Papa wasn't mine... - by Big Dee

My father died on a Tuesday.The man who raised me. The quiet one. The one who came home at 7pm every day, ate his eba in silence, and watched NTA news without saying a word to anyone.He had a small stroke. Then a big one.And just like that, he was gone.By the time we got to our church in Agege, the heat was already thick. Our family car pulled up to the church gate, following slow behind the hearse. Church stewards in dark suits were directing traffic, opening the black iron gates wide to let us drive into the compound.My mother stepped out first, adjusting her black wrapper. I came out right behind her.As the gatekeeper began pushing the heavy iron gate shut to control the crowd outside, my mother’s whole body went stiff. She stopped dead in her tracks near the entrance.“Mummy?”She didn’t answer. She was looking past the gatekeeper, out toward the street.I turned and looked.A man was standing just outside the gate before it swung completely shut. He stood beside a parked car, watching us. Big stomach. Thick gold chain resting on his chest. Sunglasses resting on his head. He was older than Papa, his shirt tucked in badly, one hand resting heavily on the roof of his car.He didn't try to come inside. He just stood there by the road, staring right at us with a dark, bitter look on his face.My mother’s face turned to stone. Just for a second.Then she grabbed my wrist, pulling me toward the church doors. “Come inside.”“Who is that?” I whispered.“Walk,” she said as she walked ahead of me.We were heading for the sanctuary.The crowd inside was small. Just neighbours, us, and the four women my mother paid to cry at the front because Papa's family promised not to show up except for his younger brother.They set the casket down near the altar. I stood by the wooden box, staring at Papa’s face before they closed the lid for the service.He looked peaceful.For the first time in my life, he didn’t look tired.I kept staring at him, trying to remember the last time I had really looked at his face. But my mind kept swinging back to the man outside the gate.The service moved fast. The pastor spoke. People sang. The paid crying women cried louder whenever the pastor paused for effect.As soon as the service ended and people began moving out toward the courtyard, I looked for my mother. I found her standing beside the church steps, fixing her headtie with shaking fingers.“Mummy.”She didn’t answer.“Who was that man at the gate?”Her fingers stopped moving on the satin cloth.“Which man?”“The one standing by the car before they closed the gate.”She looked at me. For a long moment, she said nothing.Then she turned her eyes toward the hearse waiting in the driveway.“Your father.”I almost laughed. “I know. Papa is inside...”“No.” Her voice was barely audible. “Not Papa.”I stared at her.She looked away, down at her black shoes. “He was the man who got me pregnant.”The noise of people talking around us seemed to fade out.She sat down on the low concrete step, her wrapper pulled tight around her knees.“He ran when I was pregnant,” she whispered. “He only came back when you were three, saying his family wanted to take you to the village. I told him if he touched you, I would lock him up and throw away the key.”“And Papa knew?”She nodded. “He knew you weren’t his.”I swallowed hard. “Then why did he stay?”My mother wiped her face with the back of her hand, leaving a smear of white powder on her cheek.“Because he saw me selling oranges on the road with you on my back,” she said softly. “He bought the oranges. He came back the next day. And the next. When I told him the truth, he said he didn’t care.”She swallowed, her eyes fixed on the black hearse.“For all those years, he paid your school fees. He woke up before you to iron your school shirt. He came to every parents’ meeting. He waited outside your school when it rained.”She gave a small laugh that broke halfway through.“His family called me a witch. The whole compound said I was a wicked woman who trapped a good man.”“And you?”“I didn’t love him at first,” she whispered. “I just needed help.”She looked toward the casket being carried out down the aisle.“By the time I realized what he was to me...”She stopped.I finished it for her. “He was already sick.”She nodded quietly.We sat like that for a moment, surrounded by the sound of car doors slamming and drivers revving engines in the church yard.Then she stood up, dusting her wrapper. “Come. They are waiting.”I followed her into the family bus everyone had come In.Nobody spoke for the entire thirty-minute drive to the cemetery. The engine hummed. The heat in the bus was thick. My mother stared out at the Agege traffic, her hands folded tightly in her lap.I kept thinking about Papa.Not the man at the gate.Papa. The man who never once corrected me when I called him Papa.The man who woke up at 4am to iron my white school shirt.The man who ate his cold food after a 12-hour shift.The man who never complained.Never shouted.Just showed up.Every single day. When the bus finally stopped, we stepped out into the blinding midday heat.We walked side by side down the narrow dirt paths of the cemetery, weaving between overgrown grass and cracked tombstones until we reached the open pit.The grave diggers were standing by with shovels, waiting.As they lowered the wooden box into the red mud, nobody spoke. I watched the thick ropes disappear into the ground.Then I looked at my mother.Her hands were shaking. She reached for mine. Her fingers brushed mine first, hesitant, before she gripped my hand tight. She was trembling, waiting for me to pull away.I didn’t.“Mummy,” I said softly, looking down into the pit.She looked at me.“I hear people say women are wicked, I didn't believe up until now."Her hand went completely still. She held her breath.I squeezed her fingers back, tight. “Thank God you chose wickedness wisely, to allow Papa be my father.”She let out a long, ragged breath, her grip tightening until it almost hurt.My mother bent down first. She scooped up a handful of the dry red earth and dropped it onto the box below.I reached down after her, scooped up my own handful, dropped it onto the box, and listened to it land with a soft thud."Thank you for staying, Papa." I whispered..

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