Our lives were interwoven like a beautiful, expensive fabric. The kind you could only buy after clearing your bank accounts.

That was the value of the relationship between Tekey and I. We met in tertiary at a cafeteria on campus.

We became friends, then sisters then inseparable. Reading the same course –law – placed a near mandatory, matter-of-course seal to the friendship.
And when I hear people say opposite attracts, they are spot on. They are referring to our friendship because Tekey is like a trek to Turkey away from who I am.

Tekey was the wild one. Smart and beautiful and no one dared cross her path.

Like Ghanaians will say ‘you will be laughing on the wrong side of their mouth.’ On a day she didn’t feel like being ‘sober’, an entire lecture could be brought to a standstill. Tekey was an epitome of fierce.

I prefer to lay low and keep my life out of the spotlight as much as possible.

But Tekey ruined my tendency to lie low. Our course mates always asked “how do you live with her? She must be a pain”. What they didn’t know was that she treated me like an egg and most of the things she did, as I came to learn later, was to protect me because she thought I was “too soft”.

We met our ‘soulmates’ in second year when Tekey decided that we took an impromptu trip to a new mall which had just been opened on campus. Reluctant me just got dragged along.

We window shopped until hunger told us to stop.

The restaurant Tekey chose was packed with people but thankfully, there was a table with four seats left in the far corner. We sat down and ordered our food and just after the food was brought in, Sam and P.K walked in.

“Can we join you ladies, there’s no vacant seat anywhere else,” Sam said. We both nodded. That was how a friendship of two turned into a relationship of four and three year later a set of two marriages. Tekey got married to Sam and I settled with P.K.

We lived in the same city and the husbands - Sam and P.K practised medicine. The wives, Tekey lectured in a private university and me, I just decided to be a mother. Stay home, make babies and take care of my family. That’s all I ever wanted.

We had a beautiful life. Tekey and Sam had two children – a boy and girl – while P.K and I had three – two girls and a boy. We shared everything together, lived in the same neighbourhood – our houses beside each other. Tekey and Sam had the key to our house and we had theirs. The wall that separated the two houses when we bought them was broken down because we thought it was a barrier to our friendship.

So Tekey and Sam could walk into our house anytime of the day and we could do same at theirs. Our bond was weird to the outside eye but captivating to the inside me. It was a magnetism.

A relationship built into the heavens came crashing down to earth like the tower of Babel. As a great faith shared by two families and four friends naturally attracted a huge test.

A Tuesday afternoon, my best friend’s husband, Sam came home excited – rush of achievement

I was in the living room watching a movie and since my husband had left for work and the kids for school, I didn’t bother to wear anything decent. A bathrobe was enough covering for a loner at home. When Sam barged into the house and saw his wife’s car parked, he believed dearie was home. She wasn’t in their living room so he gatecrashed my mid-morning movie-session
“We did it, we did it. We’ve successfully completed a ten-hour surgery on a conjoined joins and both patients are alive!” he said.

I came off the sofa and gave him a hug. “That’s great Sam.”

But the hug lasted longer than it should. I could have pulled away but it felt too good, a feeling I’ve not had in a long while. For months, P.K. and I have not had any intimacy, no hugs, no kisses although we slept in the same bed every night.

The emotional rush of joy in a split second metamorphosed into a sexual spark. We both knew it wasn’t right but neither of us could muster any moral courage. We had sex right there in my living room, on my sofa and in my matrimonial home – and slept off.

The noise awakened us from whatever dreamland we were in. And from that awakening, we realised that Sam’s 14-year-old son had walked in on us. Erin had come looking for his father just like he came looking for his wife. Before we could pull ourselves together and follow Erin, he run out of the room and out of the house – in a mixture of shock, surprise and shame.

All we heard was a harrowing squeal of breaks and skidding tyres and a sudden scream and bang. In fear, shock and shame, we raced down the front walk and there he was, lying motionless with his head bleeding. Erin had been knocked down by a truck.

Our lives changed into a deep colour of anguish and adrenaline as we rushed Erin into the Intensive Care Unit. A short grey-haired doctor said Erin was in coma.

Tekey and her younger daughter came running down the hospital’s hall way. I could see the fear in her face, the swirling confusion on her face. Alll she could ask was “what happened?”

Asking for us to add the sexual details was asking for too much. Too early for truth, too afraid for the families’ sanity, we told the story just as nice as we could.

He run into the street and was knocked down by a car. Tekey wanted more, she didn’t seem satisfied with the answer but her husband was there and assured her that everything will be fine, so she asked no more questions. Her only concern was how to get her son out of the state he was in and take him back home.

That never happened. Erin stayed in intensive care and in coma for three weeks. He died in the fourth week.

The innocent bright boy had been taken away from his parents just because of a moment’s weakness.

Nobody mourned loudly more than Tekey. Nobody mourned deeply than I. She was asking God why and God’s invisible hand was pointing to me. Only she couldn’t see it. She mourned the son’s death. I mourned the guilt of her son’s death.

The truth will keep everybody else mourning for years – even forever. Just because of 10 minutes of madness, a 22-year friendship, relationship plus marriage would just pulverise.

I don’t know how long I can keep my mouth shut. I’m still praying that Erin’s gentle soul rests in peace. I hope he forgives me and his father someday.

Very often and many times, I ask myself the question: Is silence better?