Eugenia

Chapter One

I watched Mom that morning wake up with swollen eyes, I guess it was the aftermath of pains she couldn’t share with me. I was 5, too little to understand the level of pain and demons she was fighting with.

Her eyes were as red as the crimson moon, she had cried herself to sleep thinking about how we would have to cope all by ourselves.

I was too young to remember all that went on but mom told me all about it when I turned 15 years of age.

Mom was a victim of young love gone wrong.

My mom, Eugenia, met and fell in love with a young trader from Onitsha town, Nigeria.

Mom said she was naive and rebellious at the time. She did the things my grandparents and society said she wasn’t old enough to do.

Emeka was his name, he had been settled at 19 by his boss after he had served him for six years.

My mom was 15 at the time and he would buy her gifts but she said my grandparents had warned her.

She felt they didn't want her happiness.

Emeka got settled and made to leave Onitsha, my mom felt it was love when he told her to elope with him.

But she was too little to know that tomorrow is like a pregnant she-goat, you’d never be able to tell how many kid(s) she will give birth to.

She parked her things before my grandparents could wake up that morning and out she went with her lover.

She didn't know what was waiting ahead for her.

Chapter Two

So, she ran away with Emeka to a place so far

Lagos, Nigeria.

An economic city where dreams become reality under heavy traffic jams

She said they had arrived at night as they had to travel for hours and days.

Transport back then wasn't as it is today. Leaving Onitsha to Lagos was a long journey in the days when people traveled in the 911 Mercedes Benz.

Mom got pregnant 6 months after they arrived in Lagos and that was when Dad started treating her badly.

He would drink and stay out late and come back to scold her for things she didn't do. He complained that she had become lazy.

How was a naive 15-year-old girl to know how to handle her first pregnancy when she was not close to her mother?

After mom delivered me, Dad’s late nights worsened and rumors started going around that he had a mistress in town.

From the story, my mom had told me, I was 5 years of age when he left.

I was too little to understand the level of pain and demons she was fighting.

I watched Mom that morning wake up with swollen eyes.

That morning made it about five weeks after he left us and never came back again.

Mom was only 20 years of age when she was abandoned by my dad to care for little me all by herself.

Mom said, " I should have obeyed your grandparents when they told me to make him come to pay my dowry, but he convinced me that he would do it as soon as his business started gaining feet.”

Nobody in Egbeda town in Lagos could tell where Emeka had closed shop and disappeared to.

Mom was broken and shattered but all she could do was cry and wish she could go back home to my grandparents. But she wasn't that little innocent girl who had ran away from home because of love anymore.

An old widow with her 3 daughters had taken mom in but she wept each time she remembered how she disobeyed her parents and followed what she felt was true love.

I was 15 years old when mom told me this story but I could see her eyes swell in pain and how her heart got broken the more.

I looked her in the eyes and said, "Mom, I will be better than Dad and I will give you the life you deserve and we will go back to seek grandparent's forgiveness"

I am Duke, the son of a man who fled responsibilities and left the woman he promised to love and care for.

I know my foundation story but I am on a path to change my tomorrow.

But I know it is not enough to know the mistakes of my father.

I know I will have to do extra hard work to not repeat his mistakes. The End

©Fidelis Iko-Ojo Odiba