The PenPalace, Apete, Ibadan (2025)

07/08/2025

Story title :The Day After "I Do"

EPISODE 11
“Before You Say 'Yes', and Even After You Do...”

Let’s pause for a moment. Step away from Glory’s voice. Step away from the broken vows, the sharp pain, the silence that followed betrayal.

Let’s talk.
Not as characters, not as narrators, but as people who still believe in love and want to see marriage work.

This isn’t about fiction anymore.
This is about you, the one dating, engaged, newly married, or deep in the trenches of a long-term union.

Glory's marriage didn't break in a day. No marriage ever does.
There were signs. There were lapses. There were emotional leaks that no one patched. There was work left undone.

So What Does It Really Mean to Be Married?

It’s not the wedding hashtag.
Not the pre-wedding photo shoots.
Not the matching Aso-Ebi.
It’s waking up every day and choosing someone, even on the days when they annoy you.
It’s hard conversations.
It's vulnerability.
It’s partnership, not just in fun, but in chores, in parenting, in survival.

Marriage is beautiful. But it is not automatic.
It requires attention. Constant. Deliberate. Tender.

To The Dating and Intending Couples:

Before you say yes, ask the hard questions.
Not just “What’s your love language?”
Ask:

What are your views on house chores?

What do you think emotional intimacy looks like after five years?

When conflict comes,(and it will) how do you respond?

Do you believe helping around the house is optional or essential?

Love is not enough if responsibility is absent.
Compatibility isn’t chemistry, it’s character in motion.

To The Married Ones:

Let’s speak plainly.

If your wife looks worn out, tired, quiet… check again.
Marriage doesn’t erase a woman’s humanity.
She’s still human, still gets tired, still deserves help, not as a favor, but as a partner.

Helping with chores isn't emasculating; it's mature.
A sink of dishes isn't her job, it's your home.

A marriage where only one partner is serving will soon become a master-servant setup, not a covenant.

Glory was drowning in tasks, hospital runs, child care, cooking, cleaning, while her husband drifted further into ease and silence.
Until one day, a third party did what he should have done: listened. Helped. Talked. Paid attention.

That’s how it started. That’s where it broke.

But could it still be fixed?
Could your marriage still be saved?
That, dear reader, is where you come in.

What Do You Think?

Do you believe Glory’s marriage can still be saved?
What would you advise if you were her counselor, or her friend?

Better yet, what advice would you give your younger self before they walked down the aisle?

Drop your thoughts.
Let’s talk raw, real, no filters.

Because marriages don’t thrive by luck. They thrive by truth.

The End 🔚

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07/08/2025

Story title :The Day After "I Do"

EPISODE 10: A Table for Two, Now Bare

"When the roots of a tree begin to rot, the leaves know before the branches do."

(No one marries with the thought of leaving.
No bride dances her way to the altar hoping her feet will someday walk away from it.
But time, silence, and small betrayals, those barely visible cracks, have a way of turning vows into echoes. You may not see the breaking when it starts, but one day, you look around and realize you’re seated at a table for two, yet utterly alone.

Dr. Mojisola Adeyemi, a veteran marriage counselor once said, “Marriage dies, not from one grand disaster, but from a thousand unmet needs, one ‘later’ too many, one ‘I’m tired’ too often, and one ‘you should understand’ that’s never followed by effort.”

By the time Glory and Tosin truly noticed how cold the house had become, winter had long moved into their marriage.

From the outside, they still looked perfect. People still admired them, the doctor and the banker, educated, presentable, God-fearing. But inside, everything was shifting. Every touch had become duty, every conversation, an obligation. And when the laughter died, the silence took its place and wore its skin.

Glory had become a master of appearances, a painted smile, a gentle nod, conversations filled with “we’re fine.” But inside, she was grieving a marriage that hadn’t even ended... just faded.

The affair broke something that was already fragile, but even after that, Tosin tried.

