I have two dads. One is the runaway, and the other is the man who wore the shoes and did right by me. My mom said that when she told Kweku, my biological father, that she was pregnant, it was the last she heard of him.

He vanished from the surface of the earth. They searched the whole town and could not find a single trace. She was left alone to go through the nine months alone, with eyes watching and fingers pointing at her.

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Then Mr. Opanyin came into the picture. My knight in saving armour. The man who wore the shoes. He cared for me as his own. I took his surname because, even though we did not share the same blood, he did what my own father could not do. Even when my mother and Mr. Opanyin later broke up, he was still there for me, steady as a father. I promise you, forever I am indebted to that man. He is no more, but forever I am grateful he existed.

Then, a few years ago, like most absent men do, my biological father reappeared. He slipped back into the picture and now, he is making a mountain out of a molehill. I am about to get married, and he is trying to make things hard.

When he returned, the family elders said that since he ran away and now wanted to claim me, he had to perform some rites to finally be my father. Mr. Opanyin’s family knew all about this. My absentee father did a part of it, a small part, and left the rest unfinished. For whom? I still do not know.

Now, marriage is here. I went to see my father, as tradition demands, and he gave me the marriage list. But my mother’s family are standing firm. They say he must finish the rites before he can act as my father for this wedding. If not, then Mr. Opanyin’s family are the ones who will marry for me. My biological father has never taken care of me. He never bought me ice cream, not even after he reappeared. Not a single textbook. He never took care, because by then I was grown and had finished senior high. It was my Opanyin siblings who enrolled me in university while my father watched from the sidelines like a spectator.

Now he says they have disrespected him. He asks why they did not tell him all this while, why wait until I have to marry before they say he must pay some money to complete it. But the truth is, he was told. He just did not listen.

It has been seven months now. Seven months of me literally begging my father to make time to see my fiancé. His excuses are endless. Tomorrow, today, always shifting. Now he tells me I cannot marry without him, that he does not know the man in question.

Me, I just want to marry the man I love as soon as I can. So I have asked my biological father to step aside. I have asked him to let my Mr. Opanyin’s people marry for me.

I Left Him Because He Didn’t Help In The Kitchen

So I ask you, am I being ungrateful? Am I being mean to my father?

–Vida

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