The greatest part of my life was spent watching my mother take care of us. She and my father exchanged who wore the pants at home, but in truth, she carried the weight of everything. She woke up early, went to work, returned home, and still did all the wife duties.

My father, on the other hand, did his best, but his best was not enough for 15 years because he was unemployed. He stayed at home from morning till evening and evening till dawn broke. While his mates were under the hot sun fighting for their daily bread, he was at home waiting for the daily bread to be served to him. After many years, my father eventually got a job, and he traveled for work three times, away for about eight months each time, but he never sent money home. It was one excuse or another, things were hard or he had not been paid, so we stopped calling and asking him for money because all he would do was tear your eyes red with complaints. My father was still working, but everything concerning us was done by our mother, every little thing, and she did what she could, which included sacrificing so much, but it was not enough for us to pursue education. Among my siblings, I am the only one who managed to reach senior high school, and I did not even go beyond that.

FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP CHANNEL TO RECEIVE ALL STORIES IN YOUR INBOX

Now my parents have been married for 35 years, and the kind of marriage they have lived is, I believe, exactly what they expected, or maybe someone turned back on their promises, I do not know. They fight, they make up, and all of that. They have even acquired properties together and built a two-bedroom self-contained house. I remember so well that during the construction of that house, we did not know rest. Immediately school run closed for the day, we would rush home, change into our working gear, and go to the site. My mother would be there waiting for us. We would fetch water to either mould blocks or mix mortar, anything, we would help the builders with whatever they needed. We gave our sweat to that house.

Last year my father said he no longer wanted the marriage, and he presented drinks to my grandfather, announcing that the marriage had ended. Did it shock us? Not exactly. By then he had already moved out, married again, and had other children, he was living his happily ever after. One day, we were in the rooms when we heard noise and clattering, it was my father. He had brought workers to come see the land. He wanted to build at the back of our house for his new family. I managed to scare them away from the house, but that was not the end of the fight.

My mother is 60 now and cannot work like before, so we advised her to take the case to court. After he was served, we read his defense, and he denied many things, including the length of the marriage and my mother’s contributions. We found out he has a lawyer, but my mother does not. We filed at Social Welfare, but we do not know if any lawyer is representing her.

We are considering going on radio because we want to trust the law, but we are scared because he has legal representation and we do not.

I have questions troubling my mind. Does my mother need a lawyer for this case? Can we as children also claim inheritance rights to other lands he owns that we believe he is hiding? What should we do to protect our mother and ourselves?

He has threatened to make us useless and says we have no right to anything. I do not know what he means by rendering us useless. But for now, since we are not useless, we are fighting tooth and nail for what is due our mother. She cannot hustle all these years, breaking her body and burying her own dreams, only for her story to end on a sad note because of our father. That is not the story we will tell. That is not the song we will sing at her funeral when the day comes, and we pray that day is far, far away. We want to stand there and say she won, that the sweat she poured into that foundation was not in vain, that the law saw her even when her husband refused to.

Men Don’t Like It When Women Do The Paying

I hope that all this fight he is putting up does not come to get him at the end of the day. I hope the same hands he is using to push us away are not the same hands he will stretch out when age humbles him and his new life grows old. Because life has a way of turning the tables, and when that day comes, we hope they do not count us among his children.

—Carthy
This story you just read was sent to us by someone just like you. We know you have a story too. Email it to us at [email protected]. You can also drop your number and we will call you so you tell us your story.

#SB<>