He brought her breakfast once, a small tray, toast, and orange juice. She thanked him, but her eyes didn’t lift from the pillow.
He texted her randomly during surgeries, little things like “Thinking of you” or “Hope your day’s going well.”
She responded with polite one-liners, never a full heart.
He stopped sleeping in the guest room, came back to their bed, though they barely touched. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, she’d feel his hand move gently to hers, but she’d turn away.

She wasn’t punishing him. She just didn’t know how to feel him anymore.

One Sunday evening, as they folded laundry side by side, Tosin said it, “Glory, I know I’ve broken us… but I want to fix it.”

She didn’t respond. Not immediately.
She folded his shirt neatly, placed it in his drawer, and said, “I don’t know if we can be fixed.”

Because how do you glue something that had shattered into silence?

And still, she tried to pretend, for their son, for their image, for the memory of who they used to be. But pretense is a poor bandage; it never holds for long.

It was her friend, Bukky, a senior colleague at the hospital, who finally sat her down and said, “You either fight for this or walk away. But you can’t live like this, Glory. This half-death you’re calling survival.”

That’s when the idea of counseling came up.
A professional.
A place to pour out the mess without judgment.
To ask the hard questions.
To find if the love was still hiding somewhere beneath the ruins.

Glory didn’t believe it would work.
She wasn’t even sure she wanted it to.
But she said yes.

Because sometimes, you go to counseling not to save the marriage, but to know if there’s anything left to save).

The house felt quieter than usual that week.
I don’t know if it was the fear of change or the fear of pretending things were normal.

I watched him pour cereal for our son that morning, his hands gentle, careful, as though he was afraid to break anything else.
I watched him look at me like I was a stranger he used to love.

And I…
I felt nothing.
Just a hollow ache where my love used to live.

I agreed to go with him.
To sit with a stranger and talk about our broken pieces.

But the truth?

I didn’t believe in us anymore.
I didn’t believe in healing.
I just wanted clarity, one final reason to leave… or maybe, a miracle big enough to make me stay.

But right now?
I’m not sure which it’ll be.

And that uncertainty…
That’s the real ache.

To be continued...

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06/08/2025

Shout out to my newest followers! Excited to have you onboard! Bijay Sunam, Oluwadamilare Samson, Shakil Sra, Manesinang Panmei, Noor S., King Samuel, Bappon Halder

05/08/2025

Story title : The Day After "I Do"

EPISODE 9
Title: “The Day My Heart Forgot How to Beat”

They say your instincts never lie. But I spent days convincing mine to shut up.
To be quiet.
To stop overreacting.

The morning after I caught that strange glimpse, his hand on her lower back, that awkward jolt like they’d been seen, I pretended it hadn’t happened. Tosin acted like nothing was amiss, talking about the plot twists in the Korean drama we’d watched, laughing at memes he had seen online, and even planting random kisses on my cheeks like the past few weeks hadn’t stretched something taut between us.

“You dey think too much,” my colleague Amaka said during lunch break, her eyes scanning my face like a diagnostic machine. “Just take some time off. Stay home. Breathe.”

It was good advice. I had been spiraling: sleepless nights, stomach aches, headaches that no paracetamol could fix. I said yes to the break, not because I was tired, but because I was afraid of what my tired mind might start believing.

The day I was supposed to begin my leave, I left work early. No warning. I just... went home.

Let me pause here.

Have you ever walked into your own house and felt like a stranger?

Like the walls suddenly don't recognize you?

Like the air isn’t yours?

That was me. That afternoon.
Rain threatened the sky, clouds swelling like emotions I’d kept buried for months. I turned my key slowly in the lock, pushed the door open and stepped in.

I didn’t call out to Tosin. I didn’t call Peace.
I just walked. Quietly.
Like something pulled me.

And it wasn’t until I pushed open our bedroom door that I realized...

The silence I had forced myself to live with was screaming all along.

Tosin.
Peace.
Our bed.
Their nakedness.
Entwined like lovers.
Like strangers in a cheap hotel room.
Like demons that had devoured every vow we made at the altar.

