop do not know her whereabouts. At first, I thought that she travelled. But since we have been living here for about twelve years, Big Mummy has never traveled.
Now, it’s been a month, and everywhere is still quiet. Even tenants at the shop must be concerned because people in the neighbourhood are curious.
“Hmm, Daddy Chidi. Hope it’s not that she committed suicide?”
“Come on! What type of rubbish are you saying? How can you say that in front of the kids?” My husband replies. Saint Papa Chidi, I think, rolling my eyes. My phone beeps again, and I know that my creditors are closing in on me, but Papa Chidi has now been passed up for a promotion thrice at work, so we have had to manage in the house. As if he knows what I’m thinking, he calls out.
“Mama Chidi, is it that chicken is so expensive now that we only eat stockfish and ponmo?” I ignore him and continue folding the laundry. “Mama Chidi? You won’t answer abi?” He calls again, but I know that he won’t call a third time.
That stupid banker impregnated Ada. I had to take from our monthly allowance to pay for the abortion. Still, the useless girl has refused to stop seeing the man. When she started getting close to him, he used to buy her things, and I was happy. She would bring the gifts and money home, and we would share them. I was happy because her older brother Jidenna, is just a useless son. Even when he was earning a salary during his internship, he didn’t give me a dime out of it. I know he sent his first salary to his father. Useless children all around. Ada is the only considerate one. That was what I thought until she started stealing my money and food to give to the banker.
That is why I want to travel out. Almost all the women in my “Women’s Might Association” have traveled. Some are in Cairo, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Libya, Ethiopia, and even Ghana. And all the time, they post on WhatsApp with bright smiles and a blue sky in the background. The good life is calling me. My children will be fine without me, please. This travelling is why I am in debt; if not, the weekly contribution to my association would not be an issue. My agent has said that in two months, everything will click. Only two months.
But Big Mummy’s disappearance is a serious matter. What if the police come to arrest us? Even Big Daddy does not seem disturbed. Once he arrives, I will ask him again.
***
Grace, aka Big Mummy (Before disappearing)
“Good afternoon, big mummy. Welcome, ma.”
I nod at Mama Chidi in response, knowing that my unenthusiastic greeting will at most get me to be the subject of her family’s gossip later. It’s never been enough reason for her to stop greeting me. I applaud the woman’s adamance. It’s also probably because I’m her landlady.
I close the gates as my husband drives in. She greets him as soon as he steps out of the car, and he answers, ever bubbly. He is the playful one, the jovial one, the one everyone prefers to see when they come to our house for anything. Our empty house. As he stops to have a little chat with Mama Chidi, I grab my bags from the car and the little bag of groceries we purchased on our way back from church, then head inside.
“What’s for dinner?” He asks as soon as he comes inside. We used to have a live-in maid that I sent away about a year ago; now we have a lady who comes in daily to clean the house and assist, but leaves around 5 pm. My husband has stopped questioning my attitude towards our tenants, both at the shop and the house, just as he has stopped bothering me about getting another live-in maid.
“Pepper soup and rice,” I answer. Our help, Aisha, already made pepper soup on my instructions. I put water to boil, then unload the bag of groceries. My husband stays at the entrance of the kitchen, staring at me for a bit, then sighs and goes into the bedroom.
Once upon a time, our marriage used to be good. And then it stopped being good. We just became flatmates. We still go everywhere in matching outfits, and we never shout or insult each other, but this has become a shell of a marriage. A bad marriage is bad; our marriage is dead. That’s probably the way to describe it. Our dying marriage aside, I have become bitter, and I don’t know what preceded the other. Did I become bitter before my marriage started dying, or did my dying marriage cause me to become bitter?
I used to be very happy. It was what attracted my husband to me, as he said so many times in the early days of our courtship and marriage, but infertility can make even the brightest souls dim. After 28 years of marriage and several infertility treatments, costing us a huge portion of our earnings, a marriage like ours is unavoidable.
I serve my husband his meal on the dining table. We had happily requested the carpenter to make a set of six when we moved into this house twenty years ago. Though we had been trying to conceive for about eight years at this point, we were still hopeful. Now, a section of the table is used for my husband’s books, even though one of the rooms in the house has been converted to his office. It annoys me that he insists on keeping the books here, but it’s not like there’s a human being to occupy it. And that’s how things started taking a turn in our home. Every dream we had was about having children. The very essence of our marriage was based on the premise of who our kids would look like.
