As the topic implies, this is a true life story.
Although my knowledge of this family started around when I was 19 years old.
I will call this friend of mine Sarah, the first child and daughter of her father. This true life story appears sad, and in my quiet times, especially recently, I'm beginning to feel sympathetic to both sides of the coin.
A few days ago, around 6 am, Sarah called me, and our conversation went like this;
Me: Babe, how far, this one you dey call by this time?
Sarah:I'm going to drop my papa at the park.
Me: for what na? Person wey just enter town yesterday? You for allow the man rest small...
Sarah: no be for my house, I don drop am, pay him transport, and still give am 5k to hold the body for the road.
Me: Babe, I dont support this one, in less than 24 hours your dad dey the Road for like 12 hours.
Sarah: That one no concern me, no be me invite am come.
A day earlier her father had called her from their previous location, he must have gotten there only to find out his 'ex-wife' had moved out. He decided to call Sarah, and she picked up, accommodated him for the night and bundled him back to the next available bus to Makurdi.
Truth be told, the ex-wife no longer lived in the slum he visited. She is now in a duplex, paid for by his first son. Let's call him David. David is in Europe and through one of my kinsmen, had secured a 3-bedroom duplex for his mom. His father is not aware of this.
Those children suffered men!
Big Mama, Sarah's mom was abandoned by her husband when Sarah was just 12 years old. The same year, Sarah was brutally raped by a neighbour because of 20 naira, while her mother was bedridden in the hospital after child evacuation. The father left while she was pregnant with the 5th child. Sarah would hawk all manner of foodstuffs to put food on the table. When she doesn't sell, she sells her body for peanuts to buy pepper and oil to make even the cheapest dried akro soup.
Her father had remarried and stopped caring about their welfare, a federal government worker in a good money-spinning ministry. He got transferred to another state and started a new life.
When I knew Sarah, she already had a child, a small saloon and four more mouths to feed. She would work in the morning and at night she would visit lounges. Life was hard, and so cigarettes and drinks became her god.Sarah till date is a chimney and she does so even in the presence of my husband, he no longer minds.
One cold night a couple of years ago, after we shared drinks at my place. She narrated how she and her siblings suffered.
" Sis, say my brother travel abroad, no be my power,na say God don look us say we don too suffer. David go gather wound for his body, from one Lebanese and Indian company to another, na so machine go dey cut cut his body. So so blue ink full him body"
I watched with tears how she broke down completely, spilling her wine all over my tiles.
"Sis, na 20 naira e take to lose my virginity, 20 naira!"
", My father...Wetin' we do am?!"
Two years ago and some months , she got a huge break. She called me to follow her to Transcorp Hilton and made me promise that I 'behave' myself.
We met this man, well groomed. We were half into the conversation when she looked at me with a forced smile, and said to me
" Sis, this is the man that raped me"
The spring rolls in my mouth turned into vinegar, my heart began to pound, and I could only see everyone but the man blurry. I eventually kept my cool but was silent the whole evening even as the man apologised profusely. My baby was beginning to cry, and I took the opportunity to leave their table because I was feeling sick and nauseated.
In less than 6 months after that encounter, he had secured a bigger and well-equipped saloon for her and had given her enough to travel out to buy hair.
Let's talk about David. David suffered oooo. I remembered one time I was going through her old pics and saw a younger version of David, sickly with his tummy protruded.
" My sister, na poison. My father come one day,, carry am go makurdi, na so person call my mother say make she come do carry her pikin before them kill am.My mother enters Moto, and as she stops for Keffi, she stand for Road dey beg for Moto wey go carry her reach makurdi, no money na. We carry am waka from one church to another before God just save that boy. "
I looked at the picture again and gently dropped it, still overwhelmed with internal grief. The first time I saw David in person after he graduated from the University ( he sponsored himself with the help of his sisters), I asked in bewilderment,
" So na this boy your father abandoned?"
Standing before me was a young man, fair, built and with a height I reckoned would be above 6. In inches. No wonder white women couldn't get off him as soon as he landed in Europe. He got married to one and life in that family changed in a flash. I enjoyed it for I got a cut from my father's kinsman when he bought a property.
Their father is no longer with the second wife, as she left him after three kids. He married a third and is now a retired pensioner.
Last night, while shopping together, Sarah was laughing and I asked, " Babe why you dey laugh"?
" When my father comes to my house, him dey ask me why I leave one bedroom go enter 3 bedrooms with my son. I tell am palee, this house no be rent o, na my house be this o."
" So wetin' him come talk?" I inquired.
"Wetin' him one talk again? Shebi waist pain wey my mama dey go through na say he left her when she was in her twenties. The woman has not seen Preek 4ck till today, because she carries church for the head. Woman wey him marry when she dey 17 years."
I choose to use the word ex-wife, but they never really divorced because the bride price paid is still binding. The fact that this woman who has suffered so much will soon be a mother-in-law to a German BMW Engineer in a few days is overwhelming. I wasn't surprised their last girl will end well, she's always looking like something out of foreign red carpets all the time. Like David, she is tall slim, surprisingly Conservative and intelligent.
Palee will be coming again to grace the marriage of one of the daughters he abandoned. Can't imagine his regret when he sleeps in a well-furnished duplex, away from the slum where he abandoned his children and wife many years ago, only to find out the first son from his loins bought that for his mother.
E go to pain am. embarassed
But one thing is certain or I think I noticed, David and Sarah still bear the hurt. The other kids have moved on, and don't mind being in their father's life.
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