They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.
But in my house, the way to a woman’s womb was apparently through poison.
My name is Amara, and if you had met me a year ago, you would have met the version of me that still believed in patience, prayer, and family. The version that believed marriage was a covenant and mothers-in-law were second mothers, not silent enemies.
That Amara died the day I got the lab results back.
The woman talking to you now is someone entirely different.
I have been married to Jason Williams for four years.
Jason is the only son of a very wealthy, very traditional family from the East. Old money. Old customs. Old secrets. His late grandfather had been one of those men who built half a town and gave the other half to church. His name still sits on hospital wings and school buildings. When you hear “the Williams family,” people straighten their shirts.
Jason loved to say he didn’t care about money.
He loved to say a lot of things.
We met at the bank where I worked. He came in one Friday to open a business account. He wore a white shirt rolled up at the sleeves, cologne that smelled like quiet confidence, and a lazy smile that made the other tellers suddenly very available.
But he chose my desk.
He flirted, I laughed, he asked me out, and six months later I had a diamond on my finger and a future written in gold.
On our wedding day, his mother, Mama Gloria, hugged me so tightly I could hardly breathe.
“My daughter,” she whispered in my ear, her wrapper smelling of camphor and old perfume. “You are welcome. You will give me strong sons and beautiful granddaughters. God has done it already.”
I believed her.
I believed all of them.
The first year of our marriage, we didn’t try for a baby.
We traveled. We renovated the house Jason’s grandfather left for him in Lekki. I worked at the bank and he worked “in the family business,” which mostly meant attending meetings, signing documents, and letting older men with big stomachs call him “the future of the company.”
We slept in on Saturdays. We went out to eat. We enjoyed being “just us.”
Then the questions started.
From aunties at weddings. From uncles at Christmas. From his mother every Sunday after church.
“So, how is it?” she would ask, her voice soft but her eyes searching. “Any good news yet?”
The first few times, I laughed.
“Not yet, Mama,” I would say. “We’re still enjoying ourselves. God’s time is the best.”
She would nod, smile, and pat my hand. “Yes, my daughter. God’s time. But don’t take too long. A woman is most fruitful when she is still young.”
By the second year, it wasn’t funny anymore.
The questions turned to suggestions. The suggestions turned to pressure. Pressure turned into prayers that sounded more like accusations.
We started trying deliberately.
Ovulation strips. Fertility apps. Calendar planning.
I drank more water. I slept more. I cut down on coffee.
Every month, my period came like an insult.
Every month, I sat on the toilet, stared at the red stain on the pad, and felt something inside me crumble a little more.
The doctors said there was nothing wrong with me. My tubes were open. My hormones were fine. My eggs were “beautiful,” as if that was some consolation.
Jason’s tests came back fine too.
“Sometimes it just takes time,” the doctor said kindly. “Don’t stress. Stress makes it worse.”
How do you not stress when your body is a ticking clock and your mother-in-law counts every second out loud?
In our third year of marriage, Mama Gloria moved in.
“At least until you carry,” she said, as if she were coming to stay until a parcel arrived.
Jason thought it was a great idea.
“She’ll help around the house,” he said, holding me close in bed one night, his chin resting on my shoulder. “You’re always so tired after work. This way you can rest more, and she’ll be happy she’s involved.”
“What if I want privacy?” I asked quietly.
“She’s my mother,” he replied, as if that answered everything. “She loves you.”
I swallowed my unease.
What could I say? That I didn’t want help? That I wanted to be the wife and woman of the house, not the roommate of my husband’s mother?
The day she moved in, she arrived with three big boxes: one for clothes, one for pots and spices, one for “prayer materials.” She kissed me on both cheeks, prayed loudly in the living room for “the fruit of the womb,” and then marched straight into my kitchen like a general stepping onto her battlefield.
From that day, she took charge of dinner.
“You work too hard at the bank,” she said. “Let Mama cook for you. You need strength to carry my grandson.”
At first, it was sweet.
