When my mom and dad got a divorce, I was the most affected. I was too young to understand what was going on, but I saw everything that was happening. I saw the fight that finally made my mom pack out of the house. When she was leaving with me, my dad held my hand and said, “You can’t go with him.”

My mom pulled, and my dad also pulled. I was stuck between them with my arms stretched as they pulled me towards themselves. I started crying. My arms hurt, and the fight between them also hurt me emotionally. Dad finally let go, and my mom pulled me along. We went to my mom’s parents’ house, where we lived in a very crowded place.

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Dad would come there with other people to speak to my mom’s parents. Sometimes, he would come alone. He looked frustrated and tired. Every day when he came around, he spoke to me extensively before he would finally leave our house. He would tell me not to worry. “I will resolve this so you and Mom can come home very soon, OK?”

Anytime he came around and they talked, Dad was calm, but Mom was overly loud and aggressive. I remember her telling the elders, “I’m not going back today, and I’m not going back tomorrow. I’m done.”

Dad stopped coming often, and the few times he came around, I was the one he came to see. He would sit under a huge mango tree in the compound with me, give me money, and leave. He would pay my fees and buy books. Whatever I needed in school, my mom would tell me to go to my dad for it.

Years later, Mom was in a Kente dress, looking happy and glamorous. She was getting married again. I wasn’t involved in any way. When I visited my dad, I told him that mom got married. He already knew.

One day, my mom left the house with her bags and left me behind. A few months later, she came for me. In the car on our way, she told me, “From now on, the only father you know is the one we are going to live with. He’s your true dad, and you ought to respect and adore him.”

I nodded my head in obedience. My mom called him “Me Wura,” but his real name was Gyan. I called him Dad, and he was equally lovely and caring.

We lived in a different town, so I didn’t hear from my dad again, while my mom insisted that Me Wura was my real dad. Mom had two children with Me Wura. It happened so fast. The age difference between my two siblings is only a year and a few months.

I had my father’s name. But along the way, my mom changed it to Gyan to reflect her new husband’s name. I couldn’t tell my dad about it, but I remember I protested, and my mom said, “Have you forgotten what I told you? That you have no other father except this one? You have to bear his name.”

When she later realised I was writing my old name behind my books, she got livid and beat sense into my body.

“You’re no longer that name. How should I say it for you to understand?”

Slaps. Kicks. And then tears.

While she tried to enforce the change, Me Wura was very calm about it. He hardly even mentioned it. Later in life, my mom said she didn’t want my siblings to grow up and see me having a different name.

I saw my dad, who was not Me Wura, again when I was in my first year at university. He was old and grey and looked happy. He had married again and had moved on without me. He told me he couldn’t fight all his life because, from all indications, Mom had won.

And then he said, “But it doesn’t change anything. It’s my blood that runs through you. You’re still my child. My first child.”

I didn’t tell him about the change of name. When phones became common and he bought one, I got his number, and we talked. I visited him to see my siblings, who were growing up just like my other siblings from my mom’s side. When I got a job and started earning, I sent him some money. He called me by his name and blessed me whenever I sent him something.

When he died, I was never the same person again. I felt robbed of a father, but I blamed my mom.

Me Wura, as a father, was also very kind to me but was the reserved kind of father. He was OK with my mom leading the family and making the decisions. He didn’t mind if my mom dictated his existence. He just lived his life and left the rest in my mom’s hands.

I visited them one day, and while we were talking, my dad’s name came up. My mom went quiet. Before I left, she told me, “You’re old enough to know who your father is for yourself. Find out because I’m tired of telling you.”

I took it proverbially until Me Wura called one day. He spoke slowly and uncertainly, as if he didn’t know where to start.

He said, “You’re a man now, and I don’t intend to steal your dad’s memory from you. Whatever it is, I owe him an apology, but your mom and her family owe him the biggest apology. I’m your father. I mean your real father. I can explain, but you can ask questions too.”

My mom was seeing him while she was married to my dad. According to him, my other dad travelled to Agege for greener pastures, but a few months later, when Ghanaians were deported, my dad also came back. My mom was already pregnant when my dad came, but to prevent the shame and stain on the family, they all kept quiet as my dad sat on an egg that was not his.

So when my mom left the marriage, it was all part of the plan to return to him because, according to him, he didn’t know how to live life without my mom in it. He was the hand in the dark that orchestrated my mom’s divorce.

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He concluded, “You can have a DNA test if you still doubt it.”

I haven’t done it, but I have no reason to doubt them. For some reason, I wasn’t shocked. Maybe it was because my mom had always told me.

Now that I also know the truth, I don’t know what to do with it, but I pity that man who, until death, knew me as his first child. He was robbed in broad daylight. I pity him and pity his memory.

And my mom, didn’t karma find her address? How come she had two beautiful marriages after all this? Or are there certain sins karma approves of? Or no matter how old one becomes, is karma still never late?

I’m not judging. I still love her as my mother, but we should all pay for our sins here on earth.

—Derrick

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