Peace screamed first. Tosin scrambled. They both reached for clothes like that would cover the nakedness of their betrayal.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t faint.
I stood there, still as death.
My breath caught in my throat, like my body refused to acknowledge what my eyes had seen.

He spoke first. A blur of words I didn’t ask for.

“Glory... listen... it’s not what you think.”

I laughed. Loud. The kind of laugh that echoes pain.

“What exactly is it then, Tosin? Enlighten me. Because what I think I saw was my husband, my Tosin, with Peace, our maid, on the same bed where we made our son.”

He moved toward me, shameless and trembling. “It was a mistake... we got carried away... it meant nothing... Glory, please”

“Don’t,” I whispered.

Peace began to mutter apologies, but her eyes told a different story. There was no regret there. Only fear of consequence. I turned to her.

“Pack your things. Now. And leave. This minute.”

She started to plead, but I raised a finger. I didn’t even know I had that kind of fire in me.

“I said now.”

And like that, Peace disappeared from our lives. But the damage? That one remained.

After she left, Tosin collapsed to the floor, weeping.
Begging.
Babbling.

“I didn’t plan it. It just happened... Glory, I miss us. We don’t talk anymore... you’re always working... I didn’t know how to say I felt abandoned...”

I stood there, arms folded, watching a man I once called my safe place now grovel like a child caught stealing.

“So cheating was the answer?” I asked. “Sleeping with someone we feed and clothe was how you decided to fix our silence?”

“I was lonely!” he shouted, like that justified anything. “You were never home. I didn’t know how to reach you anymore.”

“And so you reached for the nearest thing walking around in panties?” I shot back, voice shaking now. “You defiled our home, Tosin. You burned our trust with your own hands.”

We talked, or rather, I let him talk, through the night. I asked the hard questions. When did it start? How long? Did he love her? He said no, said it was once, maybe twice, said it was stupid. Said he hated himself for it.

But what he never said was: I didn’t mean to hurt you.
Because I think part of him did.
Some selfish, angry part of him wanted to pull me back by force. To bruise me back into presence.

I didn’t sleep that night. I stared at the ceiling. Listening to the hum of the fridge, the whistle of the wind, the emptiness beside me where my husband used to be.

When I finally rose from bed the next morning, I wasn’t the same Glory.

I was a woman holding pieces of herself, unsure if they could ever fit again.

How did we get here?
That was the question I kept asking.

We laughed once. We built once. We prayed together once.
But somewhere between dirty dishes, long work hours, cold goodnights and missed birthdays, we lost our rhythm.
And then we lost each other.

I wasn’t ready to forgive. Not yet.
I wasn’t even sure I could stay.
But I knew this: that day, a part of me died.
And the woman that rose from those ashes would never love blindly again.

Not even Tosin.
Not anymore.

"Have you ever forgiven a betrayal like this?
Or do you believe some lines, once crossed, should remain the end" ?

What would you do if you were Glory?

To be continued......

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Thank you 🤲🏾 🙏🏾

04/08/2025

Story title :The Day After "I Do

EPISODE 8: DOORS LEFT UNLOCKED

“It’s not always what you see. Sometimes, it’s what you feel, in your gut, in your chest, in your bones. And you just know.”

I wasn’t supposed to be home.

That night, I was meant to be on the hospital floor, tending to the night shift. Charting vitals. Monitoring breaths. Smiling through aching legs.
But by 4:10pm, I felt off. Not just tired, I felt sick. My head spun, my stomach twisted, and even the air in the wards felt too heavy to breathe.

I swapped shifts. It was a last-minute arrangement. Nothing dramatic. No need for calls. I’d go home, rest, and show up stronger the next day.

Simple, right?

The first sign?
The gate wasn’t locked.

Not wide open, no. Just... unlatched. A lazy slide of the bolt that left the gate ajar, like someone forgot they lived in Lagos.
I frowned, wheeled my small overnight bag behind me, and stepped in.

Second sign?
The lights in the living room were dim, but on. Too early for bedtime, too late for normal dinner chatter.

