Stepmother
If you run an online search for the word: ‘Stepmother’, you will be greeted by a rash of cartoon characters depicting wicked stepmothers. If you persist in your search, you might come across a number of stories such as the one by the Daily Mail, which told the story of a stepmother who started the fire that killed her husband and horribly scarred her stepdaughter.
It would appear that there are no good role models for step-mothers. Well, here is one: In HELPMEET, Lola Babalola tells the story of three generations of step-mothers who change the narrative about step-mothers!
Yao’s business trip was a disaster. He fell into the hands of fraudsters and lost all his money. He had nowhere to turn, he was flat-broke and out of options. So he decided to take a chance and go back to his father, certain that he could count on getting a sympathetic ear from his stepmother.
He finally summoned up the courage and went to see his father, arriving some six months after he should have left for the U.S. It was a much grander house and there was a security guard at the gate who asked if he had a prior appointment. He filled a form and waited but he was not invited in, his father apparently refusing to see him. Since the security guard would not let him in without authorization, Yao sat at the gate house and for the second time since he returned from Ghana, he wondered what possessed him to throw away his one shot at doing something phenomenal with his life, allowing his uneducated mother to talk him out of following his through with his study plans. He no longer cared if his stepmother was plotting to send him away.
“What would it matter if I don’t inherit the old man’s house, as long as I can go away to a place where no one knows I am an illegitimate child? Who cares about inheriting father’s house if I can have my own?“, he thought, as he remembered a heated argument he had with his mother the day before.
Yao used to believe his mother’s account of the circumstances surrounding her aborted marriage plans to his father but as he grew older, he started to ask questions and his mother’s stories no longer added up. Besides, living with her and her husband, he had ample opportunity to witness his mother’s temper and was not naive about his father’s reluctance to make a life with his mother. So when she started going on about the day she and he would chase his stepmother out and take over his Father’s new suburban home, he did not want to hear anymore.
“Okay, stop. Stop already, Mother! You know what? I don’t really fancy waiting around for someone to die before I can make anything out of my own life. I want to get a good education and if I can, I would actually prefer to do it far away from here!” he had blurted out in frustration to his mother, interrupting her favorite tirade about her impending joy when she finally gets a chance to pay Yao’s father back for abandoning her and putting her and her son at a disadvantage.
Yao had started to find his mother’s scheming irritating. It sounded small-minded and self-serving. He grudgingly admitted to himself that he liked the future he had planned out for himself with his stepmother’s help and he thought if that was what being at a disadvantage was like, he was all for it. Yao shook his head as if to get the cobwebs out of his skull.
He needed to get back on track and he knew he needed his stepmother as an ally in that effort, so he waited at the gate in the hope that he would get a glimpse of her and a chance to speak to her. It was not long before he saw his stepmother’s car pulling out of the driveway.
When Rhoda learned that Yao was at the gate on that Saturday morning, she tried to talk her husband into seeing his son but he was irate.
“I regret wasting all that money on such an irresponsible boy. I have nothing to say to him. If he has chosen to be a good for nothing, that is his choice. I have done my part. Let him go and spend his precious gold earnings” Albert fumed.
“He made a mistake, darling. I am sure he is sorry. Why don’t you give him a chance to explain himself? He is your son”. Rhoda tried in vain to convince her husband.
“He is no longer my son” Albert said as he turned his attention to his newspaper.
Rhoda was upset that her husband was being so difficult. She could see Yao pacing back and forth at the gate from the study window and did not feel right leaving him outdoors like a beggar. After a while, she went into the kitchen and came back out.
“I need to get to the fruit market. I will be right back” she said as she grabbed her purse and car keys.
Albert knew his wife was going to meet the boy.
“Don’t bring any strays back home” Albert said.
He knew his wife’s tender heart was hurt so he tried to lighten the situation with a joke. Rhoda did not so much as smile as she headed out of the door.
As he expected, Yao’s stepmother stopped the car as she drove out of the gate, leaning over to the passenger door to unlock it. “Get in” she said as she drove away from the house quickly before her husband could see Yao getting in her car. Rhoda drove him to a restaurant for a meal and then to the bus station where gave her stepson some money after she had listened to his recollection of how he got off-track. She knew he was embellishing his stories to get her sympathy but she could not afford to focus on that.
“I don’t know if we can persuade your father to fund another overseas degree but we can look at other options”, she said.
“Anything“, Yao replied, relieved that she was still on his side.
“Why don’t you start applying to other universities locally and once you have an offer of admission, come and see your father. He will probably feel better about things if he sees you are making an honest effort to get back into school” she tried to encourage him.
Yao stepped out of the car and as he turned to walk towards the bus terminus, Rhoda said to him: “Yao, keep your chin up. I will keep speaking to your father. Don’t worry. Everything will be just fine. You’ll see”.
She did not see Yao again until he ran out of money many months later. Over the next twenty years, this became the pattern of their relationship.
– Excerpt from HELPMEET by Lola Babalola
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