SECRETS: MOTHER KNOWS BEST

“I’m so sorry, Sade.”
Eyes narrowed, she shook her head, confused. “What exactly is going on, Niyi?
Niyi blew out a breath with his mouth, ran his hands over his face and turned to Kunle, who was staring at Bunmi with a look of shock on his face. “Kunle.”
Slowly, he turned his head to look at Niyi and his eyes narrowed. “Yes, what exactly is going on, sir?”
“I am your father, Kunle. Your mother and I…”
“You brought your mistress to live in my house?”
He turned back to an open-mouthed Sade and shook his head quickly. “It wasn’t that way, at all. Agnes has never been my mistress. I had a brief relationship with her and that ended almost two years before you came into my life.”
Still looking at his wife, he waved a hand in Kunle’s direction. “Kunle was born, as a result of that relationship.”

Tears fell rapidly from her eyes and wiping them away, she whipped her head away from him. “How could you keep something like that from me, Adeniyi?” She turned back to him, tapping her fingers rapidly on the side stool between their chairs. “When was I supposed to find out?”
Her eyes narrowed. “In another will, maybe?”
He leaned over his chair, to grab her hand and she snatched it away. He sighed deeply and leaned back on the back of his chair. “I didn’t always know about him, Sade.”
Shaking his head, he waved his left hand. “That’s not entirely true.”

He leaned forward now and looked at Kunle, who was listening with rapt attention. “In November 1981, after series of feasibility studies, a decision was made to expand the family business. So, by late January, I was asked by my father to go to Ibadan and broker the transaction that eventually saw us taking over a company that made plastics there. Your mother was the MD’s secretary then and we often worked together. She was young and beautiful and one thing led to another between us.”
He sighed deeply and turned, till he was facing his wife again. “That didn’t last long, because we soon realized that we didn’t have an emotional connection. We tried to stay friendly, but unknown to either of us, Kunle had been conceived already. She found out just before I returned to Lagos, in April.”
He turned again, to look at Kunle. “I asked her to have an abortion.”
Kunle looked away and Bunmi gasped. He turned his head and saw tears streaming down her face. Shaking his head in regret, he turned back to Kunle, who was staring at the door. “You have to understand, son. We were no longer together.”
Sade shook her head and said brokenly, “Son?” She had heard her husband call Kunle that before, but it had never bothered her, till now. She started crying and Niyi stood to go to her.
“I’m so sorry, dear.”
She shoved his hands away. “Leave me alone, liar! If this hadn’t happened, you would have taken this secret to your grave. Niyi, you put yams together with goats and expected them not to be eaten. Now, look what you’ve caused. Bunmi has children for her brother!”
Niyi closed his eyes and shook his head, then turned. While he slowly walked back to his chair, she looked at Kunle and looked away immediately, when she noticed the tears on his face. Shaking her head, her voice became softer, “I was right in keeping them apart, after all. I was only too late.”

All eyes turned on her. “Keeping us apart?”

“Yes, Bunmi.” Her eyes flashed in defiance, as she turned to her daughter. “Did you think that I didn’t have eyes?” She clucked her tongue and waved her hand dismissively. “You didn’t fool me when you suddenly started coming home later than you usually would, giving all manner of excuses too.”

