My father died three years ago from a heart attack that should have killed him long ago. When he died, we were very devastated. I’m the last born and was still living with them when he died, so I bore the brunt of everything. Mom cried her heart out. These friends she’s now dating came around to console her.

Just about a week after my dad’s death, a woman came to the house with a seven-year-old boy, saying the boy was my father’s. My mom laughed. She said, “You might have lost your way. How can my husband father a child this young when he had a vasectomy right after our third child?”

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That third child is me. I was twenty-three then. It turned into a fight. The woman came with two men. These men accused my mom of wanting to keep my dad’s properties all to herself. My mom fought back.

“What properties are you talking about? You won’t bring a child of a harlot into my home and call him my husband’s child.”

The woman went ahead to bring out photos where my dad was at the naming ceremony with his elder brother. Eventually, my dad’s elder brother testified for the woman that he had indeed escorted my dad to that naming ceremony and that my dad had actually confided in him that the child was his.

It nearly turned into a physical fight between my mom and my uncle. She sacked him from the house and warned that if he ever stepped foot into the house, bad omen would follow him all the days of his life.

They had a DNA test. My mom was right. The boy didn’t belong to my father. But the question was, why did my father accept the child knowing very well he wasn’t the father? Months after the burial, my mom answered that question.

“It only shows how deeply your dad loved that woman, to the extent that he would accept a pregnancy that wasn’t his from her.”

It was just around that time that I saw signs of closeness between my mom and my dad’s friends, Seidu and Boateng. When Dad was alive, they used to visit very often. Seidu, at some point, relocated out of town, but Boateng has always been around.

I thought it was friendship between Mom and Boateng until I saw Boateng sneaking out of the house one dawn. I was so scandalized that all day I wasn’t myself.

I asked her about it. She responded, “Yes, I know you saw him, but what’s wrong with that?”

“Mom, that’s Dad’s friend we are talking about here.”

“And so? The only thing that could do us apart has already done its job. I’m no longer your dad’s wife. It’s about time you accepted that fact.”

After this conversation, Boateng came home without hiding. I frowned. I didn’t respond to his greetings. He tried using gifts to make me warm up to him, but I declined.

I told my mom to tell him to stop trying because there was no way I was going to accept him around here.

Mom could go to him and come home at dawn, just like Boateng used to do. I was always appalled by it until I found out Mom was also seeing Seidu.

Seidu is married, and my mom knows Seidu’s wife very well. They were both at the funeral. Seidu’s wife was in the kitchen with the family throughout the funeral.

I saw them on a video call once, and I knew what was going on. If you saw Mom on the phone, it was with Seidu. If she left the house, she would be with Boateng.

Mom travelled for a funeral and was away for three days. When she came back, I looked through her gallery, and there were photos taken that day with Seidu. She didn’t attend any funeral. She went to be with Seidu.

I called her out, and this time it was a confrontation.

She screamed, “Stop meddling in my life. Do you know what I’ve been through in life? Your dad is dead, and I’m here. I can only live this life and be happy just like he was while alive.”

After this argument, I left home without telling her. She called, and I didn’t answer. She didn’t call again for three days.

When I came back home, Boateng was in the hall with her, wearing only a singlet and boxer shorts. That was when it dawned on me that my mom wanted me out of the house. There was so much she wanted to do that I was stopping her from doing.

She came to my room to say sorry. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

I said, “The next time I see that man here, I will be forced to tell him about what you’re doing with Seidu. This is my father’s house. You can go to his house and do that.”

My mom slapped me that day. It landed so perfectly because I didn’t see it coming.

I screamed, “You’ve slapped me?”

She walked out, and Boateng walked in. He asked what was going on. When I didn’t talk, he went to my mom to talk to her.

The two of them left the house later, and I didn’t see her for three days.

We lived like rivals. She didn’t talk to me, and I didn’t talk to her. She would go to the shop, and I would go to work. We would both return in the evening and go to bed without talking to each other. I tried telling my other siblings but I stopped.

We were like this until she travelled without telling me.

I knew she would be with Seidu out of town because that was the only reason she would close the shop and travel out of town.

I was home one evening when Boateng came. He asked where my mom was, and I told him I didn’t know. He said he had been calling her for hours, and the call wasn’t going through.

I told him he should keep calling.

When he left, I laughed.

“Even old people lie. See my mom acting like a girl and these men acting like high school kids.”

She came back a week later, and I decided to be the big girl. I asked where she went, and she smiled. I said, “Next time, tell me so I can tell Boateng where you are when he comes to ask.”

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She burst out laughing. That laughter was deep. I could see she was genuinely  happy. She told me she would tell me everything when the time was right. I’ve stopped worrying about her. She advises me to live my life the way I want, as long as I’m happy and my happiness doesn’t hurt anyone.

“I hurt myself to make your dad happy. It’s my turn to live. Please forgive me.”

We are fine now, but I’m saving to leave this house for her. Maybe she needs a big space to contain this big life she’s living currently.

I’m no longer judging her, but trust me, no matter what happens to me in life, I won’t make the decisions she’s making, especially doing it with two men my husband was once friends with.

—Asantewaa

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