He told you to consider him as a brother since you were going to live with him for the next 12 months. Abrantie had noticed your discomfort when you alighted from the tro-tro at St. Theresa’s School and that was the first thing he said.

“You’re welcome, Nyamekye. Please, take me as your brother and feel free wai.”

You smiled and thanked him as he offered to take one of your travelling bags, and your legs followed his lead like a sheep being led to slaughter. North Kaneshie was new territory for you and, as you looked around that day, you had no idea that your life was about to change. 

You crossed Palace Street and headed towards Lampado Street with your new roommate. As you both walked, you wondered what his impressions about you were; you were desperate for his approval like a farmer waiting for rain after the dry season. That was the only way this could work. The National Service Secretariat had posted you to Ghana Prints, a publishing house at North Industrial Area. Although your parents had tried working it out for you to be reposted close to home in Dodowa, their efforts had proved futile.

What was the will of man worth in the face of fate custodians like us? We wanted you here and so our spinnerets wove the kente that draped you in this reality. Finally, your parents had to make calls to get an accommodation close to your workplace. A family friend contacted Abrantie, a deacon of your church’s branch in North Kaneshie, and arrangements were made. Now, you were here, exactly where generations of pain and joy had led you to, where you should be for what came next.

As you drew closer to your new home, you saw a woman walking her daughter from a store to a brand new Jeep. Their hands moved in the air and you recognised the sign language, even though you didn’t understand it. The orange rays of the sunset cast a sepia hue on the neighbourhood and as you looked around, you knew you would always remember this day. Your mind was taking in so much at once: the string of stores that sold everything from electrical wares to fried yam, the church with the stained glass windows and the numerous hotels. There was a pull in this environment that you couldn’t comprehend just yet. Even right then, you could feel tongues of fire on your head but you hadn’t grown to understand the language of providence. 

The comprehension would come weeks later, but for now, your eyes were focused on Abrantie. He was wearing a white singlet that dulled to a muted brown and you tried as much not to marvel at the dark skin that glistened with sweat, the toned muscles that were taut under the weight of your bag. You squeezed your eyes shut to block out the sexual thoughts creeping through your web of denial. Even at 22, you still imagined your parents had access to the crevices of your mind and that they could sense you were one of those people. There were many things you didn’t want Abrantie to find out about you. Even right then, you were already making a plan to hide your medications from him. You had learnt your lesson on campus.

If you were expecting a posh bungalow, you would have been surprised when Abrantie led you to a compound on Lampado Street with roughly arranged one-room apartments. However, you had kept your mind open and so were not surprised when you both entered one of these rooms at the far end of the compound. A few people sat outside and exchanged greetings with you.

“Is he the one you mentioned this morning?” a woman you would later know as Aunty Gifty, asked Abrantie in Twi, taking a cursory look at you. Her cornrows were tied up in a tight bun that made her forehead jut out like a louvre slat.

“Yes, please.”

“Akwaaba,” she welcomed you.

The surprise came when you met someone inside the room you entered. The man sat on the bed reading a copy of Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not to Blame. There was something about his relaxed presence that made it register that he also lived here. No one had mentioned another person. Even the family friend had said Abrantie lived alone.

“That’s my brother, Odeneho,” Abrantie said with a dismissive tone, “And this is my humble abode. You are welcome.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you had a brother or lived with someone.”

“Yeah, we didn’t mention him. He doesn’t matter. Just ignore him.”

You were taken aback by the vileness; how could one speak of his brother in such a dismissive manner? Your three younger siblings at home, the triplets—the holy trinity as you called them—meant everything to you. You could never speak ill of them. Soon, you settled in the room after drinking water. The room was small and stuffy, as though it had held its breath for a long time and didn’t know how to exhale anymore. The wooden walls echoed when you tapped them with your knuckles and you heard someone tap them back; there was someone in the other room. Apart from the enthusiastic wave Odeneho gave you, he said nothing. Only his eyes tore into your flesh with a mysterious glint.