She made vegetable soup with smoked fish that made Jason lick his fingers. She made jollof rice that even my picky palate had to respect. But there was one dish she made more than anything else.
Catfish Pepper Soup.
Spicy. Aromatic. Delicious.
The kind of soup that opens your chest and makes you forget your name.
Every evening, she would call me into the kitchen with that same gentle voice.
“Amara, my daughter,” she’d say. “Your own is ready.”
She always served me in a deep white bowl with blue flowers around the rim. Steam would rise, carrying the scent of uda, uziza, and crayfish. The fish would be soft, the pepper just right.
“Eat it hot,” she would say, resting her hand on my shoulder. “It is good for the body and the womb. It will clear the way.”
She would watch me take the first spoonful, smiling as I winced from the heat.
Jason usually ate rice or swallow with whatever else she cooked. The pepper soup, she said, was “special” for me.
I would drink it until my nose ran and my eyes watered, thinking of little feet running through the corridor and small hands grabbing my skirt.
If you had asked me then, I would have said I was blessed to have a mother-in-law who cared so much.
Now, I know better.
Last week, everything changed.
I had a splitting headache at work. Numbers blurred on the computer screen, customers’ voices sounded like they were underwater, and the air conditioner felt like it was blowing hot air.
My manager took one look at my face and said, “Go home, Amara. You look like you’re about to collapse.”
The driver dropped me in front of the house at 3:30 p.m.
The estate was quiet. Children were still in school. Generators hummed faintly in the distance.
As I unlocked the door and stepped inside, I noticed the smell first.
Pepper Soup. Fresh. Strong. Familiar.
But it was too early. We usually ate around 7:30 or 8. Why was she cooking now?
The house was quiet—TV off, radio off.
I walked toward the kitchen, my head pounding with every step. When I got closer, I heard the sound:
kpom… kpom… kpom…
The solid, rhythmic thump of a mortar and pestle.
I slowed down and stopped just before the kitchen door, leaving a small gap between the frame and the wood.
I peeked through.
Mama Gloria stood over the big wooden mortar I had inherited from my grandmother, her wrapper tied firmly around her waist. Her glasses sat low on her nose as she peered into the mortar, grinding something with focused intensity.
Not pepper. Not crayfish.
White tablets.
They broke under the pestle with that dry, chalky sound pills make when crushed. She pounded until they turned to fine powder, small clouds rising with every strike.
My throat went dry.
She glanced toward the door once, and I pulled back, heart racing. When I peeked again, she was scooping the powder with a small spoon and sprinkling it into the pot of pepper soup bubbling gently on the stove.
She stirred slowly, carefully, watching the white powder disappear into the brownish broth.
My hands began to shake.
I don’t know how long I stood there. Seconds? A full minute? My breathing was shallow, my heart beating loud enough that I was sure she would hear it.
Was she… drugging me?
The thought slammed into me like a truck.
She’d been cooking that soup for me for years.
How many “special soups” had I eaten?
How many nights had I thanked her for caring?
I stepped back from the door, my legs feeling like rubber. I almost ran into the console table in the corridor. A framed wedding picture wobbled. Our smiling faces looked back at me from three years ago, untouched by suspicion.
Footsteps.
I jerked my head up.
Mama Gloria turned off the stove and walked toward the corridor, probably heading to the guest bathroom. I ducked into the nearest bedroom, holding my breath until I heard the bathroom door close.
The sound of running water.
I moved.
I slipped into the kitchen, my heartbeat pounding in my ears. The smell of pepper hit my nose again, but this time it made my stomach turn.
The pot sat there, innocent, simmering gently.
I grabbed the nearest small food container, dipped it into the soup, and scooped enough to reach the halfway mark. I clicked the lid on with shaking fingers, wiped the outside on my dress, and slid it into my handbag under the counter.
Then I rinsed the spoon and left it exactly where I’d found it.
As I stepped out of the kitchen, I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflective oven door.
I looked like a stranger—eyes wide, lips pressed into a thin line.
I walked back to the living room, dropped onto the sofa, and pretended to scroll on my phone.