Many days, I don’t even recognise myself again. It’s funny how when you let a little despair in, you sign yourself up for the full package. Despair becomes a habit, and other negative emotions make your mind their home. I wanted to do away with the despair at some point. I got tired. But I soon sank back into it; it felt comfortable and familiar. If I was not sad, was I even serious about wanting kids? And now, I wonder whose voice that was. Who am I if I stopped thinking about kids?
At fifty-three, I have had a good life, no lies. Even on bad days, I see the privilege I have, particularly financially. Many of the treatment options we tried were very costly, yet retirement seems to be looking good for me. I am surrounded by nieces, nephews, and other young relatives who used to look up to me until I gradually pushed everyone away because I could not cope with the pity. A niece would visit me, and someone would make an offhand comment about how it’s good that they visited, considering how lonely I must be. We would want to make contributions within the family, and one relative would mention that I should cover for someone else because I have no responsibilities.
The loneliness of having no children, when deeply desired, is not just in the silence in the house; it’s mostly in being treated like an outcast. The despair that accompanies a life without kids is not only in feeling like it’s an unanswered prayer or being unable to tell if it would ever happen, it’s in the expectation from others and the performance of sadness. You have to be sad because it’s expected. You have to be happy when others talk about their children, even if the information isn’t necessary, so you are not labelled a witch.
Slowly, I detached myself from everyone and everything because performing perpetual sadness and letting everyone conclude is easier than contorting myself to fit every situation, the unspoken rules of being a barren woman. Rather than attending family events and having my in-laws throw shades at me, I chose to be the sad, barren woman who refused to attend events. As a professional MC for weddings, the sadness in my daily life had to be put aside when it was time to work, so I slowly faded out of the business, a difficult one given my network, and focused on my provision stores. It’s easier to focus on sadness than to focus on sadness and happiness.
With friends, it was easy. Some genuine friends got caught up in motherhood. As we did not have many relatable things to discuss, the friendship died a natural death. Some were overbearing, wanting me to try this and then that. They could not understand why I was tired of trying yet another potion and pill. They couldn’t relate to the struggle; their focus was on the goal. A woman without children has not fulfilled her biological purpose; she’s as good as useless. Some could not stand my infertility issues as though it were my doing, which is sometimes how infertility is perceived. They did not want to be seen with me. Infertility is contagious, I learnt.
—
My husband did not put up much of a fight. Initially, when my family insulted me, he tried to calm me down and get me to forget it. Later, he just listened while I ranted, not offering anything. I think that he got tired of the sadness and complaints. He has had the privilege of opting out of the sadness. When his family shamed me, he never told them off. He said he did not hear the remarks, he said they didn’t mean it that way, he told me to avoid the people I accused of being mean. Even on the street, he was more comfortable being the soothing balm to our neighbours, explaining that his wife was just tired.
I was alone in my battle. I still am.
Eight years ago, when I was forty-five, an unknown number called my phone, and my world came crumbling down. She was pregnant with my husband’s child. Not only did he have the privilege to emotionally check out of what was supposed to be our problem, but he also had the privilege to go and “test” himself with another woman. To date, he doesn’t know that I know. The focus, which had never really been on my husband, was totally withdrawn from him as soon as he tested his fertility with another woman. All the gossip I’d heard finally made sense. Our struggling marriage quickly suffered a huge blow after hearing this news. If he linked the demise of our marriage to the time when he impregnated another woman, he never said. Truthfully, if I disappeared, I doubt my husband would know.
I look back at my life and think, is this the tale of a barren woman or the tale of a married woman? Was infertility really the issue or my marriage? Was I trying to compensate for something by trying so hard to have children? To prove my worth? To prove that I deserved a spot as a respectable human being? But something changed. When I clocked fifty, something changed. A few months in, I had my last menstrual period. At 40, I was the most depressed woman ever. I wished for death, and I tried to worry myself to death, barely eating, barely sleeping. I had only a few years until menopause. Menopause was the scariest word to me. So, I was shocked when just a few months after I clocked fifty, my periods stopped, and I was filled with so much relief I could barely hide it.
