My mom said it. My dad said it. Family members said it. Even random people who knew my parents also said it. I was young so it didn’t get to me. Instead, I called myself special because everyone said I didn’t look like either of my parents and also didn’t look like any of my siblings. It was my aunt from my father’s side who tried hard to link me to an uncle far removed from the family. She said, “This your boy resembles Uncle Yoofi, look at him very well. His eyes and nose.”

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Uncle Yoofi died long before my dad met my mom at the hill church in our village. I’m the last born but I’m taller than my elder brother who was born nine years before I arrived. The siblings in front of me were born at two-year intervals, but the interval between me and the one ahead of me was five. Another special badge to my credit.

My mom loved me more than all my other siblings because I was the last born. She was overly protective of me and would get me everything I cried for or fought my brothers for. My dad named me after himself, so he did everything to protect the name he gave me. I never ran out of love because my other siblings also loved and protected me.

My elder brother won many fights on my behalf and even stole a ball for me because I told him I wanted it. The bond between us was so tight we didn’t go anywhere without the other. We were four—the three were soldiers. I was their liability.

And then we grew up and parted ways to live the lives each of us chose. When my elder brother was getting married, I was selected as the best man, and it was during my best man duties that I met Frances, who later became my wife.

Frances is two years older than me, but my height and stature blurred the years in a way nobody could tell. When we were dating, Frances resurrected the old lines that had died many years ago. She asked, “Who do you resemble? You don’t look like any of your siblings or your dad, so who did you take after?”

Later she brought up another dimension I hadn’t figured out in all my life—mannerisms. She said, “Your brother and your sister, different genders but they have a way they behave that looks similar. As for you, you fell too far from the tree.”

That statement was made in jest, but it lit a light in my head that never went off. I would meet my siblings and look at them in ways I’d never looked at them before. It was true. There was a thread that ran through them, but that thread ran out when it got to me.

“Or was I adopted?” I asked myself.

To silence the voice in my head and also turn that light off, I decided to do a DNA test. My first child was only a few weeks old, and my mom had come to live with us. I used her for the DNA test, and we matched.

When I saw the results, I screamed, “I knew it!” and started breathing normally. I was happy, but no one knew the source of my happiness until one day, another evil thought dropped in my head: “How about your father? What if you’re not his son?”

I lived with that thought for over two years. I was scared of the results that might come. One day, I wanted things to remain the way they were; another day, I wanted to do it and rest my doubts. I eventually decided to go ahead with it. I used the same method I’d used to get my mom’s samples to retrieve my dad’s samples. The result came, and we didn’t match.

I was crushed to the marrow. My wife sensed the change in me and told me, “You breathe differently these days. What’s eating you up?” I was going through the process of pain, so the signs were obvious. I lied that I’d been tired all week and promised I was going to be fine.

I was up almost every night thinking about what to do with the information at my disposal. “Should I confront my mom? Why would she do that to Dad? That man hasn’t been a bad man for even a day. So why?”

For months I withdrew from the family. I didn’t feel like talking to any of them. I missed their calls consistently. I avoided family events because I didn’t want to be reminded of who I am. I hid behind my job and gave excuses. Honestly, I hated my mom and pitied my dad. One day he called me to ask about life and the kids. If he had listened to me very well, he would have noticed the tears in my voice.

Before he said goodbye, he asked me to visit home soon, and I said, “Very soon I will come around.” He wanted to hand over the phone to my mom, but I hung up before he could do that. Fortunately, they didn’t call back.

It was hard at first, but as the years rolled by and since I resolved to keep things to myself, the burden has been a little bit lighter. I’m very conscious when I’m around the pack. Sometimes I tell myself, “Be careful you don’t give yourself away.” But when I look at my siblings and how mature they are, how they are living life innocently and freely, I envy them. They don’t carry what I carry, but it doesn’t stop me from asking myself, “What would they do if they got to know I was half of who they thought I was?”

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I may never have answers because this is a secret I’ve vowed to die with, unless something happens and someday they begin to question where I belong. But for now, no one else needs to know, not even my mom.

—Kobbie

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