“Well, we are all young men here so I guess we can all get along,” Abrantie said, peeling off his singlet with a sharp throw of his hands. You dropped your gaze and your mind fed on the shirtless image you had just been offered. The way those muscles rippled on that ripped body like the surface of a lake penetrated by a paddle. That body…his body. You wondered where you could be alone and stroke yourself with that image imprinted on your mind.

“Please, Bro Abrantie, is there a washroom outside?”

Abrantie snickered and offered to show you around. The compound had a public toilet with five pit latrines. Each visit cost 2 cedis.

“First, it was 1 cedi but Nana Addo and this economy happened,” Abrantie quipped.

The toilet was mainly for releasing one’s bowels. The men peed in the gutter at the other end of the street. You swallowed and wondered how you could live here successfully with the public display of private parts on the street where people went about their business. Shame seeped into your bloodstream and threatened to make your bladder full. The bathhouse at the other end of the compound was walled with roofing sheets and a wooden door that creaks when you pushed it in. It was unroofed and there were many mornings when you would watch the stars disappear from the brightening morning sky and fingerlings of the sunrise’s fire steal across the big blue expanse as you bathed. Fetching water from the compound’s tap cost 80 pesewas per bucket but the second tank with the cleaner water cost 1 cedi. Everyone preferred the 80 pesewas tap. The water wasn’t any much different, Abrantie explained. However, you would quickly realise that there was a clear distinction: the water from the cheaper tap was sometimes brown and you had to wait for particles to settle underneath before using it. 

You finally had the chance to properly meet Odeneho when Abrantie left for his night shift at the pharmacy in North Industrial Area. 

“Hello, they call me Nyamekye. You are Odeneho, right?”

Odeneho made some sounds that confused you and then reached for a small board and marker. Your eyes narrowed in confusion as the young man scribbled words and it finally clicked when you saw the board.

Can’t hear you. Welcome.

“Oh—“ The sound escaped your mouth before you could stop yourself. An onion of emotions made your eyes water. First, there was a layer of shame that it hadn’t occurred to you earlier. But underneath the layers of shame and a sense of uncertainty was a swelling anger. You now understood Abrantie’s statements about his brother. All the desire you had for the elder brother withered away. You sat on the second student bed that had been placed on the floor just beside Odeneho upon your arrival. You took the new roommate’s board and wrote on it.

I am Nyamekye. You are Odeneho, right?

Odeneho nodded with tears glistening in his eyes and tapped your shoulder. He made some signs with his hands that you didn’t understand.

“Oh, I don’t understand sign language,” you mouthed with a sense of failure. You understood various languages: Twi, Ga, French, English, Spanish, and Ewe. And you never bothered to take your ASL classes seriously. 

“We are never going to need that,” you had agreed with your course mates. You were all people who didn’t need a language that transcended sounds and that privilege made you complacent. That night, we bound sleep from enticing you into depths of the unknown. After turning and tossing about the bed, you gave up and watched Odeneho sleep. The young man was well-built with a thicket of hair all over his body. Your fingers pulsated with the urge to stroke the glistening hair that shook under the breeze of the standing fan that hovered over your beds. Your new roommate intrigued you. There were so many questions you wanted to ask but the words you were familiar with were useless here. You thought about your differently abled ancestral matriarch, that strong woman whom your mother had told you countless stories about. 

During the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the richest chief of their village kept selling the men and women of families who owed him debts to European powers. It was a never-ending horror, families torn apart, bound in castles and later on ships to new worlds. To prevent the chief from taking people from her family any longer, Adwoa Serwaa visited him one night and made her plea. She was hard of hearing and unable to speak, so she made her body do the negotiation. She stripped off her lappa and straddled the chief. The man sat in his chair, shocked into silence by the brazenness of a woman deemed useless by everyone. 

