WANDERER’S FATE

The Breaking Point

But then, out of nowhere, he returned.

He walked into our home like nothing had ever happened, his presence as cold and imposing as ever. There was no apology, no hint of regret in his eyes. He was accompanied by the woman—the second wife.

It was as if time had warped. For a moment, everything around us stood still. And then, with chilling casualness, he introduced her to my mother. His voice devoid of any emotion, he said, “Meet my second wife.”

In that instant, I thought my mother would break. I thought she would cry, scream, collapse under the weight of this betrayal. I braced myself for an explosion of pain and anger. But it never came. My mother, with a strength that stunned us all, said nothing. She didn’t flinch, didn’t show a shred of sorrow. Instead, in a tone colder than the room, she extended her hand and prayed for this woman. Prayed for her.I could see the shock on my father’s face. We were all frozen in disbelief.

The second wife stayed for a few days and then left, but that wasn’t the end of the torment. The beatings stopped, not because my father had changed, but because he was rarely home. He was spending more time with his new wife, leaving my mother to bear the weight of it all in silence. But something shifted in the air—the house felt quieter, but there was an oppressive heaviness that we couldn’t shake.

Soon after, my mother reached out to her mother in the village. My older brother, the one who had lived with Grandma, was sent for. To everyone’s surprise, my father agreed. In fact, he even sent money for my brother’s travel to Lagos. I thought maybe this would make things easier. With my older brother back, things might be different. But I was wrong. What I thought was a new chapter was just another beginning.

My mother became emotionally unavailable to me. She still cared for my siblings, but it was as if I had become invisible to her. My brother’s presence didn’t soften the tension in the house. It only made the air thicker, more suffocating. The emotional walls around my mother grew higher, and I was left to fend for myself in a world where love felt like a distant memory.

Then came the worst news—my mother was pregnant again. She told my father, but he didn’t respond the way we all expected. He denied the pregnancy, dismissed it as nothing. Days passed, and the weight of the rejection grew heavier. Eventually, he accepted the pregnancy, but I could sense that this wasn’t a victory. It felt like another battle in a war we had already lost.

And then came the storm.

One night, after my father had been out drinking and fighting with his second wife, he came home in a rage. The house, once quiet, was suddenly filled with the deafening sound of his fists pounding against my mother. He beat her—brutally, relentlessly—until she couldn’t stand. His fists collided with her, knocking the wind from her body. Her screams filled the house, but they couldn’t drown out the sound of his voice, his anger, his fury. He kicked her stomach with such force that I thought she might not survive.

My mother, battered and broken, ran from him, trying to escape his wrath, but she tripped and fell into the unfinished part of the septic tank. The dirt caved in under her, and she lay there in agony, unable to move. The neighbors gathered, too afraid to confront him directly, but they tried to stop him by shouting. “You’ll kill her! She’s pregnant! Don’t you care?”

But it didn’t matter. Nothing ever mattered to him.