It became thoroughly difficult to be sad. For the past three years, my performance has become strange, and I have gotten detached from the woman I used to be. While I have kept up with the performance of the sad, barren woman, indoors and alone, I have been delirious. The monthly reminder of my failure no longer exists, and I feel forced to find my worth outside of my womb and her function. I have kept my joy to myself, nurturing her like the child I never had, scared that, like a bird, she might fly away. But most of our suffering is in our minds, isn’t it? Right now, I prefer to focus on nurturing rather than being scared.
A few days ago, one of my aunties, who is now a grandma, called me. She called me to remind me that though I’m over fifty, I shouldn’t stop trying, and miracles happen all the time. I wondered why I allowed all these voices in my head. I wonder why this woman, who has supposedly found her own fulfilment, feels the need to worry about my lack of. I blocked her number. Then, I went on a blocking and deleting spree.
The thing is that sex ceased to be for recreational purposes way too early in my marriage. I did not get married as a virgin, but I remember the freedom that came when I got married and could have sex without worrying about the consequences. The fun was short-lived as I started reading up on my cycle and the different phases. Now, I needed something from her, my body, and had to get familiar with her. Sex became purposeful, ensuring not to miss the days leading up to ovulation, ovulation itself, and the days after.
It’s now been three years since I’ve had sex. One, I did not want to keep my hopes up for a miracle. Secondly, continuing to make love to my husband, who has betrayed me and the vows he made to me, seemed wrong. Thirdly, I was happy not to be bound to my marital duties anymore. Sex doesn’t keep a man. I now know. There is no chance that I am getting pregnant by mistake since I have opted out of that life. As expected, my passive husband only tried a few times before giving up. Last year, after I let go of our live-in maid, I moved into another room in the house and made it my bedroom, my safe haven. In my bedroom, I allow myself to breathe. Free from the constant surveillance and prying eyes, I read books that no one would imagine I read. I watch funny videos and giggle, ensuring that my husband doesn’t hear me. I even started knitting; I learnt that on YouTube.
It’s beneficial to keep up with this performance because it helps me ward off insults and unwarranted pity. It’s easy for everyone to forget their own problems and find a distraction, which I have been for so many people for a long time. Mama Chidi has been in debt for heaven knows how long. She keeps rolling over this debt—paying Peter with Paul’s money—and she has managed to keep it hidden from her husband, who is caving under the financial pressure of being the only breadwinner. Four children with a wife who is in debt, and adding to all the home expenses so she can pay her debt, and Daddy Chidi has aged beyond his years. But my life’s issues are certainly more pleasant for her.
Rumour has it that she has a manfriend whom she sends money to, hence her being in debt. Don’t ask me how I know. Their teenage daughter, the first and only female child, also thinks she is in love with the banker living in the next compound. He is at least nine years older than her, but everyone is silent about it. Should I talk, they would say I hate people’s children because I don’t have my own kids. I hear that this daughter steals from her parents to give to the banker. Like mother, like daughter.
My shop is in front of my house, to the left of the gate. There are two tenants occupying the other two shops, and they all have access to the toilet in the compound. I know that they also gossip about me. Being our neighbours, they pride themselves on being the closest to me, the closest to the gist source. I know they also gossip about my husband, how I must make life miserable for him, how nice he is, and how unlucky he is to have married a bitter, infertile woman. When they go into the compound, they gossip with Mama Chidi. They wouldn’t talk about the other tenant, a photographer, whose boyfriend came to visit her over a year ago and has since moved in with her.
***
Tenant 2-Sewa:
“Baby, have you sent your CV?” I ask, reluctantly.
“Hmm.” Leke murmurs. I look at him and see that he is concentrating on his laptop. I stretch my neck a bit and confirm that, as usual, he’s watching a gadget review. He had promised to send his CV out, and he has done everything but what he promised. Frankly, he made this promise over a year ago when he moved here. I avoid repeating the question because while I hated misunderstandings, it was Leke’s strong suit, and even the most seemingly trivial things would cause him to erupt.
