My dad was almost seventy years old and lonely. My mom had died, and all of us children were living our own lives away from home. Two of us, my elder sister Juliet and I were abroad. The other two were in Ghana but lived far from home. So we decided to get someone who would take care of our dad and also provide him with company in that lonely house.

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It was my aunt who found a woman she said she worked with at the market. The woman already had a child and, according to my aunt, was a very good person. I wasn’t there when the arrangements were made, but in the end, I was the one sending this woman a monthly allowance for the work she was doing.

My dad could still walk and was generally energetic, but old age and illness often go hand in hand. Whenever he fell sick, this woman would nurse him back to health. I called her often. Anytime I spoke to my dad, I asked him to hand the phone over to her so I could also speak with her. She was soft-spoken and always talked about how well she was taking care of my dad.

One late evening, my sister called me. She said, “Asɛm aba!” My heart skipped several beats. I thought Dad had died. She said, “This isn’t about death. It’s about a new life. Dad has gotten the woman he’s living with pregnant.”

I burst out laughing. “He’s gotten his caretaker pregnant? What was the woman thinking, getting pregnant for a man Dad’s age?” My sister sounded shocked, but I found it funny. I asked how she had found out, and she said it was our dad himself who had called to confess. He had asked her to tell the rest of us.

By the time we heard about the pregnancy, the woman was already about to give birth. I called my dad. He didn’t sound regretful. He simply said he had given us a gift. I said, “But Dad, this isn’t fair. You haven’t helped your caretaker at all. You’ll soon be gone and leave her to struggle through life with this little baby.”

He replied, “I know, but that’s also why I’ve told you people. When I’m no longer here, please help her. She’s now your mother.”

The way he spoke about it so confidently, without any regret whatsoever, annoyed me. But he was my dad. What else could I do?

He said he had been lonely. He said his caretaker had brought a new spark into his life. Instead of seeing himself as a man approaching the end of his life, she had brought renewal and happiness into it. That, he said, was why they had started a family together.

I got the pictures when the woman finally gave birth. I sent extra money home, this time not as payment for a service rendered but rather as a responsibility toward a parent and his wife. My sister continued to be shocked and even blamed the woman for taking advantage of our father. To the rest of us, our dad had rather taken advantage of the woman. He was older. He should have known better.

On one ordinary day in December, two years after the birth of our youngest sibling, we received the news of our father’s death. It was time for us to go back home to bury the man who had made our lives possible. I arrived first to meet my two siblings living in Ghana, and later my sister also arrived. The caretaker, our new mom, had become the widow, so we had to commiserate with her and make her part of the funeral planning.

We saw our little sibling for the first time. It felt weird, but we accepted him as part of us. My sister shopped for him before coming to Ghana. On our dad’s obituary posters, we added his name to the list of children. Our father’s children had now become five. We gave our dad a befitting burial, and at our last meeting as siblings, we agreed to give our dad’s house to the caretaker because she had a young child to raise. We also discussed what we could do to help her establish a business so she could take care of herself and the child.

I was the last to leave town. By the time I was leaving, she had a big shop to manage and also enough money to live on. She was free to call me whenever she needed anything.

Five years later, my sister visited Ghana and went to see them. That evening, she called me.

She said, “George, I know you’ll call me crazy, but I don’t think that boy belongs to Daddy. I just saw him, and there’s nothing about him that suggests he’s Dad’s son.”

Yes, I called her crazy.

She said, “All of you have some resemblance to Dad, so why is this last one different?”

I told her people are different and inherit different genes. “Maybe his mother has the stronger genes. It doesn’t mean anything.” My sister spoke with our other siblings and somehow found a way to run a secret DNA test on the child.

My sister was right. That boy wasn’t our father’s. She called me on the phone screaming, “I knew from the very beginning that this woman was taking advantage of Dad, but all of you called me insane. Look who’s having the last laugh now.”

I was shocked, disappointed, and ashamed of myself for not seeing through the deception. When they showed the woman the DNA results, she looked them straight in the face and called my sister a liar. Her family gathered to defend her, accusing my sister of being bitter.

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My sister told them to go and conduct their own DNA test and bring back the results. She even offered to pay for it. They never did. After my sister returned abroad, my two other siblings went to the house and drove the woman away. They even wanted to take the shop from her. I pleaded with them to leave the shop for her. She had worked in that shop for five years, so I believed she deserved to keep it.

In the end, I felt sad for her. I kept asking myself why some women would do something like that. One day, when I have the opportunity to travel to Ghana, I will go to my dad’s grave and tell him the truth myself. My siblings haven’t done that yet, and I think he deserves to know the truth too.

—Jude 

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