She rolled her eyes now. “There was always a friend you had to meet up or something you had to do after work. Suddenly, you weren’t sure if you wanted to return to the States, to continue your education. You told me, as often as you could, that after four years away, you wanted to explore what Nigeria had for you.”
She rolled her eyes again. “I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. I suspected that there was a man in the picture and I waited for you to confide in me, like a good daughter.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Do you remember the day you told me you were going on a picnic with some of your friends? You left the house very early and were gone all day.”
She shook her head and clucked her tongue again. “I found out that you had lied, when I saw Kunle drop you off that night. I had taken a walk and was on my way home, when I saw his car packed a few houses away from here. It was dark, but as I walked closer, I saw two people kissing inside the car, oblivious to the world. I recognized your pink halter dress and quickly walked past, in shock.”
Bunmi’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her eyes darted to her father, who was staring at his wife, in surprise. Quickly, she turned her attention back to Sade.
“You showed no shame, Bunmi! You could have had anyone…” She snapped her finger once and continued, “…anyone at all, of all the suitors you had. Ambassador Kolawole’s son, a dashing young man, was ready to marry you immediately. Why did you have to choose the son of our housekeeper?”
Bunmi started crying. “I loved him mum!” she cried out and Kunle turned his head quickly to her.
Sade’s eyes narrowed. “Love? A love that was doomed, even from the start? Was that why you couldn’t look me in the face, when you eventually got home?”
She shook her head sadly and asked, “Could there have been some part of you that knew how wrong such a love was?”
She turned to her husband and spoke slowly, “Niyi, you have brought an abomination into our lives and I will never forgive you!”
Standing abruptly, she said, “Where is that snake, who dared to sneak into my home with her bastard son?”

She marched out of the living room, with Bunmi in hot pursuit, still in tears. “Mummy!” she pleaded. “Please listen to me. There has to be a better way to handle this.”
On the corridor, she grabbed her mother’s hand and after Sade tried unsuccessfully to pull away, she turned to Bunmi, leaned into her, held her waist and started sobbing.
After a while, she allowed her daughter pull her back to the living room, where Kunle paced. Niyi was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, but immediately they walked in, he sat erect and looked up, watching his wife.
After leading her mother to her chair, Bunmi dried her eyes and left the room again.

“Ma Agnes, where are my children?”
The woman looked up from the cook book she had been poring over and smiled widely. When she saw the cold look on Bunmi’s face, she slowly shut the book and spoke slowly, “Oh, you’re back, Bunmi. You must have come home when I went to my house to…”
“Where are my children?”
Ma Agnes frowned, puzzled at her icy tone. ‘They are outside, playing on the swings.”
Bunmi’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s watching them?”
“Yetunde.” She was the nanny Sade had hired, just before the burial.
She nodded briskly. “Good. Please, come with me.”
Uneasy, she followed Bunmi into the living room and immediately she saw the others, her heart rate increased. She had come into the kitchen, through the back of the house and hadn’t seen Kunle’s car.
He must have packed in front of the house.
When he stopped pacing, to stare at her with a mixture of anger and sadness, she understood the reason for Bunmi’s attitude.

Sade looked up and Agnes saw the tears streaming down her face. Quickly, she fell to her knees and spoke, “Please, forgive me, ma.”
“Forgive you for what, exactly?” She shook her head slowly. “You…you scheming snake!”
Still kneeling, she stretched her hands out, in a pleading gesture. Sade stood and moved closer, her eyes filled with venom. “I was good to you. I treated you a lot better than most people treat their helps. For goodness sake, you were almost like family! Yet, for such a long time, you lied to me.”
Bunmi rushed to her feet and held her mother, stopping her from moving any closer to Agnes.
“Why?”
When she heard that whisper, she turned to Kunle. “I thought it was the best thing to do, at the time. I did it all for you, my son.”
He shook his head and turned away from her. As he slowly went back to his chair, he spoke, “The woman that covered up, so elaborately, couldn’t have been you. I don’t know her.”
She turned to Sade and sat on her haunches. Closing her eyes, she said softly, “I’m so sorry. No one was supposed to be hurt. That wasn’t my plan.”
Sade laughed mirthlessly. “How noble of you! You failed to make that plan of yours foolproof, though. You connived with my husband, to bring into my home, his…”
She cast her eyes on Kunle and shook her head sadly. Then, she turned her head to Niyi, who was gripping the arms of his chair tightly and whispered, “You brought incest into my home.”
He covered his face and moaned, while Bunmi put her head on her laps, as sobs wracked her body. Looking from father to daughter, Agnes bent her head and started crying.
When she suddenly wiped her eyes and looked up, a look of determination was on her face. Looking at Niyi, she spoke softly. “I have wronged you, sir and I have wronged your family.”
She turned her face to Sade. “There was no baby.”