He whimpered when she took him in and grinded her hips against his. Her eyes spoke volumes as she moaned. The strangeness of it all excited the chief; she made him whimper, moan, and groan. By the time his water rose to the tip, he had made two decisions: he would leave her family alone and forgive the debts they owed him. But Adwoa Serwaa is his now. And that was how the story went: in a twist of fate, the deaf-mute girl whom no one regarded was the one who saved her family. She would go on to raise sons and daughters for the sadistic monster; your bloodline was part oppressor, part liberator. 

You reached for your phone and tapped on the lengthiest YouTube video on American Sign Language. Your fingers awkwardly moved around as you tried mimicking the teachers. 

The next seven weeks were a blur between getting acclimated to North Kaneshie and Ghana Prints where you worked as an Assistant Editor. During your breaks, you stood before the washroom mirror and practised the signs you had learnt. Your fiery obsession with mastering ASL had pushed you to stay up many nights when Abrantie and Odeneho were both asleep, or other nights when Abrantie was on his night shift.

On one of such nights when you were alone with Odeneho, you heard a snicker that made you pause your YouTube video. You switched on the light and saw your roommate looking at you. Odeneho’s hands danced in the air.

I have been watching you all this while. You are a fast learner.

You shifted your weight from one foot to another. It was hard to understand why you felt so embarrassed, as though you had been caught masturbating to gay porn. What were you worried about, that the guy could tell that underneath the obsession with mastering ASL was a growing, burning desire that was considered unnatural by mere mortals? What do ephemeral creatures know about nature?

You moved your hands in awkward choreography, trying to use what you had learnt.

I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable. I wanted to learn it so that I could communicate with you. I want to know you beyond words.

Odeneho smacked his lips and tapped the space beside him for you to come sit. 

I am not uncomfortable. I am rather pleased. Abrantie never bothered to learn sign language. That one, he is full of himself. Don’t you see how he walks?

You laughed with the awkwardness of a teenager alone with his crush. Odeneho stood up to mimic how Abrantie walked, stomping his feet on the ground in an exaggerated way and you threw your head back in laughter. It erupted like the crash of ceramics on tiles. A knock echoed on the wooden wall that separated you from Aunty Gifty in the next room.

“Please keep your voices down, young men,” she said. 

Odeneho somersaulted on the bed and tumbled over you; he had to cover your mouth because you were laughing hysterically. In spite of your mirth, you were keenly aware of your warm breaths on his palm. You wanted this moment to last forever, Odeneho crouched over you, collapsed in a shoulder-shaking orgasm of laughter. You laughed yourselves to sleep, still in a tight embrace. It was only when Abrantie came knocking at dawn that you peeled away from each other. In the silence that followed, you were keenly aware that the merriment last night had been a consummation of some sort, albeit sexless. It was still an acknowledgement of the desire you had for each other.

When Abrantie took his towel and a bucket of water to the bathhouse, Odeneho snapped his fingers at you. 

I have seen you taking meds at night when you think we are asleep. What are they for?

You grimaced. The last time you opened up to your roommates on campus, they had gone to the hostel manager and requested that you be moved to another room. Alas, you had to rent a hostel off campus where you lived alone. You became a pariah in your class, department, and faculty. Everywhere on campus, people whispered about your condition and became wary of you. It drove you to attempt suicide one Christmas when your wrists became festive gifts waiting to be unwrapped. You looked at Odeneho; you couldn’t afford to lose a new-found friend.

Oh, it’s just for migraines. I have these headaches from time to time.

You take them every day. Morning and evening. I don’t think it’s just migraines.

He moved closer to you and took your hands. You both trembled with the weight of your desires. Your tumescence drew stiff lines under your briefs. A moan escaped the prison of your mouth when Odeneho lifted his fingers to give your left nipple a squeeze.

You can talk to me.

You wanted nothing more than to be open to Odeneho in many ways. You wanted to tell him the truth; your lips quivered with the desire to merge with this warm man who had captured your heart. You lifted your hands to sign when you heard footsteps. By the time Abrantie opened the door, you had jumped away from each other.