Third sign?
Laughter. Soft. A woman's.

Not mine.

I paused at the corridor.
Held my breath.
Listened.

I couldn’t make out full sentences, but tones are loud. That laugh again, girlish, too familiar. A laugh that didn’t belong to a hired maid. It was too comfortable. Too entertained.

I stepped closer.

My heart? Loud. Angry. But quiet enough to hear his voice too, low, joking. The same teasing tone he used to use with me back when love was still loud in our home.

I stood outside the guest room door.

It wasn’t fully closed.

That’s when I saw it.

Peace.

Her legs curled under her on the couch, barefoot, in one of my oversized t-shirts.
And him... sitting beside her. Too close. Too casual. Too much like home.

No one was touching.
No kisses. No nudity.
But if you know, you know.

That closeness wasn’t employer-employee.
That comfort wasn’t innocent.
That atmosphere wasn’t professional.

And her laugh, it changed when she saw me. Like she swallowed it. Like guilt was bitter on her tongue.

He froze.
Then stood.
Fast. Too fast.

“Glory... you’re back?”

I didn’t answer.

I just scanned the room, the snacks on the tray, the half-finished bottle of wine, the folded blanket, the stupid rom-com still playing on the TV.

“You weren’t supposed to be home,” he said again, softer.

Peace didn’t even speak. She picked her slippers and fled past me with a mumble.

And me?
I walked in.
Not to fight. Not to scream. Just to feel the truth with my own skin.

I picked up the wine glass, her lipstick still fresh on the rim.
Held it up. Looked at him.

“I was supposed to be at work,” I said.
Then dropped the glass on the table.

“I guess we’re all doing what we’re not supposed to be doing.”

He said my name again, but I didn’t hear it.

I walked past him.
Past our son’s toys.
Past the framed photo of our wedding day.

I went into my room, shut the door, and stood with my back to it for a long time.
That was the night I knew something sacred had been touched — even if they hadn’t fully done it yet. I felt it. Deep. Like an earthquake before the roof caves in.

Something was broken. And this time... it wasn’t me imagining it.

To be continued...

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03/08/2025

Story Title : The Day After "I Do"

EPISODE 7: While I Was Gone

You would think one week is just seven days. One, two, three... seven. Not so long. Just a couple of nights in a hotel, attending medical conferences, updating patient notes over Zoom, responding to emails, sitting on hospital panels, and eating hotel breakfast that never quite tastes like home.

But seven days away from your own home can open your eyes in a way that years inside it never did.

I had barely arrived in Abuja when I started missing my son. Tega is barely three years old, but the bond between us is thicker than even I can explain. Every evening before I left work, I’d call Peace to put him on video. His giggles, his tiny teeth, his silly baby dances — those were the little doses of joy I needed after hours of speaking medical grammar.

But the part I didn’t quite expect, the thing I wasn’t prepared for, was how available my husband suddenly became.

Before this trip, Tosin was almost always late. There were times I would already be in bed before I heard the gate creak and his car engine die. But suddenly, the week I was away, he was always home. Every single time I called, he was there.

"Ah, Daddy is back already?" I would ask.

Peace would nod quickly, too quickly. “Yes ma, he came early today again.”

Again.

I’d laugh lightly and wave it off. But something inside me flinched.

Once, I deliberately called around 5:45 pm, knowing Tosin would be driving or at least still rounding up at the office. But there he was — seated in the living room, shirt half-buttoned, holding Tega on his lap, laughing. And Peace in the background arranging pillows on the couch like she was suddenly the housekeeper of the year.

I told myself it was coincidence. Maybe his schedule changed. Maybe he missed me too. Maybe he was helping more now that I wasn’t around.

I clung to those maybes.

But they started falling apart like threadbare cloth.

There was this particular night I won’t forget. I was too tired to do a proper video call, so I just called Peace to check on Tega. She picked up and smiled. But before she could say anything, I heard a male voice call out from behind her, “Peace! Is my food ready?”