Sade narrowed her eyes, while Niyi uncovered his face and stared at her in confusion. When Bunmi slowly looked up, she continued, “Even though you gave me money to have an abortion, I decide to keep the baby, but fate had other plans.”
Looking at Niyi, she continued, “Two weeks after you left for Lagos, I had a miscarriage.”
“What!”
“Kunle is not your son.”
Eyes narrowed, he shook his head slowly. “But…you…said…”
Bunmi and Sade exchanged glances, when Agnes slowly stood and made her way to Kunle. When she bent and attempted to take his left hand, he pulled it away and looked away. She straightened and sighed deeply, before going to sit on the chair beside him.
Turning her attention to Niyi, she continued, “I had been devastated when I lost the baby and gradually, I started to blame you for that. You knew I was an orphan and had no one. Yet, you nonchalantly told me to abort our… my child. In my mind, if you hadn’t been so disinterested, I would have had a living baby.”
“A few months after your company took ours over, some of the administrative staff were let go.” She rubbed her eyes with her left hand and continued, “It was a difficult time for me, really. I understood that the new management wanted to infuse new blood into the company. However, I also knew that if you had wanted to, you would have helped me keep my job. It became obvious that you didn’t care about me, at all. The longer I went without a job, I became very bitter.”
She turned to the side to look at Kunle and smiled, “Then, I met your father. He made me so happy and he made me forget. He promised to take care of me and he did.”
Her eyes became sad again. “In June 1982, a few weeks to our wedding, he died in a car crash. I was devastated, but I tried to be strong, till I had you on January 17th 1983.”
“1983?”
She turned to Bunmi and nodded. “I had to alter his birth year, to make your father believe me.” She looked at Niyi, who was leaning forward again, his head back in his hands. “I got another job after I had him, but the pay was less than what I earned before. It was tough and very lonely, as a single mother.”
“By 1987, Williams-Akanbi Conglomerate was a high profile company. I didn’t deal very well with hearing about them in the news and even though I avoided using any of their numerous products, they were everywhere! Gradually, some of my earlier bitterness re-surfaced.” She put her left hand over her eyes and bent her head in shame, before continuing in a low voice, “I felt entitled to some compensation, really.”
“Compensation?” Kunle spat out.
“I was wrong, Kunle. I know that now,” she muttered.

She raised her head and turned teary eyes on Sade. “My plan was never to move into your home. It all spiraled out of control when I came to Lagos to meet your husband.”
She sniffed and shrugged sadly. “I knew, from newspaper reports, that he was married and had a two-year old daughter, so I thought that he was just going to send me away with some money. You know…pay me off… or something.”
“How were you able to convince my husband that Kunle was his?”
Niyi raised his head and spoke through clenched teeth, “I don’t know what this woman is up to, really.”
He turned to his wife and shook his head slowly. “She showed me a birth certificate that indicated that his birth was registered in June 1982. My name was on it, as the baby’s father, and according to it, Kunle was born on January 17th 1982.”
He turned to face her and Agnes lowered her head and spoke slowly, “After parting with a little money, it wasn’t difficult convincing a clerk in a local government council office in Ibadan to give me that. He gave me a sheet of paper and I put down exactly what I wanted on the fake document. He didn’t ask a lot of questions and neither did I, days later, when I got the birth certificate I gave to you.”
She raised her head and looked at him. “I have the real birth certificate in my house. I can show you.”
She turned her body, till she was facing Kunle. “David would have wanted you to have his name, so I made sure that was on your birth certificate. I didn’t just make up any surname for the sworn declaration of age you used for school and…”
He jumped up from his chair. “This is unbelievable!” Shaking his head, his voice lowered, as he asked slowly, “Who are you?”
Tears streamed down her face. “I wanted to give you a better life, son.”
“By deceiving my husband?”
She turned quickly to Sade, “I’m so sorry, ma. It all spiraled out of my control.”

