My father came from town one afternoon and saw me sitting in the hall with a female friend who had come to visit me. Immediately I saw him, my heart skipped several beats. I was scared he was going to get angry and beat me in the presence of my friend, but he smiled politely, asked the girl how she was doing, and went inside.

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As soon as he entered the bedroom, I asked my friend to leave, and she quickly dashed out of the hall. My dad came back and sat right in front of me the way fathers do when they have something important to discuss. He asked me, “What did you do to that girl?”

I shook my head vigorously while waving my hands. “Nothing happened. She’s just a friend from school and came to see where I live.”

He smiled. “So you’re telling me you didn’t do anything to her?” Again, I shook my head. He asked, “Who is she to you, just a friend?”

I nodded. I was scared. My dad had never beaten me or even shouted at me before, but this felt different. There was a girl involved, and I didn’t want him to see me in that light. He said, “You’re eighteen years old. You’re no longer a child. It’s about time you experienced what men experience. Get a girlfriend. Bring her home. Do things with her. Show me you’re a man.”

I sat there confused. “Is he drunk? Or is he possessed? Has he forgotten I’m his son?”

Not long after, he came home with a girl my age. I don’t know where he brought her from, but he whispered in my ear, “Teach her a lesson. Show her you’re a man. Start by kissing her.”

Maybe he had already coached the girl on what to do, because once he left us alone, she started, and I followed. That was my first time, the day my virginity was taken.

My dad came back smiling like a proud father. He asked how I felt, whether I enjoyed it or not. I was embarrassed. I couldn’t even look him in the face. “Thank you for not wasting my money. You’re truly my only son,” he said.

My mom had died years earlier, even before I could learn to remember her face. My dad never remarried. I lived with my grandmother for a while, and when I completed JHS, I came back to live with my dad. He was a busy man. He went to work in the morning and returned in the evening with a woman in tow. A different woman every night. I saw it, but he was my father, and I couldn’t ask questions.

After my first experience, he started advising me about women and how to win them just to sleep with them. “If it’s money they want, I can give you something to give them, but dress well and learn from me,” he said.

So I fell in love with my classmate at the time, Joan. I used all the tactics my dad had taught me. I told my dad about her, and he even gave me money to buy extra lunch to share with her. One day, I succeeded in bringing Joan home. Right there in the hall, it happened. My dad was there when we entered, but he left the house for us and later came back to ask how it went. I had grown confident by then, so I told him everything. He screamed, “You’re a man!”

Just when we were about to write WASSCE, Joan got pregnant. I was shaking when she told me. She was crying and asking what we should do. My dad had told me I could have a girlfriend, but he hadn’t told me I could get one pregnant. When I met Joan in school, we spoke in whispers. She said there was medicine she could take, but she was scared she might die. I loved her too much, so I told her not to try it.

While we were lost and didn’t know what to do, I was home one morning when I saw Joan and her mother walking toward our house. Their steps were quick, and her mother was pulling her along. I knew I was in trouble. I quickly dashed off to my room. It was my dad who met them at the door.

Later, he came in with a stern face and said, “No matter what, say you didn’t do it. If you dare make a mistake, I will deal with you.”

He held my hand and led me out to meet them. Joan couldn’t look me in the face, and I couldn’t look at them either. My dad said, “Look at my son. Does he look like someone who can get a woman pregnant?”

Joan’s mother shouted, “Young man, my daughter says you got her pregnant. Tell the truth.”

I shook my head and said, “We are only friends.”

Joan lifted her head and screamed, “Joe, can you swear you’re not the one? Mom, he’s the one. He did it.”

No matter the question, my answer was, “No, I didn’t do it.” Her mother said, “Don’t worry, we shall see.” As she dragged Joan away, Joan looked back at me, crying. I will never forget that scene. I was broken too, but I couldn’t go against my father’s words.

We never spoke again. We wrote our final exams and parted like nothing existed between us.

Right after our exams, my dad sent me back to live with my grandmother. When I returned home later, Joan and her mother had left town. I didn’t see her again.

I am a grown man now, working and building my life. My dad had an accident after my graduation and never recovered. He died a year later at the age of sixty-two.

After his burial, I started searching for Joan. I went back to where it all began, to the house she lived in and to the friends she kept. I asked about her whereabouts, but every lead ended in a dead end.

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My child with Joan should be around twenty or twenty-one years old now. I haven’t given up the search. I will use every day of my life to find her, and when I finally do, I will spend the rest of my life correcting my father’s mistakes and my own.

I could have done better, but I guess I wasn’t a man after all.

—Joe 

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