My food.

I froze.

She turned back, slightly flustered, and said, “Yes... Uncle T, it’s almost ready.”

Uncle T?

Uncle?

Since when did he become Uncle T?

She used to call him “Oga” — always. She had even once joked that he was too strict for her to say anything else. But now it was “Uncle T,” and it rolled out of her mouth like it had been living there all along.

I didn’t sleep that night.

I tossed on the hotel bed like something was pressing me. My eyes were open, but my heart felt like it was carrying cement blocks. I started to rewind things in my head, the way Peace laughed at his jokes when I was still home, the times she would linger too long in the living room before disappearing to the kitchen, the new perfume on his shirt that I assumed was mine.

Maybe it was all innocent. Maybe I was being paranoid. But betrayal doesn’t always arrive with loud bangs and lipstick stains. Sometimes, it arrives in silence. Sometimes, it smells like soup on the stove and sounds like “Uncle T.”

I came back from that trip feeling like a stranger in my own home.

Tosin hugged me at the airport, kissed my forehead like everything was normal. Peace collected my bags from him quickly, smiling her usual smile, but my eyes had become trained now. I was seeing too clearly to ignore it anymore.

The house was spotless. Tega was excited. Everything looked... fine.

But nothing felt fine.

And that’s the hardest part.

When the world around you insists that things are in order, but your soul keeps whispering — something is off.

Women like me don’t wait to catch them in the act. We feel it before we see it. We bleed before the cut even happens.

To be continued.....

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02/08/2025

Story title : The Day After "I Do"

Episode 6

EPISODE 6 – The Small Things that Break a Home

I’ve always believed that marriages don’t collapse in a day. The cracks begin with little things, unseen, unspoken. Like mismatched socks. Forgotten kisses. Or laughter that lingers too long between two people who shouldn’t be that comfortable.

Peace had only been with us for a few months, yet her presence had already become felt, perhaps too deeply felt. She wasn’t just assisting; she was replacing. That was the problem.

It began subtly. She took over the kitchen, first with caution, then with confidence. She started cooking Tosin’s meals exactly the way he liked them, eggs with peppered onions, eba not too soft, stew with a little ginger. She remembered his preferences faster than I ever did. And he noticed.

“She made ogbono the way my mum used to,” he chuckled once. I forced a smile, but it pinched my face.

At first, I was grateful. Being a new mother, exhausted and stretched thin, I welcomed the help. Peace would carry the baby when I needed rest. She cleaned up the nursery, made the beds, even folded my bras with a kind of careful reverence that made me feel oddly displaced in my own home.

I tried not to overthink it.

But Tosin did less and less. At first, it made sense. Peace had taken up most of the chores. Yet something about the way he began to relax into her care unsettled me.

He stopped asking what I needed. Peace already knew.

She brought him juice when he returned from work, unasked. She once stood up to serve him his slippers when he forgot them by the door. I noticed the way his eyes lingered, amused. Not sexual. Just... interested. As if watching a fascinating new TV series.

Once, I found her cleaning the bathroom shirtless. Not n**e. Just a wrapper tied across her chest, her back glistening with sweat as she scrubbed the sink. She didn’t hear him walk in. Neither did I, until I saw him frozen by the door, unsure whether to leave or speak. She turned, startled, and gave a nervous laugh. “Ah oga, I no hear you.”

He chuckled, waved it off, said something silly like, “You work too hard,” and left.

But his footsteps down the hallway weren’t steady. They lingered. That day, I felt something shift. Slightly.

The worst part? Peace noticed the tension before I fully did. She became more careful when I was around. But that care was also betrayal, it meant she knew something as inappropriate was brewing.

Tosin, on the other hand, acted oblivious. Or maybe he was just good at pretending.

I began to spot things. Small, stupid things.

Like the matching towels they both used once after a beach hangout for staff and family. Or the time I found her standing close, too close, while helping him fix a button. Or how her ringtone had become a laugh Tosin liked from a meme he had seen on a social media.

