Daddy was a loving man. I saw much of him because I’m the first child. I remember one day he returned from town with a sack behind his back and was smiling. Mom was at the front door asking him what he was carrying at his back. He said simply, “A gift.” Mom smiled back not knowing what kind of gift he was talking about.

He sat on the middle sofa and called out each other’s name, dipped his hand inside the sack, pulled something and gave it to us. My brother had a ball and a Gameboy. I had a pink dress with a blue belt. I didn’t see what was in the wrapped thing he gave to my mom but I didn’t care because I had a pink dress and a blue belt. That’s all that mattered to me. I asked, “Is it Christmas?”

Mom and Dad laughed. “No, it’s not Christmas. It’s my birthday.” Dad said.

On my birthday he gave me a gift. On my brother’s birthday, he gave him a gift. On my mom’s birthday, he gave her a gift too. So in my mind, I figured birthday gifts are given to the one celebrating their birthday. “Why’s Daa giving us gifts when it’s his birthday? Who’s going to give him a gift?”

I was a child but I knew I had a home that was drawn out of love and hung on the wall for all to see. One day, all that changed. It was like a movie about a family on top of a hill. The hill collapsed and brought the family down with the debris. Mom and Dad were fighting every day. The reason for the fight was always silent but the end result was chaos.

There was no laughter in our house any more. There was hushed laughter, whispers and invisible demons on the sprawl. We would be watching TV and all of a sudden, mom would bundle me and my brother up and whisper, “Go to your room and sleep.” So we slept in the morning. We slept in the afternoon. No matter what time it was, we were told to sleep because a fight was going to erupt.

It was tough, even for a child like me who had been loved immeasurably before. I saw mom’s face and she was never happy. In the room, while we were trying hard not to hear them fight, their loud voices would penetrate the walls of our rooms, disturb our hearts and souls and trample on what it is to be a child. My brother will bury his head under his pillow. I will open my ears and listen because a girl wants to know the reasons that make her mom cry.

One day after school, I got home and saw a lot of people in front of our house. I rushed in and there were a lot more people inside. They murmured and asked questions. I didn’t understand. I rushed in and saw the police lowering a body down the ceiling. Dad came out of nowhere to grab me and led me outside. “If Dad is here with me then it’s mom’s body that is being lowered down the ceiling,” I thought. I heard suicide at the gate. The air was different but it never stopped blowing careless whispers.

The fight stopped. The family stopped to exist. Everything stopped, apart from my heart which I prayed to God to make it stop beating. Dad travelled and left me with his senior sister. My mom’s elder sister came for my brother. The family upon the hill was down battling with the dust. What was left was debris. Grave. Absence. A new beginning.

I was old enough to know my mom died because she got married. The full story wasn’t told until long after I completed the university. Mom committed suicide because Dad was leaving her. Dad had an affair and had a child out of the affair. That was what started the fight. Mom had an affair of her own later and my dad caught her. She knew the shame that would come out of her actions so when my Dad threatened divorce and asked her to leave the house, she ended it.

This photo of my childhood gave me a certain impression about marriage. My aunt, the one who took me in when my dad left the scene also had marital problems. It was louder than what I witnessed between my dad and mom. We were all scared of her husband because of the violence he came home with. I remember telling myself, “Marriage? Never.”

But love finds us because we all have a heart—heart, the home of love. I met men who promised me heaven and earth but I never gave them the opportunity to know me beyond who I portrayed myself to be. When it was getting too serious, I gave myself a reason to leave the relationship. Reasons such as, “He has wide palms. Just imagine if he slaps me.” “Look at his muscles. If he holds my neck, can I break free?” “This one looks like my dad. He can’t be any good.”

The men I left thought I was mad. They didn’t do anything wrong but I left them. My early twenties was wild. I loved men. I loved them so much I could have three at a time. I loved them from the beginning when they could come home with a sack behind their back and give me a pink dress and a blue belt but immediately I sense that period is over, I walk away. In my mind, every man can turn violent if you keep them long enough.

I was thirty with a good career and men who kissed the floor I walked. You talk about marriage, I leave you behind the door. I left Alfred because he was so keen on introducing me to his parents. Eric’s mom visited him and he introduced me to her as his wife. The mom started calling me “in-law.” I left him. Bernard said he had two years to marry. We dated for a year and I left before he could think of marriage.

The longest-serving boyfriend I had at that time was Ato. I loved him because he had no future. He didn’t have a job so I was the one taking care of him. His overreliance on me made me feel he could never abuse me. Dogs are wild but they don’t attack their owner. If they do, who will feed them? Ato was my dog. A loyal one of course.

Others came and went because their ambition wouldn’t let them stay in my life. He didn’t have ambition. He was living in the moment. A day at a time kind of guy but each time we talked, he talked about his mother and the way he loved his mother.

While men were dreaming of marriage and how to start a family, his dream was to make the life of his mom better. I gave him money for his mom. He would give her the money and call me so I could hear how excited his mom was. It was his love for his mom that I found very profound.

One day he had a job. I was the first person he rushed to. I said, “Now, go home and make Mama proud.” He said, “Yeah. And you too. I owe you a lot. It’s time to take care of you.”

We had dated for over five years. My place to his office was shorter so he came to live with me while looking for a new place. Because of his constant presence in my life, I changed. I let every man out of the door so he wouldn’t catch me cheating. In the evening, he would call his mom and ask me to talk to her. Her mom would sing my praises. It felt good so I came to expect those calls.

We visited his mom one day and she found me beautiful. She said, “Why don’t you marry my son? You two look good together. What are you waiting for?” I answered, “It’s your son who doesn’t want to marry me.”

I was only adding to the joke but Ato chirped, “Who doesn’t want to marry who. What do you think we are doing?”

“What do you think we are doing?”

That question. We were living together. I was serving him food every morning and warming his food every evening when he returned from work. I did his laundry. He took me out and brought me home. We shared a bed together. “What do you think we’re doing?”

We had never fought. The understanding between us was divine. When I was with him, I never thought of my mom and what happened to her. I never thought about my dad and what he was doing with his life. “Should I give him a try?”

He got a new place and he moved out of mine. I started sleeping alone. It was freedom for me to go back to who I used to be. But I was lonely. It felt like I was half a woman—half a heart, half a soul, half a shoe. I missed cooking for him and the night curdles. I went to his place one weekend and I didn’t return to mine again.

When he proposed marriage, it didn’t feel out of place but I started looking for a reason to leave. He didn’t have a large palm. He didn’t have the muscles to scare me. All those funny reasons didn’t matter. When I asked myself why I should take the risk with him, the answer that came was, “He loves his mother so he knows how to love a woman.”

At the hospital that day when I was pushing out our first child, Ato was standing next to me, giving me funny fans and calling me Obaa Rambo. “Obaa Rambo, you can do it.” The baby was cleaving my body into two but I found a moment to laugh in the middle of my pain.

I’ve Thought About How To Blame God

When the baby was out, I was exhausted. I wanted to sleep. He lifted my hand in his and our rings met. I was wearing his ring. I was bringing forth his baby yet he hadn’t laid a finger on me. I thought about my mother. Her body being lowered from the ceiling flashed my memory. I wished she was there to see me make my own baby. To see me initiated into womanhood.

They brought the baby back after bathing her. A girl. When I saw her face the first time I thought she looked like my mom. Ato said, “She looks like you.”

I cried a little because I look like my mother. The only difference, I didn’t marry a man like my dad. I’m lucky.

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—Claris

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