‘I regret marrying my mum’s boyfriend’

Ignatius and dark skinned and pretty Veronica were not friends, they never courted for once before getting married. “I used to see him visit my mum, a widow, whose husband died when she was 50, then I was barely 12 and depended so much in my mum. She had nobody to help raise me and my younger sister who was five when papa died. So, while she struggled to raise us, there was a particular man who was her customer. My younger sister and I used to call him Uncle Ignatius. He was always coming to patronize my mum because she used to run a canteen just opposite the place where he walked. He would come twice before the close of work and at times forgo his change for my mother.

“On Sundays, when my mum was off and needed to go to church, uncle Ignatius would drive  to our house early in the morning  and took my mother and us to church. And he would drive home where he would sit and watch TV. Then when the church was over, he was always at the right time to convey us back  home. He never kept us waiting, not even for once.  He was so particular about punctuality that instead of coming late to take us home from church or anywhere, he would prefer to come before time and wait. My mum strived to convert him to our church then, but he wasn’t interested in going to church. He was quick to remind anybody that preached Bible to him that the major thing God expected from us was to have a good heart, eschew evil and love one another. And he was indeed good and helpful. At least he was the one who took over the payment of our school fees and he used to attend the PTA meetings in our school when it was deem necessary,” she said.

After a while, Philomena, (Veronica’s mum) the widow, started glowing. After mourning her husband for one year, she started radiating. Her beauty bounced back again and she was happy. “Uncle Ignatius helped her to gain back her groove and that was when it started rumouring that she was dating a man she was 20 years  or there about older than. I heard it but I didn’t bother to ask my mother if it was true. Maybe I was scared to ask because I never saw them in positions that would warrant questions but Uncle Ignatius was there for us all the time. When he was transferred from Onitsha to Lagos, to head a construction company as an engineer, he saw to it that we relocated with him. We were not living together but he got us an apartment  because he was residing in his company’s quarters. Though he wasn’t living with us but he was eating with us and at times my mum would go to his place to cook for him and she would lie to us that she was going for vigil in her church. I didn’t know she was passing her nights there and in Lagos, there was no rumours about them. Everybody minded his or her business in this ever busy and lively city. But when I got to know and suspected that the rumour they were peddling in Onitsha then about my mum and Uncle Ignatius was true was when I branched into his house to collect money for JAMB form because he promised to give me.

“ I first went to his office and I was told he was on leave. I then headed to his house and saw Mama in his house cooking in his kitchen. She had stayed out of house for three days and told me she was in the church getting prepared for women’s celebration that used to come once in a year. I wasn’t happy that I saw her there. When I asked why she hadn’t visited us to see how my younger sister and I were fairing, she only said she knew we were alright. That she needed to be closer to Uncle Ignatius who had been helpful to us. I understood her and kept mum. I knew they were dating because the closeness was something else. Mum, a beautiful woman, tried to reciprocate his kind gestures and Uncle Ignatius who was happily sponsoring my younger sister and I in school didn’t remember he was ripe to get married. He was in his late 30s until when I was in second year in the university,” she recalled.

His choice of wife shocked Philomena and her two daughters.