Peter’s father, that is my step mum’s ex-husband, came to get him. So, it was just her
in the picture now. And about that time, she got pregnant for my dad. She fell sick
sometimes and was either sleeping or throwing up. My sisters were the first to suspect
she had taken in but I disregarded their opinion because I did not want my mind to
accept that my dad was having sex with her.
I convinced myself that she was sick and would soon recover. However, I had to
face reality soon enough when her tummy started growing bigger. She was getting fatter
and her legs were swelling up. The next thing my sisters and I worried about was the
gender of the baby in her womb. We did not stop praying that the child would be a girl,
because we wanted our brother to remain our dad’s only son. We did not want any
competition for him. On the other hand, I overhead my step mum, on different
occasions, telling her friends she wanted a son.
Watching her made me assume pregnancy made women lazy, until I saw some very
hard-working pregnant women later on in life. She stopped going to her shop, so my dad
assigned Samson and I the duty of manning the shop, saying we needed to make sure the
shop still made sales.
Whenever she recovered and was at the shop, we were with her every weekend and
joined her after school on weekdays. Initially, it was something dad forced on us and we
hated it, but eventually, we enjoyed doing it, especially on those days we made a lot of
sales and she was happy. On such days, she gave us some of the money to keep and dad
was always glad seeing our reaction.
On many occasions, Toyosi and Sarah came visiting at the shop and we would talk
non-stop. Adetutu and Bose, our ever-loving big sisters usually brought us lunch. On a
few occasions, we had to take care of lunch ourselves by buying food.
Months passed and our step-mum finally put to bed. And it was a girl! You should
have seen how my sisters and I celebrated. Our prayers had been answered. The baby was
named Esther, very adorable baby she was. I became fond of Esther and enjoyed
carrying her. Same for my siblings, especially Adetutu. Esther became attached to herand they went everywhere together.
However, something happened shortly after that altered our lives again. After
devotion, one weekend, my dad told us we were relocating to Ijoko, Sango Otta, in Ogun
State, Nigeria. We doubted he was serious and hoped against hope that it was a joke. He
was serious. We were upset. Worse for us was it was still going to be a rented apartment,
so we wondered why in the world we had to go that far to rent another house.
I was devastated. It was bad enough that he had remarried, I could not add losing
my friends and being away from the environment I was used to. I was not happy and did
not look forward to the relocation one bit. I felt it was both a rash and selfish decision;
one that favoured him and his wife.
Some months after, my dad told us it was time; he asked us to start packing. Adetutu
and Bose expressed their displeasure and dad was upset with them. It was at that point
Bose left to Aunty Bunmi’s house and started living with her family. Adetutu had become
a mother figure in the house so my dad did not want her to go.
However, some days before the day dad had fixed for moving, Adetutu told Samson
and I that she would not be moving with us. She said she was moving in with a friend and
that she would save money to rent her own apartment. She took a piece of paper and
scribbled her telephone number and that of our mum on it. She gave us some money and
left.
Samson and I cried our eyes out. It was just the two of us; that was very depressing.
We had no one to run to, to protect us or comfort us like before. When my dad and his
new wife returned home and knew about Adetutu leaving, it did not change anything. I
was hoping her leaving would somehow change daddy’s mind, but I was wrong again.
Two days after, a truck pulled over and we moved our things into it. I cried
profusely. My dad tried to pet me but I was not having it. Samson cried until he slept off. I
literally cried all the way to Ogun State.
Things immediately went sour. When we got there, strangely, I could not find the
paper where my mum and sister’s numbers were. I was really bitter. I beat myself over and again for such a costly mistake. I could not forgive myself. I was scared and felt
hopeless. Nobody knew where we were. What if something happened to us? Would we
ever see mummy again? The thoughts did not stop!
I eventually got over my fears, but things did not go as planned for my dad at work.
Many times, I heard him asking my step-mum to give him small loans. My dad could not
afford to get her a shop in the new location so she started selling from the house.
