Homecoming
He was away for long. Too long it felt like eternity. The days roll faster when the bread winner of a family is whisked off to prison in another man’s land. Drugs it was. His life was an unending spin. He would be deemed successful but that was a mediocre’s language. He wouldn’t settle until he had built the dream home for his gorgeous wife who meant the world to him.

She had aged a lot in his absence and considerably so. She took on the role of a father to their three sons. Each day saw her looking paler, the veins in her neck stretching like roots. She would sit in the compound with a gaze toward the heavens searching for answers. None came.

He tightened his face as he made past the main gate. This used to be home before prison. This was where he first heard the cry of a baby. His first son. The memories hit him so hard that he staggered. Integrating with his family was all that mattered to him at this point. The world was vain and the pursuit for riches pointless.

“Who are you?” A voice behind him called. It was tender and innocent, a version of him some forty years ago. “Who are you now?” The six year old repeated.

“I am your daddy" he answered trying to fight back the tears that was starting to well up in his eyes. How could one be a stranger to his own son? This boy was barely one when he was imprisoned. He looked so emaciated.

“I don’t have a daddy, it’s only mummy I have" the little boy retorted quizzically. Confusion was starting to get a better grip of him.

His father lifted him to his shoulders and proceeded to the back door of the house where his wife usually sat. She met him halfway, jaw-dropping. She would have run into his arms but for the extra weight. Her protruding stomach housed a life that was not his. The silence between both was laced with palpitations and tremor in what seemed like a lifetime. Her water broke.
['Mira Okpala']
['Homecoming', 'Prison', 'Poverty', 'Fatherhood', 'Family']