When I was in boarding school, every time I called my mom and asked how she was doing, she would give a long sigh before she tells me she was doing well. You didn’t need to be clever to know all was not well in the house but there was nothing I could do. I was only a child—a sixteenth-year-old child who was trying to make the grades to make my parents proud. My dad is a wonderful father to the three of us. He is not the one to scream at us or beat us. If someone would scream and throw hands at us, it’s always our mother. We don’t hate her for that. She is a good woman who is raising three stubborn kids. The only way she can put us in line is to scream or threaten to beat us into a pulp. We love our father and we love our mother too so whenever she gave me the indication that everything was not well, it got me worried.
I completed SHS and came to live with them in the house. Because of the hints mom was giving me while in school, I opened my eyes to watch them. They worked very hard for us not to see that something was wrong between them but because I was watching them, I could see when everything was good and when everything was going badly. When my dad goes to the kitchen to fetch his own food, then I knew something was wrong. When mom got up from her seat to pick up the TV remote that was lying next to dad, then I know something was not well.
They can play that game for a week but pretend in our presence that everything is well. I couldn’t ask either of them what the issue was so I pretended I didn’t know. I knew my mom, even if I asked her she wouldn’t have told me because she wouldn’t like to paint her husband black before me. They were not throwing hands or shouting at each other. They were fighting silent battles so I tried my best to ignore them.
There’s a woman who comes here to deliver bread once every week. She lives close by and she’s a friend of my mother. Whenever she comes around and my dad meets her, she would ask about my mom and talk to her before she leaves. She has apprentices who deliver bread in the neighbourhood but when it comes to our house, she brings it herself because of the relationship she has with my parents. One Saturday, my mom had gone out and I was in the house with dad. My two siblings were out at their friends’ houses. My dad was on the phone. Immediately he hung up the call, he asked me to go and buy something from the market for him.
I took the money and left the house. The sun was too high I could feel my skin burning. I asked myself, “Why should I walk all the way to the market and get the same thing I could get from a store nearby?” The reason had always been the differences in price but looking at the price I had to pay for walking in the sun, it was better for me to get it in a store nearby and walk back home. I did just that and started going back home. On the way, I met my sister, the one after me. I asked where she was going and she said dad has sent her. I thought she was lying. “Why would dad send you and also send me at the same time? Couldn’t he have given me the money so I get them at once?”
I continued home while my sister continued to where she was going to get whatever she was asked to buy. I got to the door and innocently opened it the way I always do. There was a rush in the hall. The woman got up quickly and started preening herself like a bird that just finished eating. Dad turned away quickly as if he was busy looking for something to watch on the TV. They were not fast enough so I got the picture of what was happening. All I heard the woman say was, “So I would be going. My greetings to your wife when she comes.” Dad was trying so hard to play the part but the guilt on his face gave him away.
I didn’t say anything. I put what he sent me to buy on the table and walked inside my room. He entered not too long afterwards. He said, “Why are you here? Won’t you go to the kitchen and cook something? What’s the essence of sending you to get this if we are not going to cook?” I didn’t cook in the house. My mom does it and there was food in the house so I didn’t get why he would ask me to cook more. He was looking at me keenly, trying to get anything he could get from my demeanour. I acted normal and left his presence.
That wasn’t the last time I saw the two of them in a compromising situation. I’ve seen them coming from the dark when dad should have been home watching TV with mom. I had returned from an errand when I saw the woman rushing out of our house one late afternoon. And when she comes to deliver bread, she pretends my mom is her best friend and has the best intention for her. She would engage my mom in a long conversation before she leaves. She annoys me and I want something bad to happen to her for betraying my mom the way she is doing.
I asked my dad one afternoon, “What is going on between you and the woman who sells bread?” My dad is not the type who gets angry quickly and not the type who will raise his voice at us or even attempt to beat us but that day, something about my question got him triggered; “Who are you to ask me that silly question? What do you mean by what is going on? What have you seen and what have you heard? If you don’t keep quiet over there, you won’t like what will happen to you.” I responded, “Dad, I didn’t say anything wrong. I only asked a question.” He screamed, “Get out of my face before I throw my hands. Idiot!”
I wasn’t going to advise him or anything. I was only trying to make him aware that I knew what was going on so he would stop bringing the woman to the house or take his affair with her far away from us. My question didn’t change anything. He sends us on outrageous errands whenever the woman is coming around. I still see them where they are not supposed to be seen together. My other siblings see them too but they are oblivious because they haven’t seen to the level of what I’ve seen. I’m eighteen years going to nineteen. I’m not a kid any longer and what my dad is doing is hurting my heart. I want to tell my mom about it but looking at the way things are going, my mom already has her issues with my dad and I don’t think it will be a great idea to add this to it.
This woman comes around often in the name of delivering bread. She would interact with my mom and laugh heartily but in her absence, she would come around to lie with my dad. My mom works hard so she’s mostly not in the house. Dad owns his own shop so he goes and comes around whenever he wants, sometimes under the pretext of coming to check on us. I don’t know how long this is going to continue but I’m sick to my stomach watching this horror movie play out before me. My question is, should I go ahead and tell my mom what’s happening? I really want to but I’m also scared it would be the last straw that broke my mother’s back.
My dad is failing at being a husband but he’s not failing at being a dad. Telling my mom what’s going on might cause me a wonderful father. That’s my dilemma now.
— Lamisi
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