The Good Man (Part 1)
You took away my innocence,
My hopes, my dreams, my youth.
You took from me, my very soul.
What could have been, I never knew
- Lynette Gutwein
“Your father was a good man” Her statement caused me to look up from my Laptop.
It’s was irritating to hear and it took every strength I had not to retort back. Her refusal to face reality and accept that he was a monster was pissing me off.
“Mom, can we not have this conversation” I responded.
Her countenance changed, oh no, here we go again. That face meant we were about to have a lengthy argument about him for the hundredth time and every single time, I lost.
I didn't lose because I wasn’t right or didn’t give a flawless argument on the true meaning of who a ‘good man’ was, I always lost because of her refusal to see the scars he left her and me especially with.
Just in case you are wondering who the ‘he’ was in question, that’s my father who passed away in 2014.
He might have been gone for more than six years but I and my mother were the true victims of the ‘legacy’ he left behind.
While I was preparing for her to unleash the ‘demons’, my mind took me back to the day of his burial.
It was a sunny afternoon, it was chaotic, everyone apart from me was. I couldn’t stop staring at his embalmed body. he didn’t look so powerful as I thought he would. For the first time, I liked the thought of death. It was one concept that could humble even the most prideful.
Everyone around kept crying but I couldn’t bring myself to shed a tear. I must have looked like a possessed child, his first offspring refusing to cry over his death. But even his ghost won’t hold me responsible, he knew why- He left us scarred, broken, in debt and homeless.
“Nne say goodbye to your father” A woman whose name I can’t recall told me. For some reason I couldn’t, Goodbye was the last thing I had in mind, I still had a lot of questions I needed answers to.
For example, why did he spend more than 18 years of his marriage hurting my mother? Why did he refuse to buy lands and make the right investment when he had the opportunities to do so? Why did I have to grow up to see him hurt my mom and us every single time? And most importantly, why couldn’t I have a sane and peaceful childhood?
At the very moment, every memory I had left of him were ones I wanted to banish to the pit of hell but a part of me wouldn’t.
“It’s your only chance to staying angry,” it told me.
I didn’t know where the strength came from to walk away without overturning his casket. It was all I wanted to do, but his only saving grace, my mom. The last thing I wanted to do is embarrass her.
Pain, Anger, confusion, bitterness- every emotion I could identify kept flooding my heart as I walked away.
The burial was peaceful and went smoothly, it was the after event when true colours began to show.
My mother was summoned to a meeting by the Umu Ada. For those born into the Igbo tribe, the Umu Ada is a council of First Daughters in a Kindred.
They weren’t the only ones in the meeting, the Youth Association and every other person I couldn’t recognize were seated, staring at my mom with judgemental eyes. We the kids were sent away.
I never knew what they spoke about or what they told my mom, but I could guess it was horrible as my mom rushed into the room crying with one of my dad’s sister on hot pursuit.
The exchange was heated, each words making me angry, making me want to lose every bit of home training I had. The type of anger I felt that day wasn’t going to be my last, I found out the hard way years later.
“It’s all his fault,” I thought. Why did his family have to be a pain in the ass, every one of them was a reason why my parent’s marriage was a disaster and they still had the guts to accuse my mom of witchcraft.
‘But she deserved it’ the voice in my head told me. ‘If she had left when she should, she won’t have to deal with these entitled judgemental assholes’ it continued.
I love my mom but the voice was right. She laid her bed and she was going to realize that it was a bed of skin-piercing stones.
This reminds me of the year 2008.
June 2008
I woke up suddenly to a loud crashing and the booming voice of my father.
‘You will kill me, this man’ a terrified crying voice said. I recognized the voice, it belonged to my mom.
I took a terrifying step out of my bed and walked towards the sound of someone punching.
The sight that greeted me was that of my mom trying to fence for herself as my father rained blows on her.
I was frozen to the spot, you would think I would get used to the sight as it was a usual occurrence for me, hell, I suffered from insomnia thanks to their fight.
But this was different, the look on my father’s face was terrifying, it was demonic. The man never smiled but I would take his usual scowling face to this.
His blows had stopped, that’s because he was busy strangling the life out of my mom. He looked like he wanted her dead, and I knew I had to do something but my legs won’t move.
What was an Eleven-year-old supposed to do in that kind of situation?
“Daddy please stop” I weakly cried out, he didn’t.
My mother was finding it difficult to breathe and her hands were weakly fighting him off.
“Daddy Stop” I Shouted, this time crying heavily- And he did.
He looked at me with his demonic look, I gulped, very scared of my life. He let go of my mother’s neck and walked away into his room.
My legs finally moved, I fell beside my mom, shaking her, praying for her to be alive.
A few minutes passed and she finally came to while been cradled in my tiny arms.
She weakly looked at me and gently stood up while I looked at her. Without saying a word, she left me sitting on the ground.
I could only look at her back, filled with hopelessness and wondering one important thing; how effective was a rat poison?