Her mind went back to the conversation she had with Niyi in his office.
Standing, facing the wide windows in his office and with his back to her, he said, “I want my son.”
When she gasped, he turned and looked at her. The look on his face made her heart sink.
“I want my son,” he repeated.
“I’m his mother.”
“And I’m his father!”
She shook her head. “That’s not possible, Niyi. I can’t give up my son.” She stood to leave. “It was a mistake coming here.”
He shook his head and spoke slowly, “Don’t even think about taking off with him.” His eyes narrowed. “If you do, I will hunt you… and I will find you.”
Smiling slightly, he added, “Then, I will take him away from you.”
Slowly, she sat and he went behind his desk, sat across her and they talked.
Agnes looked at Niyi, before turning back to Sade. “He wanted Kunle to live with him, but he didn’t want you to know that he was his son, so he came up with a plan to employ me as a housekeeper here.”

Sade turned to her husband slowly and remembered how he had cajoled her into employing a housekeeper.
Lying in bed together, his arms around her, he said gently, “I’ve been thinking.”
Turning to face him, she smiled. “About?”
“Getting another help for you.”
She raised an eyebrow, “We have a help already. This house isn’t so big, so we don’t need another person working here.”
“We won’t always live in such a tiny house, you know,” he teased.
“Don’t insult my house, abeg. With three bedrooms, it’s big enough for a small family.” she laughed.
“I think we should get someone older. Most of these young girls don’t have their heads in the right place.”
She pushed away from him and sat up, twisting her body so she could look at him. “Niyi, we don’t need another help. Kemi is a responsible girl and I also don’t want an older woman, who would most likely give me attitude, in my own house.”
He reached out and stroked her waist. “If we get someone you’re comfortable with, she’ll live in the boys’ quarters, just like Kemi. She’ll take the second room, there. That way, she won’t be in your face so much.”
She turned away from him and folded her arms on her chest. “I don’t know about that, Niyi.”
He touched her back gently and said, “The doctors said…”
“Niyi, I will never be able to have another child, even if I put my feet up and did nothing all day. I think it’s time I went back to work, really. I’m fully recovered now and I miss my job.”
He smiled. “You see? If you have to go back to work, you do need an older woman in the house to take care of Bunmi, when she comes home from school.”
Smiling gently, she turned to him and bent to touch his face. “I played into your hands there, right?” Lying down again, she said, “I’ll think about it.”
She shook her head sadly now. “You had an elaborate plan to hoodwink me, didn’t you?” She stood. “Sort this mess out.”
Turning to Agnes, she said, “I want this…” She closed her eyes for a few seconds, then took a deep breath. “…this thing out of my house today.”
Head held high, she walked out of the living room. Bunmi stood and stared at Kunle for a while, before following her mother upstairs.
There was silence for a while, till Niyi spoke, “I want to see the birth certificate you have.”
Slowly, Agnes got up and left the living room. Niyi picked up his phone and made a call. “James, if Agnes comes to the gate, do not let her out.”
Kunle sighed deeply and rubbed his eyes with his right hand.

Thirty minutes later, Niyi walked into the master bedroom. Lying on her belly, his wife refused to look up. Bunmi was sitting beside her, silently rubbing her back. She looked at him, when he came in. Never had she seen her father look so unsure of himself. She looked away from him, when he approached the bed.
“Sade.”
There was no response, so he pleaded, “I’m so sorry, my dear. I didn’t know how to tell you.”
Her voice was muffled, “Twenty-six years was enough time to mention that your son was living in my home.”
“He’s not mine, Sade.”
When she said nothing, he added, “Take a look at this.”
Slowly, she rolled over to her back and reached for the short piece of paper her was extending. She quickly ran her eyes over it.
Date of birth: January 17th 1983
She continued on, till she saw the next detail she was searching for.
Name of father: David Alabi Ifeoluwa
A look at the top of the birth certificate told her that Kunle’s birth had been registered on February 2nd 1983.
She looked up at Niyi and frowned. “This doesn’t mean anything. This could have also been forged.” She dropped the paper on the bed and Bunmi picked it up.
“I think she’s telling the truth, this time, but I’m not taking any chances. We’re going for a paternity test now.”
Walking to the wardrobe to pick out clothes, he tossed over his shoulder, “We’re all going.”

