She Was Only Fourteen When She Said My Brother Had Gotten Her Pregnant

We live in what people like to call “a good home.” A big house. Several cars. Businesses running. By God’s grace, we are comfortable. We are educated. Our family name carries weight, and from childhood we were raised to protect it. Still, despite all this, each of us children was taught to build something for ourselves. Nothing was handed to us freely.

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After I completed SHS and was waiting for my results, I didn’t want to sit idle. I applied to teach in a private school nearby. That was where I met the girl.

She was much younger than me, but she admired me deeply. When my results came out and I left for the university after about three months, I thought that chapter had ended. But it didn’t. Anytime she saw me in the neighbourhood, she called me “madam” or “sister.” I felt responsible for her. I took it upon myself to groom her the way older sisters do. Some days she followed me around, and I bought food for her or gave her small money. I never hesitated. When I went to her mother’s provision shop, she would ask me to buy her something, and I always did.

She kept saying she wanted to visit me in our house, but I never allowed it. Something about it didn’t sit right with me.

Later, my younger brother told me this girl had also been approaching him, saying she wanted to be his friend. He ignored her completely. What disturbed him was her behaviour. She would call him “mekunu” whenever she saw him in town. My brother was only about seventeen then. He was confused and uncomfortable. According to him, he always tried to avoid the girl

Then the unimaginable happened. At fourteen, the girl got pregnant.

When my mother called to tell me, I was shocked to my bones. The girl mentioned no name except my brother’s. I couldn’t even defend him properly because, in our culture, accusation alone from a woman or a girl is enough to stain a person. When it comes to pregnancy, they say only mothers know so we worship what a woman says when it comes to who gets her pregnant. Still, I knew my brother. He had never even held her hand.

My father was away at the time. When he returned, the girl’s mother came with the news formally: her daughter was pregnant and had named my brother. We questioned him. He said plainly it was false. He dipped his index finger in his mouth, touched the earth with it and showed it to the heavens and said, “I swear I know nothing about what this girl is saying. I’ve never spoken to her intimately, never proposed to her, never seen her naked. Nothing.”

My father was quiet. Perhaps because of our family name. Perhaps because silence is sometimes used to buy peace.

He agreed to take responsibility temporarily on one condition: when the baby turned six months, a DNA test would be done. Everyone agreed. Until then, my father provided monthly money, foodstuffs, and paid for antenatal care. Not because he believed my brother was guilty, but because he was protecting our family name.

My brother suffered quietly. He would confide in me constantly, telling me they were wasting our father’s money, that the child was not his. There were even rumours in town that another man had claimed responsibility, but because our family was well-known, the pregnancy had been conveniently pinned on my brother. The rumour said the real father planned to resurface after we had finished caring for the child.

Still, my father honoured his word. When the girl delivered a baby girl, my father bought clothes, food, baby items, everything. Then he asked them to name the child after me. And they did. My name followed that child everywhere. That alone broke me.

At six months, I pushed relentlessly for the DNA test. My father had grown reluctant, perhaps emotionally invested, perhaps tired. But I insisted. My brother’s mental health was deteriorating. This accusation was killing him slowly.

The test was done. Two weeks later, the results came. 99.99999% NOT my brother.

When we showed him the paper, he exhaled like someone released from chains. I physically saw weight leave his body. Our entire family rejoiced. My grandmother wore white that morning when she heard the news. She was that relieved. I laughed, but my laughter carried pain.

My father immediately stopped supporting the girl’s family. Nothing was taken back. Not the many gifts and not money spent on her. Later, My dad told me the girl’s mother came with elders to beg for forgiveness. My father told them he held no grudge and sent them away peacefully.

Is There A Perfect One Out There For Everyone?

But till today, I think about how quietly trouble can locate you. How you can be sitting innocently in your house, and falsehood will come and tie you so tightly that even the truth struggles to breathe. My brother was innocent but our family was dragged. My name was carried by a lie. And that is something no DNA result can completely erase.

—Maame A.K

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