“What happened to me?” I asked. “You fainted,” said Judith my eldest sister. Then, I remembered what happened. I am the youngest of five pretty young girls. My father, I was told, died three months after I was born but I grew up in a comfortable home. My mother runs a big provision shop just a street away from our house and with this, she trained all of us.
As we grew older, my mother gathered all of us one Saturday evening. She told us she wants us to marry rich men in order to avoid suffering. “My daughters, I want all of you to bring home rich men, I mean already made men as husbands to me. I suffered with your father all for the sake of love but what did he leave for me before his death? Absolutely, nothing. I had to really work hard to train all of you. Just make sure the man is rich, then, love will follow later,” she urged us.
From that day, any man we bring home was well scrutinised by my mother. She would first of all look at the kind of clothes he is putting on, brand of wristwatch and down to his shoes. Then, peep through the window to see the brand of car he came in. If she is satisfied and smiles, there is hope that she may approve of the man. But if she is not satisfied with all these, she would ask you to see her immediately your visitor leaves. Once he leaves, she would rain abuses on you and remind you of all she told us. For my four elder sisters, they did not find it easy with my mother when they were ready to settle down.
She bluntly refused all the men they brought simply because they do not drive posh cars and did not dress expensively according to her thirst. In fact, she added something new to the criteria later that shocked us. “In addition to what I said earlier, only bring men who live in a three-bedroom apartment, a bungalow or a duplex,” she demanded. “Mummy you cannot be serious. Love comes first before material things. The way you are going about it, none of us will get married,” said Judith.
“You girls should try me and see,” she threatened. When our mother kept rejecting all the men they introduced to her, they decided that she would not continue to dictate their lives for them reminding her that they have pleased her enough. When Judith introduced David to her, after scrutinising him as usual, she said, he was not wealthy enough, thus, she cannot marry him. When all pleas fell on deaf ears, Judith went ahead and married him reminding my mother that she has toyed enough with her emotions and that she was not getting any younger. With Judith’s action, my other sisters followed suit, marrying men they loved, not minding my mother’s criteria anymore.
Just because I felt my sisters disobeyed my mother, I promised myself I will marry the man she approves for me. Since I clocked 24 years till date that I am 28 years, I have introduced over 10 men to my mother but she rejected all, giving one excuse or the other. But, I decided to hold on because I believed she meant well for me. One hot Sunday afternoon, on my way back from church, a jeep stopped right beside me. The occupant wound down the glass and asked, “Which way are you going, pretty?” “Just three streets away,” I said.
“Okay then come in. It will be my pleasure to take you home,” he told me. I got into the jeep and we got talking. He told me his name is Victor; he is an engineer, the first child of three children and that his parents and siblings are based in the United States. I also introduced myself. “O my God, this guy is good-looking and he looks rich. This is the kind of man I want for a husband,” I thought to myself. Fortunately, as we got to the front of our compound, my mother was outside talking with a friend. When she saw that I was the one that alighted from the jeep, she quickly dismissed her friend and came to meet me. Before I could introduce Victor to her, she said, “My son, you are welcome to our home, please come in.” She walked closely behind him just to assess him. She entertained him and made him feel at home. When Victor was leaving, he handed over N10,000 to my mother and N5,000 to me. Immediately he left, my mother said, “This is what I am talking about. A man who is wealthy, well dressed and can take good care of you. Prisca, you must not let him go. You must do whatever you have to do to keep him,” she insisted.
We kept communicating over the phone and two weeks later, Victor came over and took my mother and me to his place. The compound was well decorated with beautiful flowers and the building is a bungalow of five rooms. The kitchen was spark l i n g and neat. In fact it was tiled wall to wall. The sitting room is like a football pitch, very spacious and well furnished. I started dreaming of the day he would propose marriage to me. Victor spoilt me silly with gifts and money. Three months later, my dream came true. He asked me to marry him which I expressly accepted. When I told my mother, she almost screamed her throat out in excitement.
Two weeks after he proposed, he informed my mother that his parents and siblings would be coming back to Nigeria in two months time and our marriage plans would start immediately. He kept visiting and calling me until about three weeks ago when he suddenly stopped all forms of communication. Whenever I call Victor, he would tell me he is too busy but would promise to call or visit which he ends up not doing. I got really worried and so some days ago, I decided to pay him a surprise visit.
When I got there, I noticed that the gateman was new. I told him I wanted to see Victor, the owner of the house and he said, “Madam, you mean Victor the house help?” I said no but insisted he calls the owner of the house which he gladly did but leaving me outside to wait. To my utmost shock, a huge tall man came with the gateman and told me he was the owner of the house. I said, “No, Victor is the one who lives here. Maybe you are his brother.”
He then explained to me that Victor is their house help. “He is our house h e l p . We left him in care of the house when the whole family travelled out of the country for six months. We only returned about three weeks ago.” I thought it was all a dream. Unaware of my presence, Victor in tattered short and T-shirt came to the gate to inform his employer that he has a phone call, actually looking like the house help that he is. The last thing I remembered was that I screamed.
Later, my mother told me she went to confront him on why he played such an expensive joke on us and to her amazement he said, “I heard you want your children to marry very wealthy men so I had to pose as one when my employers travelled. I am just a common house help if you must know.” While my sisters were pleading with me to forget about the harrowing experience and move on with my life, the doctor announced to us that I am six weeks pregnant. Tears flowed freely from my eyes and I told my mother, “You pushed me into this mess. I did not only date a house help all in the name of ‘you want me to marry a wealthy man’, I am also pregnant with his baby. I will never forgive you.” I don’t want to have this baby because I will hate him for the rest of my life. He will always remind me of his useless father. Please what do I do?
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