“Aunty Gifty said last night she heard both of you making noise past midnight,” the elder brother said with a frown. He dropped the empty bucket beside the gas cylinder at the other end of the room and parted the curtain that divided the space into two compartments. His tall frame hovered over the both of you who were seated on the bed. He was naked save for the towel wound around his waist. 

“Oh, that was just me. I was watching some skits online and I didn’t know when I started laughing and disturbing everyone.”

Abrantie snickered. 

“Masa, now you’ve started lying for him. He’s a bad influence, this stupid boy.”

“Bro Abrantie, he didn’t do anything—“

“Why are you defending this idiot? Has he converted you to gayism?”

“What?” You swallowed and felt the air leave the room. Gayism. You were aware of many things at the same time: Odeneho scribbling STOP, BROTHER! on his board, Aunty Gifty playing Amakye Dede’s Dabi Dabi with her speakers, some neighbours having a funny conversation in Ga, the standing fan whirring with a frightening speed to keep the heat at bay, the aroma of waakye and shito wafting from the next house, the taste of bile in your throat. Has he converted you to gayism? 

“What are you talking about? I barely know him.”

“I told you to ignore this idiot for a good reason. This one, God knew he was a disgusting creation. That’s why he was born deaf and dumb. And this ingrate, after everything my parents did to make him comfortable, sending him to a school for kids with special needs, he still had the nerve to bring disgrace to the family,” Abrantie said, slapping his younger brother. 

“Stop hitting him,” you said, pushing him off Odeneho. The towel came undone and fell to Abrantie’s feet. The elder brother was possessed with a strange rage that didn’t pay heed to his nakedness that was now an exhibition to the other two. You noticed broken sores on his thighs that looked like peeling paint.

“Go on. Tell your new gay partner about the one they caught you with when you were 15. You haven’t told him about Efo, the one you allowed to tear your buttocks open,” Abrantie said, hitting his right palm against his clenched left fist to suggest penetrative sex. “He was caught with a boy just like him doing trumu-trumu. What even concerns a deaf and dumb with sex? With all your suffering in life, why should sex even occur to you? The news spread like wildfire in the school and they expelled him. After all the money my parents spent on this disgusting monster. They went to his school to pick him up but the demons in him caused an accident on the way back. My mother died on the spot and my dad is now in a wheelchair, in the care of a nanny at Dodowa. He did that to us! Bled us dry of our finances and dragged our name into the mud! Before he was born, we had everything. Now look at our predicament,” Abrantie said, throwing his hands around the room. “And even with this, you still want to seduce an innocent guy that has come to live with us? Kwasia!”

“Stop this, Abrantie. He’s your brother!”

“He’s a monster! All he does is sit in here with his stupid remote jobs and those perverted videos he masturbates to when I’m not around. You think I don’t know the smell of your semen. Ha! I know your intentions with this young man and I won’t sit here and let you turn this room to Sodom and Gomorrah. I pray here for God’s sake! Maybe if you rid your heart of those unnatural desires, God can have mercy on you and make you whole,” Abrantie spat.

Odeneho was crying at this point. His shoulders bounced like a tro-tro jerking on potholed roads. Abrantie cursed under his breath, dressed quickly and went out with the door banging shut behind him. You placed Odeneho’s head on your lap and stroked his hair. Thoughts circled in your mind like a murder of crows and something gnawed at the back of your throat. Abrantie had mentioned that their father was in Dodowa, the same place where your parents were at the moment. You also knew that your mother worked for a man whose spinal cord got damaged in an accident. One day your mother had become drunk and hinted at the fact that she shared history with the man she worked for. It was one of the reasons why she had chosen to be his nanny even though she was a retired nurse. 

You rushed to your phone and dialled her number.

“Mama, who was the family friend who directed me to come live here?” you asked after exchanging pleasantries. 

“Oh, that’s the man I take care of.”

“Oh‒”

 “Yes.” Her laughter tickled your ear like feathers brushing against skin. 

“Those are his kids. Are they treating you well?”

“Yes, they are.”

