Ama awoke one Sunday morning. Her husband was snoring beside her swaddled in all of the brown duvet. She decided she was going to kill him. She shook him awake, and he sputtered off his snoring, struggled to overcome the duvet. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he’d been drinking again. He asked her what she wanted when he relaxed even through the duvet had won the battle because it was still wrapped around him. A divorce, she said. His eye twitched, then he laughed, threw his head back so that his goatee pointed toward the crisscrossed ceiling of the bedroom. No, he said. It was the second time he had denied her. But she had decided she was God and twice was as good as he would get.

            She rolled off the bed with her husband in it. He had settled back in, was coughing the remnant of his mirth. The room was stale with the odors of old sex and his sweat. He was a selfish bastard, hoarded the duvet even though he sweated like a thief surrounded by a mob at Madina. She was the one whose feet and hands easily chilled. Her Ma said it was anemia and she’d made Ama chomp on chicken bones, suck on marrow until it shot out of bony crannies, then spat the bone fragments into a bowl. What she really needed was the duvet.

            Her face was puffy with unfinished sleep. The curtains were parted because she couldn’t sleep well unless it was completely dark. He knew that. She looked back at him, and he was snoring again. His hands and legs stretched over her side of the bed. Fucking bastard, she said, but he continued snoring. From the curtain’s part, there were gray clouds, no sun, roofs of houses, the crowns of a few coconut trees that reached to the heavens to offer God himself the fruit of their labor. It had been a while since she’d been to church, when the pastor—a woman—had preached about being the salt of the earth. “It’s about the food, the bread of life, which is Jesus, that everyone must taste, but you must be what seasons the food. They taste and see that God is good. They taste and see God,” the preacher woman had said. Ama only remembered because the preacher wore an immense plume hat that made it look like a hen was brooding on her head. The preacher had swayed behind the pulpit, and it seemed as if the hat was too heavy for her, but nobody else had noticed, and if they had, they hadn’t laughed. She wished they had laughed.

            There was an open book on the tiled floor, covering one of her chalewote—flipflops. She kicked the book off and wore her shoes. He liked his books, which was fine because he needed all the help he could get. He was bad man, a sad, bad man whose desire to imprison her aroused him deeply. He was sick, and how could she face God and that preacher woman with such a man in her bed? Perhaps, it was the inevitable outcome of marrying so early, trying to follow in her Ma’s footsteps. They’d met in her accounting class at the University of Ghana, back when Atta Mills was still president, and when Asamoah Gyan had missed that valuable goal against Uruguay at World Cup. It had been almost seven years since then, and Atta Mills was dead. When they met, he’d been sweet, had sat next to her with his scrawny, loud friends. He’d picked up her pen when it fell from the pews, squeezed himself into the compact space under the pew for her sake, then asked for her number as the price of his labor. She should have stabbed his eyes with the pen, she thought, and then kicked the book on the floor again. It was a paperback that ripped, and the pages ruffled with indignance. She looked at him, but he only turned on his stomach, still sleeping, still sprawled over her side of the bed.

            She trudged—and as loudly as she could—out of the bedroom, and down the stairs. They’d spent an afternoon on the stairs once, in the throes of that irrational first year of marriage, tasting each other, pressing into flesh, panting and huffing and thrusting while she stared at the glittering diamond ring on her manicured finger. He’d worked double shifts at that first job he had as an accountant at a senior high school to afford the ring. His hard work had been a tickle down the skin of her back that wound its way between her thighs, and it manifested in the big rock around her finger. She’d been sure he loved her and her him.

Now she stared at the white tiles of the stairs, and they were as colorless as her marriage. She’d told her Ma exactly that, a month ago, when she’d gone to visit her at Koforidua. It was the first time she hadn’t worn her ring, four years since they’d married. The sun had been in a scorching mood, the ceiling fan and the open louvers were inadequate, so Ama and her Ma had both sweated behind the living room’s giant TV. Her Ma’s favorite show, a poorly translated Indian show, was playing loudly, and the child maid under her mother’s care was clinging and clanging the utensils clean in the kitchen. Tilapia and groundnut pervaded her nose—her mother’s Saturdays were always for omotuo and groundnut soup. In the corner of the living room, a turquoise tricycle was propped against the emerald wall, behind a sofa. Memories of her own childhood encircled her mind. She had spilled a cup of hot chocolate over here, been whipped with a cane for sneaking off with the neighbor’s son there; had touched herself for the first time here, slipped and fractured an arm over there after that, which was likely God’s punishment for touching herself. She’d asked how well the child maid was doing at school.