I touch up my lips with a little more lip gloss, remove my hair bonnet, and fluff my hair. I grab my purse, deciding against swapping the contents. “Bye, baby,” I say, and I’m met with silence. Instead of taking a bike, I decide to take a walk to my studio. I had initially wanted to rent a two-bedroom apartment so that I could make the other room a studio, but I had to consider my safety as a woman, a single woman. So, instead, I chose to rent a shop in a quiet area and then a self-contained apartment. I was able to save some money with this idea, and it also feels less isolating compared to working from home all the time.
I made a mistake, and I have to admit it because after enjoying living alone for the first time, after the privilege of starting my own thing and getting by little by little—even if it was with a little help from my siblings, I decided to get into a relationship. I was lonely, and I thought that the solution was to have a man. Leke was the first guy whose message I replied to in my dm on X, and he was so sweet that I never bothered to reply to the other guys. He was like my answered prayers, calling to check up on me, sending me messages every morning, sending me random songs throughout the day; he was doing everything right.
Even though Leke was job hunting, I ignored that part and focused on his potential. He had big dreams, and for someone like me who also dreams big, it resonated. He had admitted that he had to get a conventional job to fund his dreams, and I agreed. We all have dreams, but not being realistic can be the death of a dream. Everything was fine until he told me he had a job interview in Ogun State and needed somewhere to stay. Our relationship had been virtual, but I knew it was only for a while. I was happy to see him, but I suddenly felt worried about him coming to my place, because truthfully, he was still in some ways a stranger.
He suspected my hesitation, got angry, and stopped being reachable. It just proved to me how fickle our relationship was; all he had to do was block me and delete my contact, and I would have no other means to reach him. We didn’t talk for a month, after which he finally returned my messages. He claimed that he didn’t feel supported. He said he understood me not wanting him to stay at mine, but what was the point of me being his girlfriend if I didn’t trust him? Yes, we had a relationship, but Leke never officially asked me out. Still, it wasn’t a good time to voice out my opinion.
We somehow settled the issue. I apologised and he did, and a month later, he called to say he had gotten the job. Since he came back, he’d been irritable and had just said he was going through a difficult time in his life, that he felt the pressure to be a man for me and to support his family. While I assured him that I was fine, I still had to watch my actions with him. This time, to show him support, I offered to send him the cost of transportation to Ogun State. But there was the issue of where he’d stay. In my whole twenty-four years of existence, that was the most stressful time of my life, until now.
He threw a tantrum and told me that I was a mean girlfriend. He screamed and said that men were never supported, yet there was a lot of pressure on them. He finally calmed down, told me to send the money, and said he’d sort out his accommodation. He came to Ogun, refused to see me for over a month, claiming that I hadn’t earned it. Then one afternoon he called me, while I was in the studio, crying that he couldn’t stay where he was anymore, and I had to help him. I didn’t even know where exactly Leke was staying. He begged me to help him, saying that he couldn’t afford to be jobless. He couldn’t afford to go back to Abakaliki empty-handed. The rest is history.
I greet Baba Imole, the man whose shop is next to my studio. I notice again that our Landlady’s shop is closed, which is very unusual. There’s a lot of gossip about her marriage and her being childless, but I admire her work ethic. I open my shop, aware of Baba Imole’s eyes on me. Leke has to leave. I don’t care if his mother ran away with him as a baby from Ibadan to Abakaliki to save herself from his father, as he said, or from Guinea-Bissau to River Niger, he has to leave.
Since he moved in, it’s been from one problem to another. He lost the job barely two weeks after he moved in with me. It took a lot to get him to be useful, even here in my studio. He had promised to send out his CV after he lost that job. When I asked what the delay was, he said he didn’t have a laptop to edit his CV. I fixed my old laptop and gave it to him, and since then, YouTube has been his best friend. Today, he is convinced that he can start a channel and do gadget reviews; tomorrow, he thinks he should start a sports commentary channel.
If I had not lived alone before he moved in, I wouldn’t have known the peace of mind I was missing. The headache of being with him outweighed the loneliness I felt before him. His presence makes the loneliness trivial, a sweet feeling even.
“Sewa,” I hear. I hiss quietly and start dusting my shop. Leke will soon call to say I left nothing for him to eat, knowing that he is job hunting. Is he?! Did he ever even have a job?! I smash the duster I’m holding on a wall gecko.
“Sisi Sewa.”
“Baba Imole, kilode ah?” I go to the entrance of my shop.
