My mom was in school when she got pregnant. She was sixteen years old. She had to drop out. She couldn’t stand the shame and name-calling. The school was also not ready to keep a pregnant student around. She became a bad example, the girl your mother warned you about. Her parents were embarrassed to call her their daughter so they sent her away to her aunt in the village. The child my mom gave birth to was me. To date, I don’t know my father but this story isn’t about a girl looking for her father. It’s about my mom.

I was five years old when my mom decided to leave the village and go back home with me. My grandparents didn’t know me because they didn’t bother. We were a forgotten story to them but my mom brought me home and decided not to go back to the village again. She fought her parents when they wanted to push her away. She told them I needed to go to a good school and not a village school. Her parents washed their hands off her issue. It meant she had no one but herself.

She started selling so I would be in school. She took me to an international school when everyone warned her about the school fees involved. A lot of people couldn’t afford but my mom was determined to enrol me in that school.

I don’t have a lot of memories during those days but I was told my mom was like a lion. She would fight, she would scratch, she would roar just to keep me safe and going. During her selling days, she met a lot of good people, especially mothers who loved her hardworking spirit. You know those days, a woman’s worth was how hard she worked. Once they identify the spirit of servitude in you, you become a marriage material. My mom met a woman who fell in love with her beauty and hard work so much so that she told my mom she would give her to her son to marry.

It was all a joke until the woman came to meet my mom’s parents with her son in tow. A few months later, my mom was married. The man had money. He’s the kind of man they called honourable in those days. My grandparents were very happy not about the marriage but for the fact that someone was taking their shame away and replacing it with honour.

The man my mom married didn’t want my mom to carry me along to their matrimonial home. “It’s a young marriage. When we start having our own children, your child can join,” he said.

I have a dim memory of the day my mom was leaving. The images are shaky and blurry but I could see my mom squatting in front of me and assuring me that she would come for me. I was crying. She wiped the tears off with her thumb. “I will come for you very soon. You don’t have to cry.”

She was gone for a century, I was sure about that. I was little but my life felt empty. My grandparents did their best but they couldn’t fill the vacuum. I talked about my mom to anyone who would listen. One night before I went to bed, she appeared out of nowhere. I jumped and she caught me in midair. I held on to her neck and she turned around with me hanging around her neck. I didn’t want to leave her. I said, “Are you coming for me?” She nodded.

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That night I didn’t sleep. I heard whispers and low arguments coming from my grandparents’ room. My mom was not agreeing with them on something. My grandma’s voice went up. She kept saying no. My granddad’s voice was subtle, almost pleading for something. Mom didn’t talk. I was scared I would wake up the next morning and she would be gone. I stayed awake until the morning came. I was the first to take my bath. She held my hand and I followed. I didn’t take anything.

When we got to Kogoridua, she took me to the market and bought new things for me. She said, “You’re going to live with another mother. She’ll treat you well. You’ll start a new school, you’ll make new friends. The most important thing is, I’ll see you every day. I’ll visit you every day to see how you’re doing with schoolwork.”

The person I went to live with was my mom’s friend. My mom still couldn’t take me to her husband’s house because the man didn’t allow it. She wanted me to be closer to her so she brought me to town to live with a friend without her husband’s knowledge. I didn’t understand the arrangement until later in life. It was that arrangement that brought my mother’s marriage to an end just after three years of marriage.

Her husband found out that I was in town. He got so angry he asked my mom to choose between the marriage and me. One morning, she came to her friend with her bag. She told me, “Get ready. We are going back home.” She chose me over her marriage. She had a good life and a good home. She didn’t lack anything once she was married.

The day we got back home, my grandad shouted at her and said, “The devil in you is destroying your life through this kid. I hope you know it.”

Mom went back to selling again, met a man years later, got married and left the marriage along the line. By the time I was going to SHS, Mom had had three failed marriages. I wouldn’t say they were all about me but I had a role to play in those failed marriages. If she got to a point where she had to make a choice, she turned back because I was her default choice.

First term when I was going to school, she told me, “This is where my life got messed up because I didn’t listen but you’re going to listen to me. You won’t get pregnant. You’ll go out there and do it for me because I’ve done everything for you. Learn for me even when you don’t want to. Just live for me.”

My results were very bad. I cried often because I felt I was failing for my mom. She wasn’t hard on me. She told me, “At least you didn’t get pregnant. You’re doing well. Just keep going.”

When I started picking up, I never stopped. The first time she attended Speech and Prize Giving Day, I had three awards. She clapped and jumped each time my name was mentioned. Other kids had a whole family present. My mom was there alone but was louder than the crowd. I handed the prizes I had won to her. She said, “This is what I should have done for myself. Thank you for doing it for me.”

I had a scholarship for the university. My mom sold everything she had to take care of the rest. She kept telling me, “Do it for me. I stopped along the way but get to the finish line for me. I want to see what’s beyond that finish line.”

After my national service, I started looking for a scholarship to study abroad.

The day I got the scholarship and needed money for other things, she told me, “As you can see, I’ve sold everything. If anyone will buy this decrepit life of mine, I will sell it to him to raise money. Can’t you work, save money and later go for the scholarship?”

Opportunity comes but once, so I set off to look for the money myself. Friends helped. A guy who said he would marry me also helped. I promised to pay back. I went to our church and spoke to the pastor. I promised to pay back so he gave me enough. The day I was leaving my mom, I gave her the same promise she gave me when she got married and was leaving me; “I will come for you very soon. You don’t have to cry.”

I’m thirty-two now. My mom is only forty-nine. We live together in Winnipeg, Canada. Nobody believes it when I introduce her as my mom. “You’re lying! Isn’t she your elder sister?”

“No, she’s my mom.”

She has been through a lot but a lot wasn’t written on her skin so you don’t see it. She kept her glow through it all and I’m happy that she can laugh and smile with me today.

He Called Me On The Phone So I Could Hear The Other Woman’s Voice

She lived for me so when she handed me the baton, I had no choice but to live for her. Regrets? She says she has none. The only thing I’m waiting for is the day she’ll open up about my dad. I won’t push her to say it but I know in her own time, when she finds it appropriate, she’ll tell me the story.

—Michelle

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