“I’m coming to Kaneshie market today to buy some things. I wanted to do that last week but I felt this strange fatigue that held me down. I am perfect now. I will pass by to see where you live.”

Mama’s presence filled the room when she entered. She was taller than the small door so she had to bend to enter the room. You sucked air through your teeth as you watched her taking stock of the room. For a strange reason, you wanted to defend the room and the standard of living here. It was home now.

“Obi nnim ɔbrempɔn ahyɛase,” she said with a shrug. “Nobody knows the beginning of a great man. You young men have started life. Little by little.” She sat on the plastic chair in the room and traded short stories with Abrantie who had since returned from his angry exit. You watched your mother move towards Odeneho who huddled up close to the wall in a corner of the room. You were shocked to see your mother’s fingers move in the air.

You must be Odeneho…

“You understand sign language,” you blurted. You were even more shocked to see the warmth your mother exuded towards Odeneho given that she knew the story.

“Of course, I do,” she said and smiled. Abrantie shifted uncomfortably as he watched his younger brother warm up to Mama and they spoke the language he never bothered to learn. Your eyes didn’t leave the elder brother and silently accused him of what happened earlier in the day.

Mama hugged the brothers before leaving and you followed her outside with her bag in your hand. 

“I never told you this. Hmmmm… but I was supposed to marry their father,” Mama began abruptly. “My mother was against our relationship because his mother was an Ewe and you know how many Ashantis are with Ewes. We planned to elope together. We were planning to go to the US. We almost succeeded, you know. My application for a visa was rejected and we agreed that he would go first and later I would join him. I didn’t hear from him for some time and I kept getting rejections. I finally succumbed to my mum’s wishes and married the man from our hometown. On my wedding day, I saw Odeneho’s father in the audience. He had been deported after his visa expired.”

“Oh,” you said and kicked a stone. You wondered what life would have been like, having Odeneho as a brother. 

“Yes, life is funny like that. Bringing people together, tearing them apart and bringing them together again. Fate works in mysterious ways. After the accident, I opted to oversee his welfare. I wanted to spend time with him… Everyone said Kojo was now a borga and there was no way he still remembered me in aburokyire. But he came to my wedding and watched me say those vows to a man I didn’t love…a man who didn’t love me.”

“A man who didn’t love you? You mean Daddy…”

“He is like you in many ways,” Mama said with a sad smile. You gasped and the veins in your neck became taut wires. You were beside Palace Street now. Mama dropped the bag she was holding and touched your face.

“There is no need to be afraid. I have always known. You came out of me. Of course, I knew you didn’t like your ex-girlfriend. Why do you think I was happy when you broke up with her?”

“I thought you didn’t like her.”

“No, my handsome son,” she said, stroking your face. “I didn’t want her to live my life. Be with someone who is not—can’t be—attracted to her. I wanted her to be with someone who loved her. I want you to be with someone you love. Your dad and I, we have our arrangement. But your life doesn’t have to be that way; it is not an ideal arrangement. I saw the way you looked at Odeneho—”

“We’re just roommates.” You scoffed and looked away. 

“I’m your mother, Nyamekye. You opened my womb when everyone wrote me off as barren and after you came the blessing of triplets. Of course, I know you. You’re God’s gift to me and I want to know you every day of my life.”

Emotions curled and twisted at your throat. Your mother caught you in an embrace as you cried.

“Thank you, Mama. Thank you.”

“I love you, son. Never forget that.”

After she left, you walked to a pharmacy to buy your medications. You had a spring in your steps that was new. You wanted to scream to the entire world that you loved men, and your mother loved you. You bought Olanzapine, Fluoxetine and Tegretol with the money your mother had given you. As you turned to leave, you bumped into a child. If you hadn’t been quick to catch her, she would have fallen.

“Oh please, I’m so sorry,” you said, crouching to the girl’s height and ensuring she was fine. The mother rushed in your direction and you apologised again. You watched with interest as the woman signed with her daughter. The woman had a bundle of locks whipped into a big bun and her nose ring glinted inside the pharmacy. The girl looked up and smiled at you.

