My mom loved my dad in a way that destroyed her. Mentally, physically, everything. My father was always a cheat, he was everything all at once. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was at home trying to coax my mom into forgiveness.

He would stay home for days, prepare us for school, make food when we returned, and try to be a nicer person to my mom. I saw through his theatrics, but my mama didn’t. She didn’t see the kind of man he was when he wasn’t trying to win her attention.

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On other days, he was either cheating or planning to. I was the one who would go out, find out who was on daddy’s radar for the night, come back home, and tell her everything, backed with full evidence.

Then I would tell her to fight him when he returned and pack our things so we could leave. I would ask her to promise me. She would say yes, but the next thing we knew, she would shut down and sob. All my mother did was cry, cry until her eyes turned red and her head ached.

And so I began to hate soft women. Women who cared too quickly, too deeply. I resented them.

Anyway, we would return from school and meet our mother, or rather, meet her ghost, with no father around. On those days, we were left to fend for ourselves and be our own brother’s keeper.

As a teenager, I wondered constantly about the kind of love my mom had for him. What kind of black magic was on her? What exactly was holding her down like that? But every time I questioned her, she would say, “You are a child. You will grow up to meet it.” She made it clear I had no place questioning her loyalty to my father.

Now I am a grown woman, and I used the pattern of my parents’ marriage as a template for my own relationships until I lost them. My last relationship just ended, and if there is anything common among all the previous ones, it is that I pried too much. Too curious, I was always sitting at an edge.

When Kewsi said he was going to town, I would ask for his current location, pictures o

f what he was wearing. I would ask why he was there. He would say it was a meeting, but in my head, alarms would go off, taking me back to years ago. Back to when daddy said he was going for a meeting, and I followed him only to see him enter Auntie Joyce’s room.

So I would strike. I would create problems. Every little thing he did came with questions. I started to feel like he didn’t love me because of things he saw as minor, but I saw as major because of what I witnessed growing up. Eventually, I walked away from the relationship.

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And the irony is this. All my life, I encouraged my mom to leave because of what she was going through, but she never did. It was only recently I accepted that this woman will not leave, even if she is at the verge of dying. That realization forced me to reflect on my own broken relationship, and I have learned a lot.

But I need to ask. Married people, does it mean some of you go through things and still decide to stay, like what my mom is doing? Or is she an exception? And is it good to endure like that, or should one leave as soon as it becomes unbearable?

—Pearl

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