At 3:18 a.m., I folded my last dress into a black polythene bag, not because I lacked a suitcase, but because I needed something that would not look like a goodbye. My phone lay face-up on the bed, glowing with the same truth I had begged it to deny: twenty-seven missed calls to my husband, and not one call back.

I had made those calls from the cold metal bench of a dispensary, breathing through pain that felt like a serrated knife twisting in my abdomen. The nurse, a kind woman with tired eyes, had searched for a vein in the dim light of a building that kept losing power. "We need his consent for the transfer," she had whispered. But Eliud was not there.

The Silence That Spoke

Now I stood in our bedroom in Runda, listening to the ceiling fan creak like a tired witness. Eliud's cologne still clung to the curtains—a scent of expensive confidence that used to make me feel safe. Now, it just smelled like betrayal. His suits hung in a neat row, untouched by the chaos of my night. Everything in that room said, *He has arrived*. My heart said, *I have left*.

I pictured myself on that clinic bed again, my blouse damp with cold sweat, my fingers shaking as I borrowed a phone from a stranger to call him one last time. "Please, tell him it's urgent," I had pleaded. The stranger looked at me with pity. That pity was sharper than the pain.

• The Discovery: When I finally stabilized, hours later, nobody told me, "Your husband is on his way." Instead, a cousin sent a voice note, casual as gossip, confirming he was at a lounge in Kilimani. He wasn't in a meeting. He wasn't asleep. He was with *her*.
• The Decision: I didn't write a note. I didn't smash his cologne bottles. I simply packed my life into a trash bag. The symbolism wasn't lost on me. I was taking out the trash, but the trash was the life I was leaving behind.

Walking into the Dark

I walked out of the gate past the sleeping askari. The Runda air was crisp, indifferent to my shattering world. I called an Uber, not to my mother’s house, but to a cheap hotel in town. I needed a neutral ground to mourn the death of my marriage.

Eliud will wake up to a silent house. He will see the 27 missed calls. He will see the empty side of the closet. But he will never see me again. He ignored my emergency; I am ignoring his existence. The tie is cut.