My dad got a breakthrough with time and he got her a shop, but it was barely open
for six months before it was closed down because the family was living on the proceeds
of the shop; she was not able to restock.
There were days we had nothing to eat and there were days we lived solely on Garri;
we ate a lot of Garri (Eba) and Ewedu in those days. I have never liked Ewedu, I still do
not. So, whenever the family was eating Eba and Ewedu, I soaked Garri instead.
Thankfully, we did not have to buy the Ewedu that became our regular soup. There
was a farm next to our compound and the owners were friends of my dad and his wife.
When we newly relocated, my dad was nice to them. The families were friends, so in our
time of need, they never stopped my brother and I from picking Ewedu on their farm.
They also cultivated cocoyam, so we got some tubers whenever they harvested.
Things really got worse for my dad and I started to worry for him. I barely saw him
smile or laugh any more. Many times, he would sit at the backyard alone, sighing and
shaking his legs. I was not close to him any more, so I found it difficult to ask him if he
was okay, and be there for him.
Then one day, there was an argument between my dad and my step-mum. I do not
know what caused the quarrel. She was raising her voice at him and I could barely hear
what my dad was saying as his voice was low. She was upset about the financial state of
the home and his inability to pay back what she loaned him. She reminded him that his
children had not resumed school since our relocation. My dad walked out while she
spoke.
It was an unpleasant experience. I called Samson into the living room and we prayed together. After about an hour, dad had not returned. I decided to go look for him. I knew
he had just two friends in the neighbourhood; I was certain I would find him in either of
their houses. My brother wanted to go with me, but I insisted he stayed as it was getting
dark already.
I did not see my dad and I was getting very worried. On getting back home, I wanted
to pee, so I made my way to the backyard and there he was! My dad was sitting on a stool,
hands on his head and head bowed in between his knees.
He did not notice my presence. I waited. I watched him. After some minutes, he
raised his head and I saw a tear make its way out of his eye and down his cheek. I was
beyond shocked because I had never seen my dad cry before. It broke my heart to see
him that way. I wanted to pretend like I did not see him and return inside to save his ego
but I could not move. I could not help crying too. The tears made their way out.
“Daddy”, I called out. When he heard my voice, he told me not to come. He asked
me to go back inside. It was obvious he did not know I had been watching him. He stood
up, faced the wall, and cleaned his face with his hand.
“Go inside”, he said again, but I was not going to leave him. I hugged him from
behind. “Oluwatobiloba, have you been praying for me?”, he asked.
I told him I had and he was quiet. I told him God would answer our prayers. After a
while, he faced me. He made me sit on the stool and he squatted in front of me.
“Oyinbo, you have lost your complexion. This place is not good for you”, he said.
He said that because I was having skin allergies; black spots dotted my body. I saw the
pain in his eyes. My dad switched to speaking Yoruba, apologising that my brother and I
had not resumed school after a year of relocating. He apologised about our lack of good
nutrition, and in his words, “I have made you suffer”.
He told me the people he now worked with were owing him and had refused to pay
him. He explained how distraught he was that his wife, my step-mum, no longer ran her
business and that he was owing her so much.
“I am not a lazy man”, he said. And I knew that first hand. If hard work was the guarantee of wealth, my dad would have been one of the wealthiest men in the world. He
was a hard-worker. I was sometimes afraid for his health. When we moved to Ijoko, he
would leave the house at 4am in the morning with one of his friends who owned a bus
and worked at Agege. And many nights, he never returned until midnight or past
midnight. At some point, he started working on Sundays too.
I had the privilege of following him to work on some occasions. He went from
place to place fixing electrical problems, went from person to person, asking if his
money was ready and went from company to company, asking if they had electrical
issues to fix. The first time I went with him was hectic; it was a tiring experience. It was
the love I had for him that kept me going with him.
After my dad talked with me that evening, he asked me to pray for him and I did. He
then hugged me and I stayed in his embrace for a while. It was precious for me at that
time because it had been very long my dad hugged me.