There were moments I would walk into a room and feel it. The pause. The breath held. A joke they couldn’t finish in my presence.

Yet I had no proof. Only instincts. And those, they say, are not admissible in court.

Still, I remember how one night, as I fed the baby, I heard them laughing in the kitchen over pap and groundnuts. Just laughter. Nothing sinful. Nothing deep.

But why did it burn in my chest like betrayal?

No one cheats in full bloom. They start with giggles. With socks. With silence that wasn’t there before.

And so the home begins to fall, not with a crash, but with a whisper.

A whisper that sounded too much like her laugh.

And the most painful part?

I wasn’t even angry yet. I was still trying to convince myself that there was nothing going on.

Just tiredness.

Just imagination.

Just Peace.

Just Tosin.

Just the small things.

To be continued...

©Pamilerin Adetunji Ajala

Watch out for the next episode

01/08/2025

Story title : The Day After "I Do"

EPISODE 5: The Girl Named Peace

There are some conversations you bring up not because you’re ready, but because you’re weary. The idea of hiring a domestic staff came from that place, a tired, trembling place inside of me. It wasn’t a suggestion; it was a cry for help.

I had carried our son for nine long months. Delivered with grace. Bled. Recovered. Tried to bounce back. I cooked, bathed, sang lullabies, and still showed up in the hospital, stethoscope in hand, trying to hold lives together while mine quietly unraveled at home.

And the truth is, Tosin was never fully sold on the idea.

“I can help out more,” he said.

For a short while, he tried. He'd bathe the baby sometimes, rock him to sleep while I snatched power naps. Once or twice, he made noodles and left the pot unwashed, but at least he tried. He stayed in the living room a bit longer than usual. Giggled more. Touched me more, although, I’d grown to flinch at those touches. Not because they were rough… but because they felt borrowed. Like something he’d taken from someone else and was trying to return to me.

But effort, no matter how sincere, is not the same as presence. And you can't pour from a cup that’s already dry.

Eventually, Tosin retreated again, to work, to his devices, to his late-night shows, and to the long bathroom breaks that seemed too long for just bowel movements.

And I, I returned to drowning.

That was when we made the decision.

We called a woman my mother recommended, who ran a home for young girls seeking work. After weeks of back and forth, after screening two options that didn’t feel right, a third girl was sent to us. Her name?

Peace.

Yes. That was the name that came with her.

I remember the day she arrived. A white polka-dot bag slung over her shoulder, face scrubbed clean, eyes unsure. She stood at the doorstep, her two feet side by side, waiting for me to say something. And I, who was used to commanding operating rooms and giving instructions, didn’t know how to begin.

But Peace began instead, slowly, gently, like she had read the rhythm of my home and chose not to disrupt it.

Within a week, the difference was felt. Dishes stopped piling. My son smiled more; he was always in her arms. She learned to back him the way I liked. She swept places I hadn’t had strength to look at in months. She fried stew that reminded me of Saturdays at my mother's house in Akure.

And perhaps for the first time since my baby was born, I exhaled. Not the small sighs. A full breath.

Tosin noticed it too. The house began to sparkle again. There were warm meals on the table before 8 pm. The living room smelt of lemon-scented polish. Baby’s onesies were neatly folded. There was ease. Not perfect peace, but the kind of quiet that lets you hear yourself again.

And I... I began to feel human again.

But now, when I look back, when I reflect with the clarity only hindsight provides, I wonder if the peace she brought was too perfect. Too timely. Too… needed.

Was that where I began to lose him for real?
Or had I already lost him, and she only came to help bury what remained?

But of course, back then, I didn't know that.

All I knew was this:

A girl named Peace came into my home.
And for the first time in a long time...
The house felt less like war.

To be continued....

©Pamilerin Adetunji Ajala

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01/08/2025

WELCOME TO AUGUST. WELCOME TO POSSIBILITY.

Dear Reader,

Congratulations, you made it.

Not everyone who began this year got to see this moment. But you did. And that, in itself, is something to be deeply grateful for.

