Rain was falling so hard that night that the road looked like a river.
Enkiru pressed one hand against her stomach and the other against the car door, begging her husband to drive faster.
“Obinna, please,” she whispered. “Take me to the hospital. Something is wrong.”
He did not look at her. His jaw was tight, his eyes fixed on the empty highway ahead. For months he had told her she was weak because she worried too much. He had placed tablets beside her bed and called them medicine. He had watched her body shrink, her voice fade, her steps become unsteady, and each time she asked questions, he made her feel guilty for needing care.
That night, the pain became unbearable.
Then the car stopped.
For one second, Enkiru thought they had reached help.
But Obinna opened her door, grabbed her arm, and pushed her out into the rain.
She hit the wet ground hard.
Her breath disappeared. Mud soaked her wrapper. The pain in her stomach burned like fire. She looked up at the man who had once stood before a church and promised to protect her.
“Please,” she cried. “Don’t leave me here.”
Obinna stared at her with a face she did not recognize.
“You are too expensive to keep alive,” he said.
Then he slammed the door and drove away.
For a while, Enkiru lay there listening to the sound of the car engine fade into the storm. She had no phone. No money. No handbag. No strength. Her papers were gone, her body was failing, and the man she had trusted with her life had left her on a lonely road to die.
But as her eyes began to close, weak headlights appeared in the distance.
She did not know it then, but the night her husband abandoned her was not the night her story ended.
It was the night his lies began to fall apart.
