FAMILY SHAME

Dear Taiwo,

PLEASE, help me. I don’t know how to clear this mess I got myself into. I hate to cause my parents pains, but what I did is causing them more than pains. It has become a serious heartache.

I love my parents dearly, and they love me too, they have done so much for me. I have no option but to be a good child, but see what I have done. Please, help me.

If I say I am like the proverbial child born and raised with a silver spoon, I won’t be wrong. My parents have just two of us, (my elder sister and I) after they had waited for over 10 years. My sister came at a time my father’s family had given up on mummy and they had encouraged him to take another wife.

Instead of taking another wife, daddy stood by his wife and diverted all his energy into making his business work, which is why he had enough to give us the best when we came.

My sister and I had the best any child could ask for. When mummy gave birth to me, dad was away from the country on a business trip and his best friend Uncle, Marcus, popularly addressed as Uncle Mac came to the hospital to take mummy and I home. In fact, mum told us that during my christening, he stood by her and did not allow her to miss daddy much.

Uncle Mac and dad are childhood friends, people who really did not know thought they are related and most of the time the two of them do not bother to correct the impression. Uncle Mac and his wife, Aunty Tina had their kids faster and they are blessed with two kids too, a boy and a girl. Because they had their kids earlier than our parents, their children were like our big brother and sister.

Unfortunately, Aunty Tina who had also become mummy’s good friend died about seven years ago and Uncle Mac refused to take another wife. Because of the relationship, Uncle Mac and dad were always in our house and sometimes, he would take my sister and I out when we were growing up, by then his kids were away in the boarding school and later when they went to higher school.

When I finished my secondary school, just like my sister, I went to the US for my university education, where I read Economics. My sister finished before me and came over to Nigeria for her Youth Service and started work. It wasn’t a strange thing for my uncle to stop and check on me whenever he came to the US and he happened to be close me.

Aunty Taiwo, I don’t know, how or when or what brought it up, but I discovered that Uncle Mac and I became attracted to each other. Initially, I felt it was a childhood fantasy, of course, I was no longer a child, I was in my late teenage years, but how else can I describe what I felt for the man who could more or less be called my father?

I tried all I could to fight this feeling, but all the while I was trying, I never knew Uncle Mac felt the same way. Like I stated earlier, I really could not remember who made the first move or how we started, but I started to date my father’s best friend or would say my father’s brother.

In fact, he deflowered me, and because of this singular action, he loved me so much.

Having an affair with him when I was in the US was very easy, because my parents were not there and everyone who saw us together never gave it much thought as no one would think being with my uncle all the time was a big deal.

Just like mummy asked me a few weeks ago, “Why did you do this to us? What can Mac have given you that we can’t give you even more?” I did not go into the relationship with Uncle Mac for financial gains or whatever he would give me. My parents are comfortable enough to give me the best of everything, but sometimes call it fate, call it anything brought us to do what people will hear and think you have actually gone crazy.

When our affair started, Uncle Mac became a frequent visitor to the US, the first person who guessed that there was more to our relationship was my sister, when she came to the US for holiday. We stayed together in my dad’s house. She asked me some questions, but I lied to her. I really did not know why I lied to her, because we were so close and we tell each other things, but I kept this to myself. Maybe, if I had told her, she would have opened up to me, she would have told me Uncle Mac had made a pass at her too, but she refused to fall for him.

This is another angle to my tale of woe. I finished my course and came back to the country for my youth service. Initially, I didn’t want to come home, but daddy insisted. I wanted to stay back and start my Masters Degree immediately, but dad refused to bend the rules.

After orientation, I started my NYSC primary assignment and seeing Uncle Mac became a little difficult. Guess you know what it is like when you love someone with your whole heart, but you have to keep your feelings to yourself as your little secret.

Uncle Mac and I started travelling out of town to see each other. Sometimes I left work to meet him out of town.

I could remember a particular day that I almost missed my flight back to Port Harcourt when I came to Lagos with Uncle Mac. I did not tell my parents I was travelling, I wondered what would have happened if I had missed my flight that day.

Do not let me bore you will these little details; but I loved Uncle Mac. I really do not know how my parents got to know, but one day after I returned from the office, mum called and spoke with me about this issue. I denied, of course, I couldn’t have admitted or confided in her. She told me in a strong language that both of them would be very disappointed in me if they discovered it was true. Mum went further to tell me that Uncle Mac was a womaniser and that young girls were his specialty, but to my ears, she sounded funny because I had never met any other lady with Uncle Mac, I felt she said this to paint him black before me.

I honestly, do not know who fed my parents about my movement with Uncle Mac, the second time they spoke with me about him, dad even told me the name of the hotel where I went with him, but of course, I denied that too.

My parents were to travel to Lagos for my cousin’s wedding, in fact we were supposed to travel together, but I told them I would stay back. Uncle Mac had travelled to Abuja on a business trip and I knew he would come to town that weekend.

As soon as my parents left, Uncle Mac and I spoke on phone and he told me he had made arrangement for hotel accommodation for us for the two days my parents would be away, I checked into the hotel and waited for him.

The unthinkable happened that night when a knock at the door ushered my parents into the hotel room.

I prayed the earth to open up and swallow me. Uncle Mac was as shocked as I was. How did my parents know I was there with him? Were they not supposed to be in Lagos? What happened? Daddy has not said a word to me since three weeks ago. They only thing he said to Uncle Mac was,” why Mac, why did you do this to me? You know I loved you like a brother and I won’t do this to you?” His words to Uncle Mac almost broke my heart. Dad almost shed tears.

I can’t even face him up till today. I would have made a case for myself, before him and everybody if I did not later learn that Uncle Mac had asked my sister out once and that he had actually slept with and even impregnated our housemaid, Auntie Julie.

I was not too young when it happened. Auntie Julie had an abortion her life. I thought he loved me. He had even asked me several times to be his wife. When I raised the issue of age difference, he told me it doesn’t matter as love is no respecter of age.

Uncle Mac has disillusioned me; I am really hurt about his deceit. I would have been dwelling on that now, if I do not have to contend with my parents.

Although mum is equally angry with me, but she let out her anger by giving me a piece of her mind.

But dad’s silence is killing me. I know he is disappointed in me, I have always been his favourite, please, advise me on what to do.