August is here — not just as a new month, but as a quiet reminder that time hasn’t given up on you. So don’t give up on yourself.

Maybe things haven’t fully clicked yet. Maybe you're still figuring it all out, still waiting for the harvest after all the seed-sowing. But hear this:

BETTER DAYS STILL AHEAD.

Even when the signs are faint, even when nothing on the outside seems to match what you've been hoping for, hold on. Keep showing up. Keep refining your efforts. Revisit your goals. Rethink your hustle. Realign where needed. Rest, if you must... but don't retreat.

Because in the shadows of slow days, something BIG is quietly unfolding.

We won’t call this a prophecy, but as this month unfolds, may your life begin to reflect the very weight of its name: AUGUST. May dignified opportunities, quiet breakthroughs, and surprising favor find you and fit you. (AMEN 🙏🏾)

And while you're at it, remember to take a breather with us once in a while.

Here at The PenPalace , we do more than write stories.
We bleed truth into words. We tell tales that linger. We craft emotions into letters : unsent, unheard, but deeply felt.

Whether you’re into reflections, real-life drama, poetic slices of thought, or deeply layered fiction, we say this is your home. And we’re glad you’re here.

If our words have ever moved you, inspired you, or held you, don’t just read and scroll.
Like. Comment. Share. Follow.
Your engagement is the breath that keeps this vision alive.

Here’s to a new month. A new moment. A fresh page.

Happy August, from all of us at The PenPalace.

🥂 🥂 🥂

Once Again, HAPPY NEW MONTH ❤️

31/07/2025

Story title: The Day After "I Do"

Episode 4 — The Beautiful Chaos

Love can withstand storms; but sometimes, it quietly drowns in the sound of an unanswered call for help.

We held on tight, committed, breathing through the weight of our jobs. Tosin buried himself in figures, transactions, and client calls that spilled into late evenings. I, on the other hand, was often buried in scrubs and surgery rooms, holding lives together with trembling fingers and a determined heart. We were chasing excellence in two different worlds, hoping our marriage would survive on its own strength.

But the walls began to murmur.

The laundry basket, once emptied every Sunday, now spilled over with uniforms, towels, and forgotten socks. The sink held dishes that told stories of late dinners and exhausted appetites. Our bed, once a sanctuary, became a battlefield of unspoken resentments, with pillows acting as silent borders.

It wasn't the love that died. It was the little hands that love refused to extend. I would come home and ask, softly, sometimes jokingly, “Tosin, can you help clear the kitchen tonight?” Or, “Babe, please fold the clothes, just the ones on the couch.”

Sometimes he obliged. Other times, his silence was louder than any refusal. His eyes said, “I’m tired too.” But he never said it out loud.

And so, we lived like co-workers in a house we once called home.

Then, the beautiful chaos announced itself.

Pregnancy.

Unexpected. Untimely. But welcomed with trembling joy.

For the first time in months, we paused to celebrate something, together. He held me, said all the right things, promised to try harder. And for a few weeks, we pretended that this would fix it all.

But babies are not repairmen.

When our child arrived, the mess in the house didn’t just multiply, it erupted. The cries at 1am, the feeding at 3am, the constant diaper checks, the need to sleep but never getting a full hour.

I would whisper, “Tosin, please just hold him while I nap for 30 minutes.” And sometimes, he would. Sometimes, he’d scroll through his phone as the baby wailed beside him, overwhelmed and clueless. I don’t blame him. We were both out of our depths, raising a child while trying not to lose ourselves.

One night, I found myself in the bathroom, sitting on the cold tiles, just to cry. Not because I hated him. Not because I regretted our child. But because I didn’t recognize my life anymore.

Eventually, we agreed on something.

Help.

We needed help.

A domestic staff, someone to assist with cleaning, cooking, watching over the baby when both of us needed to breathe.

We thought it would make things easier.

We were wrong.

But we didn't know it yet.

To be continued...

© The PenPalace

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The PenPalace

07/08/2025

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