“Sisi Sewa, Leke nko?”
“What is it?” I snap, unable to hide my irritation.
“No vex o. It’s just that he owes me money.”
“Ehn?! How?”
Grace, aka Big Mummy (Before disappearing)
For more than a month now, the thought of starting life on my own, away from my husband and everything that I know, has been persistent. I have derived joy imagining a world where I don’t have to perform again. A life without kids has given me more than enough time to work. Without children to spend on, my financial pot is not as depleted, so there isn’t any impediment. I imagine a quiet home and the opportunity to rear animals, something that I’ve always wanted but have been unable to do. I imagine driving to my shop and spending the day making money, then closing and going back to the quiet of my home. Now I can do my hobbies and start exercising in my house without feeling foolish because what’s a woman who has not fulfilled her biological destiny trying to take care of her body for?
My husband is not a saint, but neither am I. In my thirties, at the peak of my earnings, I never disclosed my actual income to him. Apart from my savings, I purchased land in different places and invested in different businesses, some of which paid off nicely. It was an easy decision for me, considering that even with my contributions to this house, everything is in his name. My revenge, as soon as I found out about his cheating, was to build and rent houses and shops on some of the lands I already had. It was and has been easy to keep this secret since he is off to work every day. I also have to restock my shop and check on my other shops around town. That’s all we know of each other. Neither knew what each person was up to when we went about our business for the day.
—
The idea of disappearing began when I started sleeping alone. I had moments of solitude and aloneness that caused me to reflect on the amount of suffering that I have put on myself for over twenty years. In my mid-thirties, as I lost many friends to motherhood and many started calling me for assistance with their children’s school fees, I remember feeling grateful that it wasn’t a struggle for me. This gratitude was quickly quelled by shame.
I remember feeling irritated and overstimulated when I went to friends’ houses after so many rain checks from them, and saw snot on their clothes, toys scattered all over the place, wet rugs and chairs, and constant noise. I would be eager to go back home. This relief would be dispelled as soon as a relative or random person invited me to their church for a program for women trying to conceive. There was a constant reminder that I was not enough. Not anymore.
This weekend, I plan to see my agent. The God-sent woman who has helped me with my properties over the years. It’s time to set the ball rolling. She knows that I am married, but she has never mentioned it, yet she always starts our calls with, “Is this a good time?” It was a silent awareness and agreement between us. She will be helping me with my plans to move. I need her input on the best place to move to. I would also have to move my business, packing my goods and other useful items, to occupy other shops. Including my shop at home, I have four shops, so it won’t be an easy move, but that will be the most adventure I’ve had in many years.
I have been considering resuming my work as an MC again. There’s something so fulfilling about managing weddings, the hopeful brides, excited grooms, stressed mothers, and the relaxed fathers trying to calm their wives. You never know what to expect. Sometimes the grooms were not excited, the wives were hopeful or stressed, the mothers of the couple were not on good terms, and the fathers of the couple were detached from the whole drama. And in the temporary time spent with them, I can always tell after playing with the puzzle in my head. Before the end of the event, I can often tell who is who.
There is probably an alternative to disappearing, but there’s never been a doubt in my mind, no questioning, but a reassurance. I’m simply acting out the way I’ve felt for years. I never existed beyond my inabilities. But I am done feeling like a victim, like I am paying for a sin, like I committed a crime, simply by existing. At this point, I owe no one anything and owe myself a lot. The life I built for myself cannot accommodate the new me; it cannot accommodate the happy version of myself, it cannot withstand seeing me as a carefree woman, a woman who dares to exist even without children, a woman who spins her situation around and dares to even enjoy the benefits of said situation.
—
The tenants:
“Baba Imole, good afternoon.”
“Ehn o, Mama Chidi.”
“Please, let us see in the compound.”
“Ah, what is it?”
“Sisi Sewa? Good afternoon. Please let’s see.”
“Mama Chidi, why have you called us?”
“Sisi Sewa, when last you see landlady?”
“Why you dey ask us? Ask Big Daddy na, we we are just shop tenants. You you dey stay the same compound with them.”
“Hmm, Baba Imole. I’ve used style to ask Big Daddy o and he will say she is fine and just smile.”
“What did you ask him?”