“Well,” her Ma had said.

When the poor people conceived too many times and struggled to feed their many offsprings, the middle-class home picked them off one at a time. An impressionable house-help in exchange for the child’s upkeep. It was an unregulated industry, but welfare programs were scant, so for the politicians’ benefit, the Parliament left the topic alone.

“How’s my in-law?” her Ma had asked.

“There.”

“What did he do?”

“He squeezed my neck. Really hard. Until I cried.”

“Mm,” her Ma said, “and what did you do?”

“Well, I wept.”

“No, what did you do before he grabbed your neck?”

“Nothing.”

“Mm,” her Ma had said. She rummaged through her handbag whose faux leather was peeling from underneath, took a handkerchief, then blew her nose. “Don’t provoke him. You were a good child, but a provoking one.”

Ama had shifted in the nodose sofa and cleared her throat to dislodge the angry lump there, taken a deep breath, clasped her nimble fingers. “I’m a good wife,” she’d said.

“I know. So, I say don’t provoke him.”

“My marriage is colorless,” she’d said.

“A good wife will give it color. Are you a good wife, or no?”

She’d wept on the drive back to the city, watched her snot dribble down the steering wheel, and she shook like a trotro bus travelling down one of the many potholed roads. Then she’d asked him for a divorce anyway. That was the first time. He’d stroked his beard, eyes twinkling under the yellow lights of the kitchen. He’d pressed his lips against hers, yanked her defensively flapping hands away, and said no. His breath had smelled of spirit. He loved her still and her him, he’d said, he was sure of it.

In the kitchen, she marched to the mahogany cabinets, slid them open, stared at the aluminum utensils, the countless cutlery arranged as forks, sporks, spoons, knives, the ceramic bowls and plates, the crockery, then slammed them shut. She did that several times until she was puffing and panting, then she bent over to touch her knees. Her wine-red satin gown dropped down her thighs to make a carpet for her palms. She was cold still, and it made her think of her husband in the big, brown duvet, at peace, sleeping while her heart tore. The kitchen clock ticked its way through the sixth hour of the morning. She had time, so she would make herself a nice breakfast first.

She cooked then. She flipped the eggs and readied the slices of butter bread, pressed them into the frying pan and shoved the eggs between each pair. They were her husband’s favorite—kyebom. She preferred flat pancakes rolled around sausage links. She threw the dirty cooking paraphernalia into the aluminum sink, closed an eye and listened to them clatter, and looked up the stairs to see if her husband would barrel down the stairs. She ran her hand over the selection of knives next to the stove, even the breadknife. He did not show up.

Where she sat to eat at the kitchen island which made up for their lack of a dining room was where her husband had first confessed to her. She remembered. She’d been home earlier than him. It was their anniversary, but they wouldn’t have dinner at the fancy place in Cantonments until the weekend because a Wednesday night out was not ideal for young professionals. She’d cooked for him instead, jollof rice and fried offal and grilled chicken. Her Ma said every man needed offal at some point, so Ama had made them. When he arrived, her back had been aching from the office chair and from the cooking, and she was twisting her waist this way then that way, winding her arms around like a windmill. Happy anniversary, she’d said with a smile, offering him a glass of chardonnay she picked up from the office fridge. She’d forgotten to buy one, didn’t have time to stop at a shop, would replace the one she’d stolen because jollof took time.

Four years, he’d said. He walked up to her, stumbling over the office heels she left against the kitchen counter, took the wine and gulped it down. He said he had something to say, and she’d waved him off, wait, sit down, let me serve you. He’d obliged and sat down at the island, tapping his fingers against the marble, tapping his work shoes loudly against the tiled floor. When she served him and sat down, proud of her hard work and numb feet, she asked him to tell her all the lovely things he had to say. He’d stared at her for too long, clutching a spork, tapping his foot still. He cheated, he’d said, and he was sorry. Then he was weeping to really sell it, and rubbing his balding head, and falling to her feet while she looked, only looked.

It had been after a while that she noticed her trembling hands, felt her quivering lip. Then she was screaming, really screaming so that it felt like an invisible hand was scraping her lungs. He was still crying there on the floor, holding her aching feet while she screamed. Then she was also crying and coughing, shoving the rice into her mouth, thinking of how much she deserved to enjoy the food she’d made. She sipped her wine, and ate some more, and cried, and he just lay there on the floor sobbing. It was only three times, he said, and it was the same person, so it counted as one. He said she was a client at the ministry where he was working as an accountant now, and it was really the devil because he wouldn’t willingly cheat on her. Why today, she asked, and he’d said, because he wanted it to be a new beginning for them. Like the prodigal son, he was back, learned, remorseful and better.