When she came out of the bathroom, she smiled warmly.
“My daughter, you are back early,” she said.
“Yes, Mama,” I replied, forcing my lips to curve. “Headache. They sent me home.”
“Ah, sorry,” she clucked, coming closer to touch my forehead. “You are hot. It is stress. Don’t worry, I am making your pepper soup. You will sweat it out.”
I swallowed bile.
“Thank you, Mama.”
After a few minutes of small talk, I stood up.
“I need to go back to the office to pick something I forgot, Mama,” I lied. “I’ll be back before dinner.”
She frowned.
“But you are not feeling well.”
“It’s just five minutes,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”
I took my handbag, feeling the weight of the container inside like a secret bomb.
I didn’t go back to the office.
I went to the other side of town, to a small building tucked behind the general hospital—one of those private labs that survived on fees and secrets.
My friend Chioma worked there.
We’d gone to university together before life split us in different directions. She stayed with science, I went into finance. But we still met once a month to gist and complain.
“Amara?” she said when she saw me at the reception desk. “What are you doing here? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I managed a weak smile.
“I need your help,” I said. “And it’s urgent.”
I pulled her aside, away from the curious ears of the receptionist.
“I brought something I need you to test,” I said, lowering my voice. “Toxicology. Full panel. I will pay. I don’t want receipts. I don’t want my name in any file.”
Chioma raised an eyebrow.
“Are you in trouble?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I just know I need to be sure.”
She studied my face for a moment, then nodded.
“Okay. Let’s go to the back.”
In a small lab room with white walls and too-bright lights, I handed her the container. She opened it, sniffed, and made a face.
“Pepper soup?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“And you want to know if it has… what? Poison? Sedatives?”
My throat tightened.
“I want to know if it has anything that shouldn’t be there.”
Chioma’s eyes softened.
“This is not funny, Amara.”
“I’m not laughing.”
She looked from my face to the container.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll run everything I can. It will cost.”
“I will pay,” I repeated. “Just… please make it fast.”
She squeezed my shoulder.
“I’ll call you as soon as I have the results.”
The next twenty-four hours were the longest of my life.
I went home, and I ate. Not the soup—I claimed my stomach hurt and I couldn’t manage pepper. Mama looked disappointed but did not push. Jason shrugged and focused on the football match.
He was distracted, laughing at something on his phone while I sat across from him, watching his features like I was seeing them for the first time.
This was the man I had trusted with my body, my future, my name.
I watched the way he smiled at me when he caught my eye—warm, familiar.
I wondered how many lies could hide behind a smile.
The next day at work, I jumped every time my phone buzzed.
By 3 p.m., I couldn’t take it anymore. I slipped into the restroom and called Chioma.
She picked on the first ring.
“Amara,” she said. Her voice sounded heavier than usual. “Where are you?”
“At work,” I replied. “What did you find?”
She was quiet for a second.
“It’s not rat poison,” she said. “If that’s what you were afraid of.”
Relief tried to rise in my chest, but her tone stopped it halfway.
“Then what is it?”
She exhaled.
“Mifepristone and Misoprostol,” she said. “High dosage. Mixed with something else that looks like hormonal contraceptives. If you’ve been eating this a lot, Amara… this is bad.”
My mind scrambled to assemble the words into sense.
“I don’t understand.”
She sighed.
“Those are abortion drugs,” she said bluntly. “Combined like this and taken regularly, they can prevent implantation and end early pregnancies before you even realize you’re pregnant. They thin the uterine lining. They mess with your hormones, your cycle—everything.”
I felt the tiled wall pressing against my back.
“Abortion pills?” I repeated, the word tasting bitter.
“Yes,” Chioma said. “Not ‘juju.’ Not herbs. Pharmaceutical assault on your womb.”
My legs threatened to give way.
“How long would someone have to take this for it to…?”
“Amara,” she cut in gently, “if you’ve been taking this often over months, maybe years, then every time you conceived—even a little—it might have flushed it out before you missed your period. You would never know.”
