The voices in my head are as cruel as everyone makes them out to be. Right now, they’re playing a game of ping pong at the back of my mind where the thought being beaten back and forth is, Jump. Don’t jump. Jump. Don’t jump. They’re having fun and sometimes I envy them—the community they have in each other, the not-loneliness, their willingness to make everything a joke and still not want to rip each other to shreds. I wish they’d rip each other to shreds until only one remained—the strongest. Then I’d be decisive. I’m standing on the edge of a cliff wondering if I should jump, and by jump, I mean tell my wife about the DNA test, the text message, the woman blowing up my phone right now. She cannot hear it because I keep it on silent, face down, and out of sight. You have to know this: I’m a faithful man. My flaws are all natural but I’m a good man. We were kids, she was my first, she moved away the week after, and we weren’t even in a relationship.

A month ago, while scrolling on Instagram, I saw a familiar face, clicked on the profile to confirm my suspicion, and felt my heart disintegrate into a million fluttering butterflies. It was her, Belinda from Tonota—that chocolate skin, that tight Cupid’s bow with really pronounced ridges leading to that button nose, that squint-smile revealing a set of perfect white teeth, reducing her brown eyes to two little splits on her face. I remembered it all. I opened her profile, and maybe I shouldn’t have, but my finger was an obedient dog to the order of my heart and down and down it scrolled. It landed on a picture of the same Belinda standing with what looked like her twin, just a little shorter, and the caption read: Happy birthday my one and only. You and I against the world.

I was startled out of my reverie by my wife walking back into the room, a pile of freshly folded clothes fragrant on her hands. My thumb quickly went for the home button but my hand involuntarily threw the phone across the bed to my horrific embarrassment. “You better not be up to something I wouldn’t do, Thomas,” my wife said, not helping the mud puddle of embarrassment I wreathed in, not even affording me the dignity of eye contact. We’ve only been married three years and I know one thing: my wife is not confrontational, but she sure is perceptive.

I should’ve known I was in trouble when a strong nudge to go back to Belinda’s profile roused me from sleep in the dead of the night a week later. I went to the bathroom, opened my Instagram, found that portal that let into my life’s underworld and down and down I scrolled until I landed on that birthday post again. That little girl—there was something about her, something that called to me. Curiosity got the better of me. I went back, hit the follow button, and sent the message, Call me tomorrow at 8am, along with my cell phone number.

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It was more curiosity than defiance that drove me to meet Belinda. She wouldn’t let me meet her daughter until “we knew for sure,” so I agreed to the test. The results wouldn’t come back until after three weeks and, in that period, we met a little more than we should have. Just to catch up I kept telling myself. We’d been just kids, just started senior school, and both had strict parents. Her parents separated so she moved with her father to Gaborone while I remained in Tonota for the two years. When she found out she was pregnant three months later, she was so scared to even contact me because her father threatened to throw her out with  what he called “that little bastard.”

She bore the weight of a broken family, a broken heart, and a loneliness so heavy it shattered the bones. She told me all this with the poise of a mindfulness coach, almost like retelling a story from a movie she watched back in senior school, its finer details now foggy and fraying at the edges, but its heart still intact. It didn’t help that her soft voice tugged at my heart strings. All I wanted was to hold her, to save her from all those years she promises have passed with their heaviness.

On our last meeting, while hugging goodbye, my cheek brushed against hers, and all I could think of was her taut blouse doing the hard work of containing her ample bosom, now closer to mine. Oh, then I knew I was in trouble, so I promised myself as I backed out of her office parking lot that I would never contact her again. I love my wife. I’m hopeful we’ll have our own children even after trying for this long. I’ll do the right thing and shut this thing down before it becomes anything.

That same evening, Belinda sent me a text message.

Huba is ours.

My world quaked from under me. Every thought I tried to follow in my head hit a dead end. Then, she was calling. Every five minutes, my phone rings, so I put it on silent.

In the back of my mind, the voices: Jump. Don’t jump. Jump. Don’t jump.

If I tell my wife of the child, I’d be jumping into the endless pit of the past, and I’m not sure our marriage can survive that. If I keep the news to myself, then I don’t jump. I’d take my wife by the hand and keep walking on the stable ground of what she knows is true. When I’m alone in the shower, the thoughts haunt me. Jump. Don’t jump. Jump. Don’t jump. At night, when my wife is on top of me, Jump, when she touches her lush lips to mine, Don’t jump, when she trembles, Jump, when she rolls over, Don’t jump. When I take my phone from the side table drawer to set the alarm for tomorrow, and it’s still ringing. Jump!