I was very young when it happened. I was in SHS and was exploring what it meant to be in love. I came home for the long vacation, and my mom brought her friend’s daughter to live with us. Her name was Joan. I looked at her once, and I was in love. She was so beautiful that I started thinking about a relationship with her even before she could settle into our home.

FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP CHANNEL TO RECEIVE ALL STORIES IN YOUR INBOX

I tried to talk to Joan every little chance I had. I helped her in the kitchen, went to fetch water with her, and even learned how to sweep just to do things to help her around the house.

One afternoon, while we were in my room and I was teaching her how to play a video game, I kissed her on the cheek. She smiled, and then I reached for her lips, but she didn’t fight it. She asked me, “Why are you kissing me? Am I your girlfriend?” I answered, “Don’t you know you are? Or you don’t like me?”

While we were on my bed one afternoon, it happened. I thought she hadn’t done it before, so I took the lead and showed her what to do. Along the line, she took charge of the process, and I was left lying there, amazed at how beautiful and confident she was at the same time.

We became addicted to it and tried to do it anytime my parents were not around. A few days before I was due to go back to school, my mom was on leave and didn’t leave the house. My dad had travelled. So one late night, when I thought my mom was asleep, I sneaked into her room and we started making love as though we had missed each other forever.

Out of nowhere, my mom flung the door open and saw me on top of Joan. Joan started fighting me as if I was forcing her to do it. She got up from underneath me and started breathing heavily as if I had covered her nose and mouth while doing it. She started crying. “I asked him to stop.” She said, amidst tear. “I was pushing him off me, but he wouldn’t leave me alone. That’s what he does to me every time.”

My mom kicked me, slapped me across the face, and asked me to leave the room. She stayed in Joan’s room for several minutes before she came to mine. She said, “You’ll pay for this. I’ll tell your dad. I’ll personally hand you over to the police to discipline you for what you’ve done. Who taught you this?”

She told my dad about it, and he used his belt to beat me as though I were a thief. He also said he would ensure I ended up behind bars so I would learn my lesson. While I was beaten and treated like a common criminal in my own house, Joan was pampered and treated like a queen. She wasn’t even allowed to do anything around the house. She would cry every now and then, and my mom would be by her side.

I went back to school and never saw Joan again, but what she did lingered in my life. My mom never liked me again. It got to a point where she didn’t want to see my face around the house. Every vacation she sent me to her brother, who had a big farm, to work with him.

Whenever I did something wrong, she would bring up the issue with Joana and tell the story as if it had happened only yesterday. “If it were rape, you would have gotten up at dawn to do it. A simple thing like this and you are fumbling.”

When my results came and I didn’t do well in Maths and Science, my mom tried all she could to convince my dad not to send me back to school but rather find a fitting shop and make me an apprentice there. “This boy doesn’t need school. He would go to the university to chase women. Don’t let us waste money. He should go and learn fitting.”

I was never in a relationship or even looked at women while I was at the university. I studied as though my life depended on it and graduated with a first-class degree. That still didn’t change my mom’s heart toward me. My dad was at my graduation, but my mom wasn’t there. She still called me a rapist.

When I came home after my national service,  my mom would wake up every morning and make me the target of her anger. “All you know is women,” she would say. “You don’t know how to get a job. All your friends who lived their lives well are gainfully employed by now, but look at your life.”

One day I fought back. I shouted at her and warned her to stay off my case. “What did I do to deserve this? Eight years later and you still won’t let me be? Am I a criminal?”

That day, I poured out all the pain I had harboured inside me and told her exactly how I felt. When my dad came home, she told him I had attacked her and that she regretted the day she gave birth to me. My dad tried to settle the matter. My mom said, “He’s old enough to shout at me. He should leave this house tomorrow.”

When I finally landed a job in Accra and left home, I left with a relieved heart, but I also wondered what I could do to win back my mom’s love. She wouldn’t answer my calls. I spoke to my brothers and asked them to talk to her. She told them they shouldn’t worry about me because I would amount to nothing in life, a rapist like me.

At one point, my dad also became frustrated, so he advised me to live my life and allow my mom to live hers. I stopped calling. I attended my middle brother’s wedding, and my mom did all she could to avoid me, even when I made one attempt after another to speak to her. After that wedding, I was so broken that I thought of ending my life so I wouldn’t have to face my mom again.

When I met my wife, I couldn’t take her home to meet my parents. I was scared my mom would do her worst. Before my wedding, I sent a whole delegation to my mom to ask for her forgiveness. She still didn’t attend my wedding.

I’m currently living in the US. My elder brother is also here, but in a different state.

When my brother had his first child, my mom came to visit. She refused to see me. She has been here three times to help my elder brother take care of his kids, but she doesn’t even know how many children I have. She doesn’t want to see them.

I Called My Girlfriend And Another Man Answered The Phone

At this point, I live without pain because God knows I’ve tried, but I have regrets. And the regret isn’t about what I did with Joan. It’s about wasting my time and emotions trying to make my own mother love me. I no longer try. I also no longer regard her as my mom.

She may die, and I won’t go to her funeral because that seems to be her wish, and I don’t mind. But all I ask myself at this point is this: Is this all about Joan? Or is there more to it than I can tell?

—Jacob

This story you just read was sent to us by someone just like you. We know you have a story too. Email it to us at [email protected]. You can also drop your number and we will call you so you tell us your story.

******