My hand flew to my stomach, as if I could protect something that had never been allowed to stay.
“Who is giving this to you?” she asked, voice sharp now. “Is it a doctor? A quack? Your… husband?”
I couldn’t speak.
For three years, my period had come on time like a judge. For three years, pregnancy tests had stayed blank and unforgiving.
Not because my body couldn’t carry.
Because someone else had decided it shouldn’t.
I ended the call, made some excuse about network, and locked myself in a bathroom stall until my tears ran dry.
Later that evening, rage replaced shock.
I don’t know which hurt more: the idea that my mother-in-law had been poisoning my womb for years… or the creeping suspicion that she wasn’t acting alone.
I waited until she went to the market, claiming she needed to buy fresh fish. Jason was at a meeting. The house was silent.
I went into her room.
I felt like a thief, but I told myself the truth: thieves take what doesn’t belong to them.
I was looking for what had been taken from me.
Her room smelled like camphor, old powder, and mothballs. I searched drawers, boxes, and handbags.
In the third drawer of her bedside table, I found them.
Blister packs of pills, the same white tablets I had seen in the mortar. Some strips were half used. Others were still full.
My stomach twisted.
I took one strip and slipped it into my pocket.
Then I saw her Bible on the nightstand.
It was thick and worn, its edges frayed from years of church and prayer meetings. I don’t know what made me open it. Maybe I wanted to know if there was any verse that excused what she was doing.
A folded document fell out from between the pages of Psalms.
I picked it up.
It was a letter from a law firm. Formal. Dry. Written on heavy paper that smelled faintly of ink and old money.
“Dear Mrs. Williams,” it began. “As per the terms of the late Chief Nathaniel Williams’ will…”
I read every line.
By the time I got to the end, my hands were shaking again.
Jason only inherits the oil and gas shares if he marries a woman from the “Royal Lineage” of the village. If he has a child with a “stranger,” all of it goes to charity.
I looked at the word twice.
Stranger.
That’s what I was to them. Not a wife, not a daughter, not family. A stranger that could cost them millions.
I sat down on the edge of her bed and started to laugh.
Small, choked giggles at first, then louder. It sounded hysterical, even to my own ears.
It all made sense suddenly.
The sudden eagerness to find Jason a wife from “home.”
The quick acceptance of me when he insisted.
The syrupy sweetness.
The prayers.
The soup.
It wasn’t about loving me. It wasn’t about wanting a grandchild. It was about protecting an inheritance.
I wiped my eyes and stood up.
There was one more question left.
Jason.
I didn’t confront him right away.
Anger without evidence was just noise, and Jason knew how to spin noise into silence. I needed more than suspicion and a letter from his dead grandfather’s lawyer.
I needed proof.
That night, while he slept with his arm thrown lazily over my waist, snoring gently, I slid out of bed and picked up his phone from the bedside table.
He thought I didn’t know the password.
He was wrong.
I had watched him unlock it too many times to count.
The screen lit up.
I went straight to his call logs, then messages.
It didn’t take long.
There were multiple calls to a pharmacy I recognized by name. Then a saved contact labeled “Dr. K” with a string of messages.
“Same pills as last time.”
“She must not suspect anything.”
“Can this be taken in soup?”
“Yes, crush and mix. Works better on empty stomach.”
My vision blurred.
Jason had sent money transfers. He’d asked about side effects. He’d joked that “my mum is more serious about this than any doctor.”
I scrolled, numb, until I found one message that felt like a knife.
“Once the will is settled and everything is transferred,” he had written, “we can try properly. For now, we just have to manage her emotions.”
Manage her emotions.
I put the phone down slowly.
I lay back on the bed beside him, staring at the ceiling.
He slept like a baby. Breath even, face peaceful.
I wondered if he had ever watched me cry in the bathroom and felt even a flicker of guilt. All those nights he had held me while I sobbed into his chest, whispering, “It’s okay, babe. God’s time is the best.”
He had said it knowing he was the one turning God’s clock back every month.
When sleep finally came, it was thin and full of dark dreams.