“When he came back the other day, I stepped into the compound as if I was sweeping, and when he got out of the car, I greeted him and asked about Big Mummy.”
“So what did he say?”
“That’s what he said na. He smiled and said she is fine,” Mama Chidi repeat to Baba Imole.
“Just face your own. Face your house and your problem.” Baba Imole says.
“Is that why you called us?” Sisi Sewa asks.
“This is not enough reason to call us. Some of us are busy, abi, Sisi Sewa?” Baba Imole looks at her. She turns and leaves for her shop. Mama Chidi sighs and goes back to her apartment, leaving Baba Imole.
Tenant 1-Mama Chidi:
I need to stay out of this matter because what I didn’t tell my neighbours is that after Big Daddy, our landlord, answered, he asked about Ada. He always asks about my children, but he was particular this time around, as if he knows that something is happening.
Last night, he came back home with a woman. I immediately faced away from him on the mat where I was lying down outside, but he called me.
“Mama Jidenna,” he called, calling me with my first son’s name instead of my last son’s name, Chidi. I got up and went to him.
“Good evening, sir.”
“Good evening. How are your children?”
“They are fine, sir,” I reply and pause for his response. Seeing as he wasn’t saying anything else, I turned to leave.
“Wait, ahem, Mama Chidi.”
“Sir?”
“So, see you have to be careful with everything. It’s not by force to travel. If you travel and put your husband in debt, your children will suffer. Umm, Jidenna is a good man, hardworking like his father, but you see, Michael, we both know that he steals sometimes. He will become an armed robber. Then Ada, will become a prostitute, that’s if she doesn’t get pregnant for the Banker, again. Chidi is still young; no one knows what he will turn into, but if I were you, I would be more careful with that one. He doesn’t exactly have good role models.” He delivered his speech with a smile.
“Y yes, sir.” I stuttered, embarrassed and shocked.
“Okay, good night, Mama Chidi.” He says and strolls to open the passenger side of the car while I rush into my house, hoping nobody heard him.
—
Tenant 3-Baba Imole:
Mama Chidi’s concern over Grace’s absence is not genuine. Even if it were, I wouldn’t have said anything. No one knows this, but Grace and I have been friends for about three years now.
On her fiftieth birthday, she wasn’t her usual sad self, and I noticed, just like I notice everything. In the same way I noticed that she and her husband were only keeping up a front, and their marriage wasn’t what they made it out to be. As the oldest tenant here and on this street, there’s hardly anything that happens without my knowledge.
I noticed Grace and her husband when they moved into this house many years ago, and saw how they shifted as individuals and as a couple. Even when her husband cheated, I knew it, and that was when I really felt pity for Grace. Almost the age of my first child, I could see her sadness. And when something changed, I saw it too.
On her fiftieth birthday, I went to her shop to wish her a happy birthday for the first time, and she was genuinely surprised. The next day, when Sewa didn’t open her shop, Grace came to my shop and asked how I was doing. Sensing her discomfort at being seen, I took her to the inner part of my shop, and we started talking. It was as if she was happy to be seen in a different light. But I was even happier. At my age, everyone considered me to be old and senile; void of youthful strength, my value is nonexistent. With five children and ten grandchildren, I’d be lucky to have my home occupied during the holiday, even though I committed my youth and sacrificed my love life to raising them after my wife, their mother, died when they were young.
Children are not a guarantee of anything, I shared with Grace. Many times, the profit from my store is what keeps me afloat when my pension is delayed and my children forget to send me my allowance. Grace soon became like a child to me. No one knew of our relationship, and when she said she wanted an agent, I shared Abidemi’s number with her.
—
Grace (aka Big Mummy)
“Good afternoon, ma.” My agent greets me.
“Abidemi, good afternoon.”
“So, one of my contacts wants to sell their house. It’s a two-bedroom bungalow with a little but still spacious compound. It can take two cars, and you will still be able to rear animals, as you want.” She launches into our reason for being here, always on duty.
“Do you have children?” I ask her.
“Yes, ma. Two.” She answers, not missing a beat. Still, I notice her surprise. I nod and smile.
“Okay, show me the pictures.”
“I can take you there if you want. There are also some shops around for your business. As long as you’re driving, they are not far from the house.”
“Okay, let’s go there.”
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