Ibadan in December is both dust and joy.

The red earth rises as children chase one another barefoot through the compound. Aunties arrive in loud wrappers and louder laughter. Firewood crackles under big pots of jollof rice. Everything smells like home and memory.

I hadn’t been back since July, and the house already felt…different.

Mama didn’t come out to hug me like usual. She was in the kitchen, talking quietly with Aunty Ronke. Baba wasn’t around either.

When I finally caught her eye, she gave me a smile that didn’t reach her cheeks.

“You’ve grown,” she said, touching my cheek briefly. “Lagos is feeding you well.”

That was it. No long stories. No fuss. No soup already made in my name.

Later that evening, Baba returned. He looked tired. His agbada hung loosely from his shoulders, and the permanent glint in his eye was dull.

“Ah! My star girl!” he beamed, pulling me into a hug that smelled of old tobacco and aftershave. “Welcome back o. How’s school?”

“Fine, Baba.”

He asked no more. He disappeared into his room shortly after dinner.

And just like that, the unease began to bloom.

Cracks in the Wall

Three days later, I found the first clue.

A supermarket receipt on the dining table. Baba never did the shopping.

₦15,300 worth of baby milk, biscuits, and baby wipes.

Baby wipes?

“Is Mama buying things for Bolaji’s twins?” I asked, referring to my older cousin.

Mama’s knife paused over the okro she was slicing. “No. Why?”

I showed her the receipt.

She blinked once.

“Must be Baba trying to help someone,” she said quietly. “You know how he likes to do Father Christmas.”

I dropped the receipt but didn’t drop the suspicion.

That night, I heard Baba talking on the phone on the veranda.

“Yes, I’m coming tomorrow. I’ve sent something through Mallam Lawal. No, don’t let Simi stay up late again. Tell her Daddy said so.”

My heart stopped. Daddy said so?

Who was Simi?

The Other House

I followed him.

I told Mama I was going to see Tosin, my best friend from secondary school.

But instead, I boarded a bike and trailed Baba’s car from a distance until he turned into a gated compound in Bodija.

I stood under a tree across the street and watched him get down.

A woman came out to greet him.

She kissed his cheek. Two small children ran up to hug him.

He laughed—a laugh I hadn’t heard in months.

I did not cry.

I did not scream.

I simply watched, the way a storm watches its own birth.

The Confession

“Mama,” I said that evening, “How long have you known?”

She was washing her feet in a bowl of warm water. She didn’t look up.

“I was pregnant with you when he started seeing her.”

I blinked. Once. Then again.

“You’ve known for over twenty years?”

She looked at me then. Her eyes weren’t angry. They were something worse—resigned.

“He married her quietly. After his mother died. She was his secretary. The elders asked me to accept it. It would not be good for a respected man like your father to have ‘a child out of wedlock.’”

“And you agreed?!”

“I didn’t agree,” she said. “I endured.”

A Daughter’s Rage

“You’re weak,” I hissed. “You let him break you and now you pretend it’s culture.”

Mama didn’t flinch.

“Don’t speak to me like that, Adesewa.”

“Why not? You let him betray you. You let him live a lie in front of us. You let me believe we were the only ones—”

“And what would you have had me do? Leave? Go where, with three children? To do what? Sell puff-puff by the roadside? Your father paid your fees. He put you in university. That same man you now call a liar.”

I stormed out of the house, my tears hot and confusing.

I wasn’t even sure who I was angry with anymore.

The Visit

I went back to Bodija the next day.

I knocked on the gate. A young boy answered. His eyes widened when he saw me.

The woman came to the door.

She was…plain. Older than I expected. Dressed simply. A wrapper and blouse. She looked surprised, then sad.

“You’re Adesewa, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

She stepped aside.

The house smelled of Dettol and amala.

The children peeked at me from the hallway.

“I’m not here to fight,” I said.

“I didn’t expect you would,” she replied, pouring me a glass of water.

We sat.

And then, she spoke.

“Your father never told me he had proposed to your mother traditionally. He said she was a ‘first wife in name only.’ When I found out, I was pregnant already. He swore he would make it right. But nothing was ever right again.”

“I was hidden for years. Only recently did he start visiting more. He wanted to tell you all, but…”

“Tell me—how does one confess to building a second home on the ruins of the first?”

I didn’t answer.

I left the house with her voice buried in my chest.

My Father’s Explanation

He was waiting when I got home.

“Your mother told me you found out.”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “I never meant for you to know this way.”

“Why did you do it?”

He looked at me, and for the first time, I saw the weight of his choices in the slope of his shoulders.

“Because I was selfish. Because I was raised to believe a man could want two things and take them both. Because I thought I was solving a problem.”

“And you created two.”

His voice was low. “I never wanted to hurt your mother.”

“But you did.”

He nodded.

Then silence.

The Diary

That night, I found Mama’s diary.

It was buried beneath her wrapper box. Smelling of camphor and old ink.

“August 14, 2003 — He missed Adesewa’s birthday again. Said he had to travel to Ilorin. I know it’s her again. I boiled rice, but I couldn’t eat.”

“March 9, 2005 — I saw her photo in his drawer. She’s prettier than me. Slimmer. He laughed when I confronted him. Said I was being jealous.”

“May 18, 2009 — He bought her a car. I heard it from Lawal. Mine is still broken. I walked to church today.”

I wept.

Not for my father.

Not even for the woman in Bodija.

I wept for Mama.

For every day she swallowed her pain to keep our home intact.

Forgiveness is a Knife

I didn’t speak to Baba for a week.

But on the morning I returned to Lagos, I left a note on his bedside table.

“You made us believe we were your only family. That was your first lie. But the bigger lie was the silence you forced Mama to live in. I may learn to forgive you, but not today.”

And to Mama, I gave a long hug.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

She didn’t reply.

But her hands held me tightly, the way only a woman who has held herself together for decades could.

The Weight of Inheritance

I think about it often.

About how African women are taught to bend without breaking.

About how love in our homes is measured by endurance, not joy.

About how silence is passed down like china bowls and ancestral beads.

Sometimes I wonder if I will be like Mama.

If one day, I too will choose dignity over confrontation.

If I will make peace with betrayal as tradition.

But for now, I carry the truth of my father’s secret wife in my chest.

Not as a wound.

Not even as a lesson.

But as a mirror—of all the women we are taught to become, and all the silence we must one day break.