Clarity

“I am not your mother.”

These five words changed my life forever.

My head reeled with shock and disbelief. At first, I thought I'd heard wrong. I had to clarify. I needed to ‘unhear’ what I’d just heard.

“Mom, what are you saying?”, I asked in a barely audible voice. I couldn’t even give voice to what I was feeling right now.

“You heard me Adaugo”, she said “I am not your mother”.

I couldn’t breathe. I was confused and scared all of a sudden. Then I became angry. I was filled with rage. I also felt terribly betrayed. But most of all, I was curious. So I had to ask

“Who is my mother? Where is she?”

“I know you have a lot of questions and I promise you, I will answer all of them but I want to seek for your forgiveness first of all”

“What do you mean?”

“I have always tried every means possible to steer you away from the spotlight because I never wanted you to end up like her. I know you must have felt different and out of place while growing up with us, but I’d really hoped and prayed that this day would never come…..”, Nkechi last words were swallowed up as she broke down in tears. Tears of pain and frustration at life generally. She couldn’t bear seeing her only daughter (for yes, Adaugo would always be a daughter to her, even if she wasn’t biologically hers. Even if the circumstances surrounding her birth gave her, Nkechi, every reason to hate Adaugo with a passion)

My heart softened a little when I saw the woman whom I had always believed to be my mother until a few minutes ago, break down into tears. Nkechi was after all, the only woman who had played the role of a mother in my life. Even though I was angry, I couldn’t quite quell the feeling of excitement that was slowly blossoming in me as I asked;

“Spotlight???, What do you mean?” I asked

“Your mother was a….” Nkechi started

“She does not need to hear this now Nkechi. She is just a child”, Emeka cut her shut. 

I didn’t even realize my dad had walked into the living room to overhear the last bit of the conversation.

“But dad!, This explains everything! I need to know the truth. WHY AM I SO DIFFERENT?”, I asked almost raising my voice.

“You are not different. You are my child and you’ll go ahead to take your finals in 3 months time and be called to bar just like your brothers. You will not disappoint me. This conversation is over!” my father stated in a tone of finality.

“Emeka, she needs to….” Nkechi began

“She does not need to know anything else apart from what she knows already. You cannot be putting ideas into her head especially at this young age.”

“Young?? Young?? She is 26 for godsake! A year older than Nneoma when you impregnated her!!”  Nkechi  screamed at Emeka.

“Woman! Not one more word from you or else….”, Emeka  warned as he approached her, fists clenched, with a look of menace clearly stamped on his face. Adaugo cowered in fear.

I saw the look of terror in her eyes and before I could even tell, I saw myself standing in between her and my dad. I looked fearlessly into his eyes.

“STOP!  Both of you! Just STOP!” I screamed.

Dad stopped on his tracks. Time stood still for almost 30 seconds.

“Mom, dad, what is going on? What is happening to us?”, I asked in tears.

Nkechi  ran out of the living, filled with terror.  She quickly ran upstairs and locked herself in their room – the master bedroom. Dad stormed out of the house not forgetting to grab his car keys from the dining table. I slowly sank into the sofa in the living room shaking like a leaf. In my twenty years of existence, I had never seen my dad so angry. His face was literally as black as thunder and he looked like he was going to hit mom. But the most scary part was the terrified look on my mom’s face. It was the look that showed he had hit her before…severally. The look that revealed she knew what was coming.

I couldn’t believe I just witnessed my mom almost physically assaulted by my dad.

I was filled with shock, disbelief, fear and confusion. I was also filled with excitement at the little discovery I’d just made. I was only different. There was nothing wrong with me after all. I was not abnormal. I couldn’t just blend because I was really different. I had a different mother and that explained everything. How I hated Law even though both of my parents and two brothers before me were lawyers (and exceptional ones at that).

She had mentioned spotlight. Was my real mom a dancer? A singer?  An actress?  A model? Did the stage and spotlight call her just as they always called me persistently? What was life like for her, my real mom? Was she famous? (Maybe that’s why they didn’t want me to know about her) Where is my mom? How come nobody ever talked about her all these years? How come nobody told me about her? What were they hiding from me?

Thousands of questions invaded my mind. I felt scared but at the same time curious as well. Then the tears came and flowed freely.

I remembered the first time I climbed the school wall and went to sing at the karaoke club in town about 3 miles from the school. I was only 15 then. I remembered how the bar came alive once I’d started singing. How the spotlight embraced me and held me close as the disco lights danced off of my skin showering me with different bright colors. I remember how I got carried away performing on stage and lost track of time. I found myself trying to sneak back into the dorm when I was caught and suspended for two weeks. Dad was enraged. Mom was strangely silent as he raged and cursed even as I kept on apologizing profusely. I had done all sorts of menial jobs and studied endlessly to get good grades for my dad to be happy. I even went ahead to promise never to sneak out of school ever again. Of course, I reneged on my promise the very next term and went out again and again. Only, I got more careful and never allowed myself to be caught again.

By the time I was in the university, I had gotten quite a few gigs to sing and act on stage even while I was studying law. At a point, my dad had to accept that I wanted to be a performer. Even though he made it clear that he would never support my ‘little acts of rebellion which could only be chalked up to youthful exuberance’ He made me promise to always make sure my grades never suffered. I was going to pass through law school and eventually become a lawyer just like my brothers before me. Law was after all a prestigious profession. I would make a sensible career out of it and everybody would be proud of me instead of ‘prancing about on stage half naked’. He never attended any of my shows. None of them ever did.