Her voice had cracked from the screaming, and when he finally rose from the floor, he wrapped his arms around her. She didn’t move. There had been an ache in her heart and a burning in her veins that she couldn’t reach. He had said no more, carried her into their bed, and squeezing her neck, released himself into her unmoving body. He’d panted about his love for her, then dozed off surrounded by the duvet. He’d turned on his side, and the duvet no longer covered her, so she scratched her chest until the skin there broke and watched the ring on her finger, trembling from the tears she refused to shed. She’d gasped from the pressure in her throat. That was when it all really fell apart. A heartbreaking cry ripped through the lump in her throat. She’d pushed her palms against her lips to suppress it, legs parted, his fluids lingering between her legs, and when she’d finally fallen asleep, the parts of the pillow surrounding her head were wet. Her husband never awoke once. That was what had really happened, what she had really wanted her Ma to coax out of her weeks ago.

Ama washed the dishes slowly under the tap when she was done. The small bowl in which she’d whisked the eggs was broken, and a shard of China punctured her palm. The cold water washed away the little blood that pooled out. Her Ma had taught her to do that. Her friends from childhood had taught her to suck the blood like a mosquito, claimed it replenished your body as soon as a wound tried to drain you that way. She knew she had friends, but since the night of the anniversary, she couldn’t name one close enough to talk to. They were there—at work, from university dormitories, from a shared bunk bed in boarding school—but they were intangible at the same time, like a fog you saw but couldn’t touch. Was that what faith was like? She had a sudden earnest desire to go to church. The glossy clock face said she had finally entered the seventh hour, which was too late for the first church service but good enough for the second one that started at eight forty-five.

She ran a hand over the knives beside the stove again, stroking them, willing herself to choose one, forcing the anguish that had made a permanent home in her gut to the surface. She turned on some angry music about jaded lovers on her phone to maintain the high, drown out the voice of reason and morality. She swayed and spun, twisted, swung, ran a gentle hand down her bosom, her torso, stopped over her groin. Anger, anger, she thought.  Her movements were languid then dramatic, slow then fast, and the music played on and on. She should not have allowed herself that pleasure of dancing and the determination to kill, but also, her husband had cheated, and her chest still ached, and maybe she needed a lover to reach inside her, so that she was not aching so much, burning with unquenched anger. At the same time, her body felt raw, and the thought of a man’s touch repulsed her, hurt her, ripped her apart.

She stopped when the music stopped, then grabbed the smallest knife in the lineup. For the smallest man, she thought. She darted up the stairs, left the lovemaking days behind on them. She found him still in bed, still hogging the duvet. Her hand was steady despite the loud rush of blood in her ears. She towered over the body burrito that she once loved and paused briefly. Her husband’s eyes flung open as if he knew that she would kill him, and she plunged the knife into the duvet once, then twice. The duvet was making strange whipping noises like windy rain against a roof, or the moving zip of a rubber jacket. He was screaming. She was gasping and thoughtless with the third, fourth and final plunges, unsure if the small knife had really gotten him.

What the fuck, he screamed, and she straightened herself and watched his face. His goatee quivered. Was it from pain?  She looked at the cuts and punctures in the duvet. It was too dark a brown to see any blood. I want a divorce, she said. He stared at her with glossy eyes. Was he dying? A divorce, she said. Her hand was still wrapped around the handle of the knife, but she had forgotten about it looking at him. Okay, he said. Then he was crying again, as if the shock of his stabbing was starting to wear off. Tomorrow morning, he said, the courthouse closed on Sundays. He sniffled but remained in the duvet as if it was his new armor. She only nodded, then dropped to the floor. The failed murder weapon fell too. She lay against the cold tiles. The book she had kicked twice dug into her thigh. Her husband’s sobs filled the silence of the room. She listened and thought about nothing, and it was really like that for a while.

When she left for church, he was still lying in the bed weeping, and her thoughts had stilled, her heart broken, her arms aching. The preacher was different— a man this time instead of the woman with the plume hat. He said, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” She didn’t hear much of what he said after that but still, her hallelujah rang loudest in the church hall.