I am sorry. Are you okay?

The mother looked up with a faint expression of surprise. It occurred to you that you had seen them on the first day you came to North Kaneshie.

“Oh, you understand ASL?” You caught the woman’s American accent.

“Yes please, I do. And I’m sorry once again.”

“Oh, it’s fine. I am Dolores. You can call me Dee,” she said, extending her hand for a handshake.

“I am Nyamekye.”

“Nice name. That means God’s gift, right?” 

“Yes, it does.” You looked at the girl.

What’s your name? I am Nyamekye.

Adwoa Serwaa.

“Oh, Adwoa Serwaa. That’s a beautiful name.”

“Yes, she was named after this woman in the stories that were handed down to us. She was the twin sister of our ancestor. According to family folklore, he was captured by a wicked chief because his family was indebted to the man. He was enslaved and taken across the ocean to work on a cotton plantation, but he never stopped worrying about his twin sister back home. He had been the one taking care of her; she was hard of hearing. He sang day and night about his family, especially Adwoa Serwaa. The songs have passed down through generations and I thought it was a fitting name for my daughter. This is actually my Year of Return visit. I’m hoping to locate family and stuff. I’m sorry I’m boring you with this unnecessary information. Americans, we can’t stop ourselves,” she said with a light laugh. You watched her brown skin shimmer with a thin layer of sweat, and a grand swelling of providence filled your belly.

“Oh, it is fine. Actually, I think I know who you are talking about—the Adwoa Serwaa you are talking about.”

“You do?”

“Yes, I do. She saved the rest of the family, you know. She married the chief and saved the rest of them. The rest of us.”

Dolores’ eyes moistened with tears.

“Wait, are you for real? You mean you are…a descendant of Adwoa Serwaa?”

“My sister is Adwoa Serwaa, too.” 

Dolores laughed and swirled around the room.

“Is this really happening?”

You laughed. “I don’t know. I’m not usually the best at telling what’s real and what’s not, but I think this is happening.”

Dolores jumped into an embrace and you held her steady to prevent her from falling. 

“Akwaaba,” you whispered.

“There is so much I want to ask you and confirm but I have to leave right now. My sister has a running stomach; she ate roadside kenkey and I have to get these meds for her. But this is my card. You live around, right? We have to meet and talk. In fact, let me get your number,” Dolores rambled with excitement.

You ran home with the speed of a leopard after she left. You burst into the room and quickly registered that Abrantie had left for work that evening. 

You have no idea what just happened this evening. In fact, so many things, Odeneho. Where do I begin?

Odeneho sighed.

Nyamekye, you were going to tell me something in the morning before Abrantie came in. Maybe start from there.

You swallowed.

Oh, that. I don’t want it to change things between us.

It won’t. Are you dying?

No! No, I’m not dying. I…have schizophrenia. It’s under control. I have psychiatrists that I meet for monthly reviews but it’s not something I tell people. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable around me because you see me as mad.

Odeneho walked towards the door and you heaved. Another person was leaving after finding out. You heard the key turn and you whipped around. He was locking the door.

I don’t see you as mad.

He hugged you and you remained that way for a long time, two bodies twisted into one, brought together by forces invisible to your eyes and bound by the desire in your hearts. In another universe, you could have been brothers. In this one, you were lovers. Either way, you are linked together in the web of this lifetime.

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Rigwell Addison Asiedu is a Ghanaian writer. In 2019, he won the Dei Awuku Writers Contest, and was longlisted for the African Writers Awards (poetry category) in 2022. Rigwell’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Lolwe, Isele Magazine, African Writer Magazine, Kalahari Review, Akowdee Magazine, Musings Anthology, and KepressNG Anthology. He is an alumnus of the 2024 CANEX Creative Writing Workshop. He is obsessed with water, black cats, and crows. You can reach him via his social media handles: X @asiedu_rigwell, Instagram: rigwellasiedu, and Facebook: Rigwell Addison Asiedu