Sunday came like judgment.
It was a quiet morning. Church, lunch, small talk.
For once, I felt calm—not because I wasn’t angry, but because my anger had moved past fire into something cold and sharp.
I packed my bags in the afternoon.
Two suitcases. One carry-on. My passport. My credentials from the bank. The flash drive with copies of every message, every call log, and a picture of the pills and letter.
I was not just leaving. I was preparing for war.
Sunday dinner was almost a ritual in the Williams house.
Mama Gloria made her famous pepper soup. Jason watched TV in the living room and shouted at players on the screen. I set the table.
But this Sunday, there was a difference.
While Mama Gloria hummed in the kitchen, I walked in quietly, my phone in my hand, camera already recording. I stood behind the slightly open door, just as I had that first day, and filmed.
I filmed her crushing the tablets.
I filmed her scooping the powder.
I filmed it falling into the pot like snow.
When she left the kitchen to wash her hands, I moved.
I picked up the bowl she had obviously prepared for me—the deep white one with blue flowers. The one that always seemed reserved for “my daughter.”
I switched it with the other bowl cooling on the counter.
I didn’t add anything. I didn’t need to. She had already done the work.
For Jason, I had a separate plan.
Earlier that day, I had gone to a pharmacy and bought the strongest laxatives I could get without a prescription. Not poison. Not anything that would leave long-term harm. Just enough to make his life very, very uncomfortable.
I dissolved them in warm water, added a bit of stock to mask the taste, and poured the mixture into his soup.
Laxatives for my husband.
Her own medicine for my mother-in-law.
I set the table.
“Dinner is ready,” I called.
Jason came first, phone still in his hand.
“This match ehn,” he said as he sat down. “Referee is blind. That was a penalty.”
I smiled.
“Eat, darling.”
Mama Gloria came in next, wiping her hands on her wrapper.
“My children,” she said, beaming. “May this meal be the last before good news. This week, the angels will visit your womb.”
“Amen,” Jason said automatically, already dipping his spoon.
I watched her carefully.
She picked up the bowl meant for “her daughter” and pulled it closer. She inhaled deeply, eyes closing in appreciation.
“Very fresh fish,” she said.
“Yes,” I replied. “Very fresh.”
They ate.
I did not touch my own plate.
I just watched.
Jason devoured his soup too quickly, as usual. He had always been greedy with food. He wiped the bowl with bread and laughed at something on his phone.
Mama Gloria ate more slowly, savoring every bite.
There was something poetic about it, watching her enjoy the same “special” soup she had been feeding me for years.
When she finished, I stood up and walked to the TV.
“I have a movie for us to watch,” I said lightly.
Jason frowned.
“What movie?”
I plugged in my flash drive and selected the file.
“Home video,” I replied. “Very personal.”
The screen lit up.
We all watched as the kitchen appeared. The familiar mortar. The familiar hands. The white tablets.
The sound of grinding filled the living room.
kpom… kpom… kpom…
For a moment, nobody moved.
The spoon slipped from Mama Gloria’s hand and clattered into her empty bowl.
Jason’s jaw went slack.
“Amara,” he said slowly, “what is this?”
I sat back down, crossing my legs.
“This,” I said calmly, “is a documentary. It’s about infertility, marriage, and attempted murder.”
“Stop this,” Mama Gloria snapped, her voice shaking. “This is nonsense. Turn it off.”
I ignored her.
The video showed her scooping the powder into the pot, stirring, tasting, smiling.
Jason swallowed hard.
“Amara,” he tried again, “this… this isn’t what it looks like.”
“Oh?” I tilted my head. “So you mean you didn’t spend the last three years feeding me abortion pills so you could protect your inheritance?”
His eyes widened.
I picked up the remote and paused the video on the frame where Mama’s smiling face hovered over the pot.
I looked directly at her.
“I took your soup to a lab,” I said. “I know exactly what is in it. Mifepristone. Misoprostol. Hormonal contraceptives. Enough to flush out a football team.”
She turned pale.
