I was very young when I first asked about my dad. I asked about him even before school gave me an assignment that said I should write about my dad. I asked my mom who my dad was and she shook her head. She didn’t say much. She loved me. She talked to me often but that day, she only shook her head. When a school assignment asked me to write about my dad, I showed it to her.

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I was very happy, thinking if my school was asking about it, then she was going to tell me the truth. She didn’t. She said, “Your father is a man, so write about a man. He could be tall or short, fair or dark. You choose and write about him.” My heart was never the same again, knowing I might never know who my father was.

When I came of age, I thought I could ask my mom’s siblings, even my granddad, and I would get an answer from them but they also proved my father was a mystery, like a man who never lived. My Aunt Bertha told me, “Your mom never mentioned a name when she was pregnant with you. We looked forward to a man coming home someday to even give you a name. No one ever came along.”

My granddad sounded very reflective, as if he was filled with regrets for not knowing my dad. He told me my dad could have traveled abroad and never looked back, hence the silence from my mom. I didn’t stop looking. Any man who came close to my mom was a suspect until my mom married another man, gave birth to my sister and the man later died when my sister was barely learning to walk.

My mom buried herself in her work as a secretary at Takoradi Flour Mill. I never saw her with a man again. She didn’t want to talk about men or even have them around. My granddad died. At his burial, I kept my eyes open, looking out for men appearing from nowhere to talk to my mom. None appeared. I think that was the point I gave up, just like everyone else did about my dad.

My mom died last year. I was devastated. The fact that I wasn’t close to her on her final day to push her to say something hurt me deeply. She died without telling me who my dad was. I felt lonely. Her death felt like the death of a mother and father at the same time. I had to mourn both when my heart could barely bear the sorrow of not knowing who my dad was.

My sister was by my side. She didn’t see her dad but I was there to tell her everything concerning him. I saw him. I knew his height, his complexion and the way he talked and cared about my mom. She saw her dad through the stories I told, even before she saw a photo of him. I wasn’t that lucky.

When my mom died, we were putting her things together when I came across this little echolac bag buried in a big bag with clothes packed on top of it. It was locked with a combination, so I didn’t bother trying to open it. I put it back, packed the clothes on it just as they were and locked her door.

After her funeral, when they had to open her things, that bag reappeared, this time looking at me as if it had a secret to tell me. I wondered why it was locked and buried under a heap of clothes. Before her things were shared, I picked that bag and gave it to my sister to keep safe. They shared her properties, even her headgear. Right after the family dispersed, I went home with my sister and tried to open the bag.

We tried many combinations, including her birth date, my birth date and my sister’s birth date. None worked. Out of anger and frustration, I picked up a big stone and hit the edge of the case until the plastic gave way, revealing what was inside. They were mostly papers and photos of us, herself and her certificates. There was also a hardcover book with a strap to lock it.

I picked it up and started reading from the middle. The date was 11th July 1992. My mom had written what happened at work that day. She fought with her boss and was scared she was going to lose her job. She wrote, “If I get sacked, I will make sure she never finds peace in her life. If she’s a devil, I’ll show her I’m a bigger devil.”

She would write the date and then write what happened in her life. I was born in 1991. I felt there would be something in there about me, so I carried the diary home. I stayed up all night reading everything from page to page and from sentence to sentence.

The date was 7th May 1992. My mom wrote, “I saw George today. I felt like hugging him. He looked coldly into my eyes and walked away. I’m not sure I can keep this secret between us for another day.”

What secret?

I kept reading. George kept coming in and going out of the story. I got to know George was her boyfriend. They were dating secretly but she didn’t state why they had to date secretly. Then she wrote about the day she got pregnant and George denied it. She said that was the most painful day of her life.

I kept reading until I got to a page where she wrote a full letter to George.

The date was 13th March 1993. I was born on 13th March 1991. She wrote this letter the day I turned exactly two years old. The first sentence read, “Dear George, our daughter is two years old today. I’ve done my best to keep her secret for two years but I don’t know how long I can carry on living this lie.”

She went on and on until she wrote my dad’s name in full. I stopped and gasped for breath. I think my heart ceased for several seconds.

“George is my dad? How come? No, I’m mistaken. This can’t be. Not in another life.”

I read the rest with tears in my eyes. I was judging her. I even cursed her because I felt cursed until, at the end of the letter, she wrote, “I’m dying for her to know who you are and how our story began but you and I are an abomination. I pray she never finds out about you and me. It will break her heart, kill her even. Tears.”

Do you remember Aunt Bertha, my mom’s elder sister I mentioned earlier? Her husband is George. Yes, I’m a scandal.

George and my mom worked at the same company. He was there and helped my mom get a position there. I know that story very well because Aunt Bertha told me. While the two of them were there, they fell in love, consummated that love and I was the fruit of it.

Now everything started to make sense. The reason that man never exchanged more than two words with me. When I was young, I played with his kids. When I greeted him, he never gave me a proper response. I knew he hated me or didn’t want me around his kids. I could never explain his cold attitude toward me so, as a teenager, I avoided him at all costs. Unbeknownst to me, he was playing a part in hiding a secret.

It’s almost a year since this secret came to me. Now the diary is locked away in a place of my own. There is too much at stake here. I know who my dad is now and it explains why my mom guarded that secret with her life until she no longer had life.

Am I angry with her? No.

Am I angry with George? No.

Do I regret my life? Yes.

I wish I was never born. To be honest, I’ve thought about suicide several times and I got very close to doing it. If I did it, they would say it’s my mom’s death that drove me to the edge. They wouldn’t be wrong but I chose to stay and also chose a method to help me cope. The only family member I now talk to is my sister. Anything that reminds me of George has been blocked out.

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I don’t talk to Bertha. I’ve deleted her number and have also deleted the numbers of my cousins, who are also my siblings. Just imagining how that sounds. It sounds taboo but it’s the truth.

They’ll never know. George will one day die and the truth will die with him. I’ll be the last bearer of this truth. I’ll burn the book and bury my existence within it. I wanted to know my dad and now I do.

Bless the universe and also the soul of my mom for giving me the truth the way she did. It hurts deeply and personally but isn’t that what the truth is all about?

—Cindy 

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