I was eighteen years old when my dad died five years ago. I knew life was going to be tough for us because my dad was the rock on which the family stood. My mom supported him, but it was my dad who brought in the bulk of the resources the family relied on. He was a civil servant and also had other clients he delivered services to. Sometimes he took me along to see what he was doing for other people. I’m the eldest child, a girl, but he didn’t want me to see myself as a girl with limitations, so he raised me like one of the boys.

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When he died, it was more than death to us. It was the end of our respectable economic life. Anytime I saw my mom crying and wailing, I knew what she was crying about. Yes, she had lost a lover, but she had lost something more. She grew lean. She was inconsolable for a long time. When my dad was buried, the first thing she worried about was how she was going to pay rent, even before she thought about school fees.

She kept telling us that God would provide and then said, “I’m only forty-five years old. I still have strength. Let’s see how far my strength will go.”

She started doing more than she used to. She would sell in the morning from house to house, and later in the afternoon, she would go to her store in the market. Sometimes we didn’t see her all day until evening. Sometimes she would come and meet us sleeping. I became the mother of the house, mothering my two brothers.

Just a year after my dad died, our rent also expired. Mom told us she was looking for a new place because we couldn’t afford where we were living. She moved around every day, telling friends and family that she was looking for accommodation. One evening, one of the stories she brought from her day’s errands was, “I’ve gotten a new place. It’s even nicer than here. You’ll love it.”

Days later, she took me there. It was a two-bedroom apartment with a hall and a kitchen and everything inside. Where we lived before, we had two rooms, but they were separate, one after the other. The toilet and bath were outside, shared by everyone. We didn’t have a kitchen. Wherever we put the coal pot became the kitchen.

I looked around the place with amazement. “Mom, is this place cheaper than where we stay now?”
She responded, “They say God takes care of widows and orphans. That’s exactly what He’s doing for us.”

A few days later, we moved all our things to our new place. Our belongings didn’t fit the status of the apartment. The lifestyle of the children there didn’t match ours. Even my mom’s lifestyle didn’t fit. I worried that my mom was squatting and that one day the owner would come and sack us.

Not long after, Mom got a new shop in a very good location in the market. Her stock increased, and she sold fashionable items that made her store look like a real shop. She told me my dad’s SSNIT had been released to her and that she invested the money in the store.

She started dressing well. She bought new things for us on her way home. There was always food in the kitchen. We bought a modern fridge and stored food in it. Life looked like a well-graded film. The colors were vibrant and punchy. The dialogue didn’t fit our lips, yet we said it anyway.

The owner of the house didn’t live with us, but he came around often. Sometimes he came with his family, and sometimes alone to give tenants information. Whenever I saw him, my heart skipped a beat. I thought he had come for us. I thought our rent was due and he was coming to sack us. Whenever I saw his car, I worried, but Mom smiled and spoke with him like an old friend.

For about four years, we lived there peacefully until one day the news broke that the landlord was dead. It was shocking because he had just been around that weekend. His death was more shocking than sad. That evening, when Mom returned from the market, her eyes were dull and her voice sounded like it had cried all day. She dropped her bag, entered the bathroom, and didn’t come out until I fell asleep.

I shared a room with her, while my brothers had their own. I woke up at dawn and heard her crying. She would sneeze and sob, go to the bathroom, wash her face, and return. I wondered if she was crying because of the landlord’s death or because of memories of my father.

It was the landlord’s death that made her mourn. She said, “He was a good man,” and later cried, “Eiii, death, why are you so wicked?”

A few weeks after he was buried, Mom said we were leaving. We were going somewhere we could afford. I asked if the rent had increased, but she said nothing. Soon after, we moved into a small chamber and hall, smaller than our former house, though it was in town.

Seeing my confusion, she said, “When you grow up, you’ll understand certain things better.”

I didn’t have to grow up to understand. I later found out that my mom never paid rent there. The landlord gave her the place for free because he was secretly dating her. After his death, his family checked everyone’s rent records and didn’t find her name. She claimed she had a year left, but she had no receipt. She had to leave before it became embarrassing.

A friend who stayed behind told me everything. I said to myself, “No wonder. This place never matched our lifestyle.” She never paid in cash but in kind. Yet she gets angry when she sees me playing with boys my age.

These days, she is always pensive. I want to ask her if it is true. I want to know why she did it, knowing he was married with a beautiful family. I want to know how she hid it so well.

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But like she said, maybe I’ll understand when I grow up. For now, I am only a girl. We eat. We drink. We have shelter, however small. She provides all this as a single mother. I can only praise her resilience and leave the rest for the gods to judge. She is a good mother—no one can take that from her.

—Lourdes

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