The Secret of Joy

Excerpts

For Ms B

My mother closed her eyes and put her head in her hands as my father stood up immediately and pointed to the front door of our home. You are never to set foot in this house again…as far as I am concerned you are dead to me. With a pained cry for help, my mother leapt to her feet and knelt down beside me and began begging my father. Weeping profusely, she pleaded with him not to take this stand. If I had looked up that day, I may have seen the look on my father – the dejected look of a man who was losing control of everything he believed in. He walked past us that day and my mother followed behind him still pleading with him to change his mind. It would be the last time I would see my father in a long time. While it was the most difficult decision I had ever had to make I did not think it was fair for me to trade my joy for his.

Two months later, on a breezy morning at the Ikoyi Registry in Lagos, Nduka and I became husband and wife.