The problem started when I got wind of a road show that would take place in Sweden. I discussed with my best friend and manager who made sure she fixed me right in as one of the major roles in the drama aspect of the show. It was a musical drama. I practiced tirelessly with the group for months and everything was set in place. I would travel for the show which would last for two weeks and come back shortly before exams started. I’d already made arrangements for passports and then the show was shifted right into my exams. I didn’t care; I already knew the option my heart wholly accepted. I couldn’t bear lying to my family anymore so I simply came out and told them I wanted to drop out of school. My dad was livid. He raged for almost the whole day but I refused to budge. I was in the middle of a hunger strike to protest my freedom to choose what I wanted to be when my mom called me to the living room to have a talk with me and things escalated from there up till this moment.

I wanted desperately to know the truth and at this point, I didn’t care what it would cost me anymore.

I have to know who my mom is and where she is at the moment. I had a lot of questions to ask her. Like, why did she leave all these years? What was her favorite food? Would it be Beans and fried plantains like me? How does she like to take her cereal? With cold or warm water? Who was her favorite artist? What happened between her and dad? (*pftt I would never get that answer out of dad for sure).

Two hours later…

I knocked at Nkechi’s door. I had to knock three times more before she opened the door for me. She still had that terrified look on her face as she looked quickly up and down the hallway

“Where is he?”’ she asked

“He went out”

“What do you want?”

“Please mom, I need to know the truth about my real mom”, I pushed my way into her room without invitation “I need to know about Nneoma.”

Nkechi turned away from me, covering her face in anguish, as tears started flowing endlessly once again.

“I can’t”, she muttered

“You have to mom! Can’t you see?? I need to know if she is like me. I need to know anything I can about her. Where is she?” I pushed.

Nkechi  sat down on her bed shaking uncontrollably. Her whole body racked with sobs. She was truly in pain. I felt pity for her. But my curiosity topped any other feeling or emotion I could possibly be having for her. After all, she hid this from me all these years.  She owed it to me.

“I deserve to know mom. All these years I have lived in the dark, not knowing who I am or why I was different. I have to know about her, mom”

She sniffed noisily. I looked around the room; saw the pack of tissues lying on her vanity table. I quickly grabbed it and presented it to her. She picked quite a few and blew her nose loudly. I sat down slowly on the bed to feel  bitterness she had managed to suppress over the years

“Your mother...a beautiful woman. You have her eyes and her nose. Her full, jet black hair too. She loved the lights too. She wanted to be a movie star, desperately. Just like you, she always took off from school to go for shows. She happened to be my best friend in school but she was better at everything she ever tried. And why wouldn’t she? She had always been beautiful with clear skin and charming smile that took all the boys’ attention”, Nkechi spat out. “She practically got all the guys eating right out of her hand.”

I failed to notice the jealousy in her eyes. I was filled with excitement. My mom was just like me. She lived the stage just as much as I did. Maybe even more.

“So where is she?”, I asked

“I got married to your father right in second year. She had joined a group of well known rough boys in school. They claimed to be artists. They spent school hours smoking weed and doing drugs. Your mom became hooked on drugs. It tore your father apart as he watched her become a shadow of her former self. He was hopelessly in love with her, even though we were married. Even after six years, he could not let her go. It was a life of turmoil for me and your brothers and we watched your mother drag your father in and out different hell holes trying to cure her of the addiction. Even when she became pregnant with you and nobody could tell who got her pregnant, we both stood by her. I had no idea your father got her pregnant. It never even crossed my mind. How could he still be attracted to the skinny, pale, old and shrunken bitch? I thought he was over her especially as he was married to me? I was his damn wife!”

I froze in horror. For a moment I felt sorry for her again. Living all these years under the shadow of another woman, knowing she’d never be anything but the second choice to the man she had loved all her life with devotion. It couldn’t have been easy for her.

“But…but…what happened? Where did she go?”, I asked. If he had loved her so much, why did he not make any effort to contact her all these years?

I was surprised to see Nkechi burst out laughing almost like a mad woman. Then she broke down in tears all over again.

“Haven’t you figured it out yet?”, she asked bitterly “Your mother is dead.”

I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t think. My brain shut down almost immediately. Nkechi carried on, not even noticing the look of shock and confusion registered on my face. I could barely hear her next words

“She died in an uncompleted building somewhere in Jos two months after you were born.”

“WHAT HAPPENED? HOW DID SHE DIE?”

“She committed suicide after calling me to apologize for every wrong she did to me. At that time, she wasn’t even making sense but when she told me where to find her, I went to search for her because I knew it would make your father happy. He'd been searching for her for months. I read her suicide note first. She apologized for getting pregnant for your father. She even had the nerve to tell me to look after you. Such impudence. Your father was torn to bits when she passed on, so were his parents and his siblings”

“How so? Was she that close to his family?” I asked a bit curious. They must have known 

about the affair. But why would they be torn over the death of a mistress? Shouldn’t they be a bit relieved that the whole thing was finally over?

Nkechi looked at me strangely.

“Close? They weren't just close, she was HIS SISTER!”