African Press International (API)

After he lost his first wife to tuberculosis, Dennis married again. But the marriage barely survived a year. The 32-year-old lawyer is obviously scarred by his harrowing ordeal, as he freely sheds tears during the interview. This belies the picture he portrays of the proverbial tall, dark and strong African man.

His first wife�s death in 2002 left him a single father. �Our son was a year and eight months old and this really affected me. I felt a deep resentment and fear for the future. I lost direction and sought solace in alcohol,� he says.

After burying his wife, Dennis took his son to live with his mother in Embakasi. He visited them several times a week. With time, he says, he became used to being a widower and had no immediate plans to re-marry. But in 2004, Dennis met the woman who would become his second wife.

�When I first saw her, my heart was filled with warmth. I could not help it – I slipped and fell in love,� Dennis recalls. �An affair flourished and we would spend a lot of time together. But within a few months, I discovered that I was not the only regular visitor to her house.

�There was a very old man who visited her during the day. I became suspicious and started visiting her during the day just to see if I would meet him. From his reactions when he met me, I could tell that we shared the same interests.�

Whenever Dennis tried asking his girlfriend about the old man, she would downplay the issue. Their relationship went on for the better part of 2006. �Then she became pregnant and I thought this would push her into marrying me fast. I was, at that point, desperately in need of a mother for my son. She had told me she was a single mother of a 10-year-old daughter, and I thought it would be a good idea for my little boy to grow up with a sister and now this baby!�

Cut short

His expectations were, however, rudely cut short when the pregnancy �disappeared� in the fourth month. �I woke up one day and her stomach was flat! I asked her what had happened to our baby but there was no answer,� Dennis says.

�A sharp pain cut through me and I felt betrayed. I could no longer trust her. Then the suspicion and feelings of insecurity set in and I became very depressed. Maybe the pregnancy was not mine after all, I told myself. I suspected the old man. But even with all this going on, I went ahead and married her quietly in February 2007, hoping things would work out.�

But that was not to be. First, Dennis discovered that his wife was skipping work. Sometimes she would go only twice a week and other times a whole week would pass without her reporting to work. �She worked at a training institution and I found out that the old man was a lecturer there,� he says.

There was more to come. �I was forced to go without supper on several nights because she refused to cook for me. Then strange men would call her in the middle of the night and I would hear her say she was at her sister�s place. Sometimes I pretended to be deeply asleep – I would see her checking to see whether I was asleep – as she flirted with the callers.

�Once we had a fight about her behaviour. She was seven months pregnant and I was happy that a baby was on the way. But again, I was shocked to discover that she was no longer pregnant. And again, there was no explanation forthcoming. I got very stressed and started drinking till morning. We fought almost every week.�

During the August school holidays, Dennis� wife took a trip to her rural home to get her daughter so the newly formed family could be together. She came back with two girls: a 14-year-old in Standard Eight and the 10-year-old who was in Standard Four. �I was stunned me because she had never mentioned a second child,� Dennis says. �I asked her if there were any other children hidden back home so that we could sort out the issue once and for all but she said no.

�We moved on, but I discovered later through a friend that the father of the younger girl had dropped them at the bus stage and driven off. I realised that my wife was still seeing this man to whom she had been previously married.

�I had also brought my son from my mother�s house so we could all bond, but instead of becoming open and free, he withdrew. He would come and sit next to me when I got home from work and start crying for no apparent reason. He would later complain of headaches. I could see that something was terribly wrong but I was afraid of complaining lest I was accused of taking sides.�

One incident in particular stuck out. Dennis had come home from work to find his son crying uncontrollably. �He followed me to my bedroom and told me he had been beaten by his mother. I asked my wife what had happened and she said my son lacked discipline and she had beaten him as a result.

�She got some wire from the kitchen and threatened to give him another beating. This chilled me to the bone. I was in shock. The next day I took time off work and took my son back to my mother�s. I could not continue seeing him suffer this way.