“I'll never settle.” It was the line that rang from my praying lips every morning. Like most young girls my age, the goal was simple: I will go to school, graduate with good grades and my husband will come. Or rather, God will give me a befitting man, one that was rich enough to give me the life I deserved. I had seen this plot too many times.

The first time Uwem smacked me, I sat on his bed, my hands quivering on my damp thighs and convinced myself that I had walked too far and I wasn’t settling for him. I was settling for us—me, my father and the small bulge in my stomach.

I met Uwem at my father’s 58th birthday dinner. It wasn’t the first time I would see him at a family or social gathering. It was the first time he spoke to me directly. Uwem was one of those Uyo boys—the kind to hustle for minor political positions, the Special Advisers to Special Advisers. It was also the week Dara was getting married to her longtime partner, Kalu.

“Why don’t we just have two parties at once?” Dara asked for the umpteenth time.

“Do you know who your father is? I’m too big for my daughter to have such a quiet wedding. I can afford it, so why not?” Pastor would respond in his usual way.

Left to her and Kalu, there would be no lavish show of opulence in the name of their wedding. They would have had it in the small garden in our family house. The same one our mother killed herself in. Pastor would hear nothing of it. 

Pastor was what everyone called my dad, not because he was called by God, ran a church, or was an upstanding man. The congregation of boys who convened in our large compound every Sunday evening earned him that title. He was the typical politician who had boys running at the click clack of his mules. I couldn’t blame them. Pastor was an inspirational and fashionable man who had a way with words.

Uwem was one of those boys, but there was a catch to him. He saw his future in father, with a few alterations he would often discuss with me as we lay in bed. He didn’t agree with most of what Pastor taught during his Sunday evening bar sermons and was vocal about it. Pastor said he always had interesting angles. I knew he was loved by Pastor, my mother and eventually, me. Dara hated him.

Although I was away from home when Pastor was made our local government chairman, I knew he was a bad man. I’d heard whispers from when Dara came to visit me for a few weeks. They said Pastor’s boys were tearing down containers and kiosks that locals used for business. He was on a mission to “make Uyo clean”. However, anyone who read between the lines knew. More empty land for Pastor meant more shops would be built and more money would be made. From time to time, I wondered about the people whose means of livelihood would be cut because of him. Nothing could be done.

Make no mistake, Pastor was a religious man. He spoke of a god who did wonders and gave him access to places his ordinary mind could not fathom. He spoke of sacrifices he had made to be worthy of something called double honour. The kind that made him councillor, chairman and by his predictions, would have made him governor. 

He also constantly reminded us that not all that glitters–especially his rings and unnecessary shiny furniture–is gold. So while Pastor was a wealthy man, he was also a stingy man. He made it clear we had to labour for our money just like he did. The ways we would get it done, he didn't care about. His rules were simple: We would not become spoiled girls on his account and there would be no “abroad” schooling on his tab. Dara and I would have to study extra hard to get the scholarships we did with our mother's support, and while she encouraged us to be career-ambitious women, her life became my ambition. I was going to get married to a wealthy statesman. 

***

Franca was beautiful. Some men described her beauty as spectacular. I always thought that was an exaggeration. She was magnificent, we would all agree but….

“Anwan Pastor ayaya tutu!”

The men at the Sunday gathering would sometimes chant, led by their moderator and mother would flash a coy smile. She would wave and shout, “Iden emedi-o!” To which they would respond “O!” and that was it. She never said more than that in those meetings. 

Behind this “spectacle”, Franca was a woman full of life. A woman who made our lives happy. She filled the multiple voids Pastor intentionally left open in a bid to make us hard, independent women. Franca was as educated as they came. She had, immediately after her undergraduate degree, pursued a master’s degree before meeting Pastor. Then they had Dara, and then me. Then it ended. When Pastor began to fill important roles, she became a conventional politician’s wife. Appearing in several occasions , sporting fripperies as he suggested, hosting mboho iban as often as her other engagements would allow her.

My mother was a comfortable social being. She was outgoing and her beauty made it easy for men and women to gravitate towards her. But there was always the lurking belief that she was a naive woman. I thought so too. While some women thought and often voiced that she was a lucky woman who needed to ignore Pastor’s conspicuous frolicking and focus on enjoying, making the most of her time, some men seemed to think she deserved better. And ‘better’ was them. 

I came to know about this in 2014. I had just completed secondary school, waiting to hear back from at least one of the scholarships my mother had helped me apply to. My favourite pastime then was scrolling on Facebook, chatting with my friends. I was there when it broke out. A man had posted candid pictures of my mother, Franca, Pastor’s wife and captioned it “Smash or pass”. That was when the rumours began: Pastor had a beautiful wife he couldn’t tame. Awan Pastor positioned herself as an object of desire for small boys to lust after, was the word on the street. These rumours were championed specially by the same women who told her to enjoy her time. 