“Amara—”
“Don’t,” I cut in. “Don’t call my name with that mouth.”
I turned to Jason.
“I checked your phone,” I said. “Your messages. Your transfers. You bought the pills. You asked how to mix them. You joked about your mother being ‘more serious than any doctor.’”
His mouth opened and closed, useless.
“Amara, I can explain—”
“You can explain?” I laughed, the sound brittle. “Explain how you held me while I cried over negative tests you caused? Explain how you watched me drink tea, climb prayer mountains, swallow herbs, and blame myself, while you and your mother played chemist with my womb? Explain how my babies—because that’s what they were, even if they were just cells—were washed away in pepper soup?”
Tears burned in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.
Mama Gloria clutched her chest.
“Everything we did,” she said weakly, “was to protect this family. You are a good girl, Amara, but you are not from us. The will—”
“I read the will,” I snapped. “I saw the letter. If Jason has a child with a ‘stranger,’ the oil and gas shares go to charity. That’s what this is about. Not God. Not tradition. Not love. Money.”
Jason’s breathing had gone shallow.
“Amara, please,” he said. “We just needed time. Once everything was transferred, we would have stopped. We would have done it properly. We would have had a baby for real.”
“‘For real,’” I repeated slowly. “As opposed to all the times my body tried and you flushed it away?”
He reached for me.
“Baby, listen—”
“Don’t you dare call me that,” I hissed.
For a second, everything was quiet.
Then Mama Gloria sucked in a sharp breath.
Her hand went to her stomach, then her throat.
“What… what did you…?”
I looked at her calmly.
“I did nothing,” I said. “You cooked. I just switched the bowls. You ate the soup you meant for me, Mama. I imagine those pills feel different in a body with your age and your blood pressure. I truly don’t know what they’ll do. That’s between you and your God.”
Jason stared at me, horror creeping into his features.
“Amara!”
At the same time, he clutched his own stomach and doubled over.
The laxatives were kicking in.
He groaned, sweat beading on his forehead.
“What did you do to me?” he gasped.
“That one?” I shrugged. “Just laxatives. The strongest they had. Don’t worry, you won’t die. You’ll just wish you could.”
I stood up.
My suitcases were already waiting by the door.
“I’m leaving this house,” I said. “And I’m leaving this marriage.”
“You can’t,” Mama Gloria wheezed, her breathing shallow. “You… you signed—”
“I signed a marriage certificate,” I cut in. “Not a contract to be your lab rat.”
I picked up my bag and walked to the door.
Behind me, Jason was groaning and stumbling toward the bathroom. Mama Gloria was gasping, staring at the empty bowl as if it held the ghost of her intentions.
“One more thing,” I said, pausing at the doorway.
They both looked at me.
“I’m sending the video,” I said. “To the family lawyer. To your uncles. To anyone whose signature matters on that inheritance. Let them see how far you were willing to go to protect money from a ‘stranger.’ Let’s see if they still think you deserve it.”
“You are wicked,” Mama Gloria whispered hoarsely.
I smiled faintly.
“No, Mama. I just learned from the best.”
I stepped out into the corridor, pulled the door open, and walked into the afternoon sun.
As I got into the cab I had already ordered, my phone buzzed with a message from Chioma: “Are you okay?”
I looked back once at the house.
Somewhere inside, my soon-to-be-ex-husband was racing between pain and panic, and my mother-in-law was confronting her own special recipe.
For the first time in years, I felt… light.
Not happy. Not yet. But free.
I typed back to Chioma: “On my way to the airport. I’ll explain later.”
The cab pulled out of the estate.
I watched the city slide by—the hawkers, the buses, the women with babies tied to their backs. Somewhere among them were other women crying over negative tests, blaming their bodies for what other people had done.
I rested my head against the window and closed my eyes.
I’m not just leaving the marriage. I’m burning the bridge behind me.
I’m sending the video to the family lawyer.
Let them choose between their money and their reputation.
Maybe they’ll still get to keep the inheritance.
Maybe they won’t.