“Mummy, what did you mean, when you said that you deliberately kept Kunle and me apart, five years ago?”
That had nagged at her for a while, but she had refrained from asking her mother, till the hurt from her father’s betrayal receded a bit.
It was almost two weeks since they had found out and, in that time, Sade had moved into the spare room, opposite the room that was now Bunmi’s.
“I can’t share a bed with a stranger,” she told Bunmi, anytime she pleaded with her to work things out with her father.
The results of the paternity tests were going to be ready tomorrow, but the wait had made the entire time pass very slowly. There had not even been work to distract her; because, she had avoided going to her father’s office, as she hadn’t want to run into Kunle there.
This morning, it suddenly occurred to her that she was running out of time, in getting all the answers she needed; because, she had only two days to let the lawyers know what her decision was.
Sade sighed and looked away. “Do we have to talk about that now? It’s not important, anyway.”
“I will decide if it’s important or not.”
“Don’t tell me you’re even considering marrying that boy,” she said, peering at her daughter’s face. When Bunmi stared back at her, without saying a thing, she exclaimed, “You can’t be serious!”
Leaning over the rocking chair to touch Bunmi lightly, her voice mellowed, “Sweetie, even if he turns out not to be your brother, you can’t marry him.”
Raising an eyebrow, she asked quietly. “Why?”
“Because, he’s not good enough for you!”
When Bunmi’s eyebrow remained raised, she looked away and spoke, “The night your father asked you to leave the house, you forgot your phone here, remember?” Bunmi nodded and she continued, “I didn’t know that, till you called me from your grandma’s house. I went to your room and retrieved it, then.”
She looked away from her daughter’s steady gaze. “For the first time in my life, I snooped through your stuff. I noticed that there were lots of calls between you and I also found text messages that confirmed my suspicions.”
“Why didn’t you tell daddy?”
She shook her head. “It was one thing to know that my daughter preferred commoners to royalty…” she ignored Bunmi’s narrowed eyes and continued, “… and another to have it out there in the open. Your father would have had you marry him.”
She smiled sardonically. “At least, that was what I thought. I didn’t know he had a secret that would have made him fight that.”
She was quiet for some time, before saying, “He called you.”
Bunmi’s eyes opened wide. “Yes, he kept calling, but I didn’t pick. Soon, I turned off the sound, so that your father wouldn’t hear the phone ring. He sent text messages too, full of…” She waved a hand dismisssively. “… romantic nonsense.”
She rolled her eyes and continued, “What he didn’t know was that, he was heading to France for the week-long International Trade Convention.”
She smiled. “You see, my dear, I spoke to your father the morning after you left and convinced him to go with Kunle. My argument was that he needed someone he trusted with the business, to go with him, since he was too emotionally drained. Kunle had a valid visa, so your father was only too happy to heed my advice. By then, his text messages, to you, indicated that he had become worried. All morning, he called, till your battery became flat, but I was careful to charge it a bit before I gave it to you.” She smiled again and shrugged. “They left that night.”