The comments on similar posts were filled with what Pastor would call carnal compliments as he landed his heavy fists on her after returning from one of his trips while I and Dara watched. Some replied with “smash” while others went on to talk about how they would hang her from the headboards of their beds—which I judged from their profiles, didn’t exist—and give her. Broke boys, those ones. And even though I was old enough to tell that mother was the victim from what was happening, my resolution was that I would never end up with one of those small men. I had to be like my mother, marry rich and live well. After all, I was her spitting image. 

***

Now that I think about it, Pastor should have asked his god to make him worthy of triple honour. Maybe it would have secured him his sure seat in the state government. Or anything but this pit he put all of us in. Because nothing prepared us for the events that followed. 

Mother died mysteriously on the 21st October, 2020. She killed herself, was what Dara and I were told. Pastor met her cold body in the garden. In her right hand was a bottle of Sniper, he said. We were away from home in London due to covid lockdown when it happened and were only able to return a week after. Dara wailed uncontrollably, while I stood frozen on the spot. We had just gotten back home with the intent to surprise everyone with our homecoming. That was the plan. Pastor was already hosting an open-coffin wake when he was yet to break the news to us. 

“You already had so much on your plate. I didn’t want you to worry,” he would later tell us pacifyingly. 

I would watch him entertain his guests who consoled him with gentle arm rubs and firm lingering handshakes. I barely saw him shed a tear outside that. It didn’t bother me much. At the end of the day, he was a man. About a month after our return home, our mother was given a proper funeral. She was draped in a gorgeous white dress with precious jewellery she didn't wear when she was alive. Pastor was going all out. A few weeks later, a new woman would move into our home. 

“I need the company,” Pastor explained and we let him be.

I didn’t return to London after mother’s burial. My supply had been cut off and being that I didn’t put away any money or prepare for any emergencies outside the money she used to give me, I was stranded in Nigeria. Dara left two months later on Kalu’s invitation. There was the hope that she would cover my expenses too, but besides the money she was going to set up her life with, she couldn’t afford to take me back with her. Pastor refused to sponsor my move. Franca was gone and my life stopped. I started accompanying Pastor on his numerous outings and even became popular among his friends’ children and his congregation. 

“Kase nagha akamma iso nte eka.” Some of them would comment on my uncanny resemblance to my mother. But that was as far as I would involve myself in any of his political dealings. I needed a way out fast.

***

“You know you can’t run forever, right?” A voice said beside me after one of my friends left the table. Pastor’s birthday celebrations were called “dinners”, but they were no small ones. There were over a hundred and fifty people seated in the hall, if the planner’s list was anything to go by. I turned to face it and Uwem sat to my right with the now vacant seat between us.

 “I don’t get” was my response, and the rest, they say, is history. I spent most of that evening getting to know him beyond surface information I had already gathered from their Sunday meetings. Uwem was it. Dara, who was around with Kalu for their wedding that week, wasn't so pleased to hear about my catch. “There’s no difference between him and the other boys. Valid dissenting points or not.”

It was this conversation that rang in my head after Uwem’s palm had left it ringing so loud I was afraid it would never stop. It was the fourth time we would journey this road.

 “Do you think you are worth anything?” he yelled, worsening the ringing effects. It would be a miracle that I didn’t get tinnitus from this. “All your years in London, only to return without a good job. Do you think I married you so you can sit around?”

I stopped hearing after that because I slumped, half-conscious. That was when Dara arrived with the people she brought to save me. A few weeks into recovery, Uwem visited against all restrictions. Now a powerful man, he came to remind me of one thing: Pastor killed Franca, so he could do as he liked with me and get away with it. I watched the door while he spoke, hoping that Dara would walk in that minute. She did. They said nothing to each other, just exchanged hard glances and she gestured for him to leave. Uwem looked at me with false pity in his eyes. It was the same look I saw in Pastor all through the activities that were arranged for my mother's funeral. That was when I knew. It was either Pastor’s career took a left turn, or my life never went right. I had chosen.

***

A lonely tear rolled down my right cheek as I watched the play from the bottom row of the theatre. The curtains started closing and I rose and walked to a corner to watch the audience with great anticipation as it came to the end. I had sat through forty minutes of my old life displayed on a large stage in Lagos. It had become home. Pastor had since died from shock of being apprehended for mother’s murder. Uwem was history and I had long miscarried the evidence that we had ever laid together. I pursued drama with my literature degree and although I had done quite a number of plays, this was my favourite one yet. It was the first time I would talk about the chapter of my life called less.

Cover photo credit: Prince Akachi on Unsplash.