“Was that why you didn’t bring my phone to me quickly?” When Sade nodded, she slowly got off the rocking chair and paced the porch. “You only came to see me the day we left for New York almost a week later. You said daddy had forbidden you to see me.”
She turned to look at her mother now. “Can you imagine how I felt when I saw no records of any calls or messages from him?”
She shook her head, sadly. “It was such a horrible time, mummy. I left Nigeria, feeling betrayed and abandoned. I wondered if, somehow, he had known that I was pregnant. I thought his silence was his way of sending a message to me about his intentions.” She was silent for a few seconds, then in a voice that was almost a whisper, said, “How could you, mummy?”
“I had to do all that, Bunmi. I couldn’t watch you make a stupid mistake.” She frowned and waved her hand impatiently. “It was one thing to give him a great education and to allow him go on holidays with us, even as a child, and another to hand my daughter over to him.”
She clucked her tongue. “I was so foolish! There I was, feeling generous, not knowing that my husband was actually making sure his son had the best of everything.”
She smiled and nodded briskly. “I convinced your father to spend two more weeks in France with Kunle. Knowing how things were at home, he was only too glad to. She rolled her eyes. “I bet, he loved hanging out with his boy, too.” She shrugged now. “It wasn’t difficult convincing your grandma that you needed some time away from home. So, by the time they came home, you were already in America with her. Kunle tried to be as casual as possible, as he asked me about you. I enjoyed the shock on his face, when he heard that you had gone back to New York.”
“And you call Ma Agnes a schemer?” Bunmi shook her head. “That must have been why you encouraged me to stay back and start a Master’s degree.”
“You had an admission already, Bunmi! There was no way I would have folded my arms and let you miss out on that.”
She smiled gently and continued, “You give me too much credit for all this, though. You had his number, so you could have called. You could have sent him an email, too.” She shook her head and added, “I didn’t make all this happen, you know. You must have known that there was no sense in pursuing a relationship with him, or you’d have tried harder. You could have even told your father immediately that he was the man responsible for your pregnancy.”
Folding her arms on her chest, she responded, “There had not been any opportunity to tell Kunle that he was going to be a father, so how could I have told daddy?” She closed her eyes, as she remembered. “Grandma hovered over me a lot, when I was at hers and I didn’t want to make any calls that could be traced to Kunle, so using her phone was out of the question. When we got to New York, I called him, but his number wasn’t going through, so I called the house, hoping to catch Ma Agnes. I asked after him and she told me that he had gone to France.”
She opened her eyes and shook her head. “I was surprised to hear that, but I thought there must have been a rational explanation for the silence. So, I left numbers, still.”
She cocked her head to the side and raised an eyebrow, silently asking her mother about that.
“Oh, that.” Sade’s eyes turned defiant. “That afternoon, I was using the bathroom when I thought I heard the phone ring. As soon as I came out, I picked up the extension in the master bedroom and overheard the last part of your conversation, but before I could speak, you hung up.”
She shrugged and looked away. “I made Agnes give me the paper and instructed her not to breathe a word of your call to Kunle. I told her I didn’t want any murky waters.”
She turned back to Bunmi, threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, I was such a fool. I didn’t know that she had her own reasons for not wanting both of you involved.”
“I was the fool, mummy.” Bunmi shook her head ruefully. “All these years, I was angry with daddy for the way things turned out. A lot of that blame should have gone to you, yet you were the one I held dear.”
She shook her head again. “Six months ago, when you visited me, you bemoaned the fact that I refused to come back home, forgetting that you were the one that sent me away.”
Sadly, she turned and walked away, but after taking a few steps, she turned back to Sade. “Daddy is no stranger to you. You’re cut from the same cloth.”
She continued walking.
No wonder he never called me.
She frowned. Still, I called him a few weeks later and he had already moved on.

They were all in the study with the lawyers, all eyes turned to Bunmi, to hear her answer.
When she turned to the side and met her mother’s eyes, Sade’s head went up a notch and she gave it an imperceptible shake.
Niyi sat behind the desk, his eyes giving away nothing, but his fingers beat a tattoo on his desk, betraying his agitation.
Kunle leaned forward on his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. His legs were spread wide and both feet tapped the floor. When she smiled at him, he blew out a breath with his mouth.
She turned to Gregory Olabode and smiled. “We have a wedding to plan.”

TO BE CONTINUED

To read the previous parts, please go to:
Part One: SECRETS
Part Two: SECRETS: WHEN THERE IS A WILL
Part Three: SECRETS: THE FATHER FIGURE
Part Five: SECRETS: REKINDLING THE FLAME