Prologue

Pain!

Rose's Pov

I grew up to know only my dad. People say my mother was very materialistic, and so she couldn't stay in her marriage with a husband who couldn't provide a three square meal in a day. An attitude everyone in my society saw as that of a woman who was loose and had no self respect for her family.

Father had not been the best of dad, but he tried giving me what I needed at times. He was hardly home, and when he did it was with different women. I could remember the times he came home with different women. Threw lots of parties , danced with them and drank himself to stupor.

A close by neighbor called Mariam ,had once told me some dispectible things about my mother, how she always got into a tinted Black SUV which always took her out and brought her back late at night.

The whole neighbours believed it was the man which she had ran off with. They would hear her pick up quarrels with dad and he ended up fighting her. Most times she sustained injuries from their fight and ended up leaving the house for days.

Throughout those days when she left, father would always be in a very bad and moody counterance. Days later she returned and they both make up, until that night when they both got into another fight. Dad had thrown a hot iron which was plugged on her neck, which left her bleeding.

The neighbors heard her place a call, and when that same SUV came she got in with her bags and never returned again. I was so sad and I wondered if I really mattered to her,if this story was true in anyway.

Father never wanted to tell me anything ,so it was difficult for me to know if the story I heard was true in anyway. I had to live with this knowledge of my mom, although deep down inside me ,I tried not to believe what Mariam said about her , especially when I saw her making out with my dad on my way back from school one hot Friday afternoon.

We had dismissed from school much earlier than expected due to a flu which blew off affecting tons of students. We were told to return and I had to head home fast without following the school bus. I felt going with the school bus was going to expose me to contacting the disease easily and I had no phones on me to call father.

I had to take a cab to some extent and then walked through out the remaining distance. The front door of the house was open and I was surprised that father was home already. He was never home until late in the night ,so seeing the door made me surprised at that point.

I decided not to knock as I wanted him to be surprise to see me home. The sitting room was empty but it was littered with clothes. I went through the kitchen ,but no one. I then headed for the his bedroom, maybe he was taking a nap.

Although I wondered why he was sleeping at such a time, maybe he was sick or tired. When I opened the door , I saw the both of them and she hurried picked up her clothes and took off.

Since then I decided not to take her explanation about my mother, after she wanted to take her place, so she could have equally lied to me about her.

I was glad father said he never intended marrying her, and that he only had to pass out time with her as he was lonely

Initially when mother left , people said father was lost and could not withhold his tears as he missed her so badly. As the days kept going, father seemed to forget her , but he never took any woman serious. He was known to be a flirt ,who picked up random women and dumped them from time to time.

I had no pictures of mother, no clue on what she looked like. Father made sure that he disposed every single thing about her away. He believed that she was no longer part of our lives and I had no need to know the woman who had dumped me at a little age ,for her lover. I was only three when she left.

My neighbours back at New Orleans said she was very beautiful to behold and they also believed that she let her beauty get into her. I asked if we had any strong resemblance,but they told me that I was more like my father than my mother , although she felt that I was more beautiful than she was.

Father never wanted to talk about her, whenever I tried asking him questions related to her. He only ended each day with lots of bottles of alcohol whenever I brought up the topic. He would get furious, shout and scold me until his cheeks turned red.

I noticed how hurt he was to live without my mother. He must have really loved her, just maybe she didn't feel the same way towards him, I thought aloud sometimes. I wondered for the main reason why mother left, does it mean she didn't care about me at all, and she never tried finding out how I was or if I was alive.

" Get out of my sight! come on get lost!", were the hurting words I got each passing day from father whenever I brought mother's topic up.

I grew without knowing the love of a mother and it made me very depressed. Dad tried to be both my mother and father, but it still didn't stop the fact that he was ignorant of most girlie stuff. It would have been better that I was told my mother was died, than knowing she happened to be alive somewhere and not getting to see her or feel her in anyway.

" Could it even be possible that a mother would abandon her little baby daughter for materialistic possessions", I found myself thinking each night.

We moved out of New Orleans which was the capital when I was twelve to a small town. Father thought it was a better way to completely get rid of his remembering mother. Soon I stopped thinking about my mother and decided to have a life of my own.

" If she really cared about us, she wouldn't have left ", I began to think as I grew up.

Leaving New Orleans was a much better way to forget everything behind us, at least I wasn't able to keep hearing the gossiping neighbours who always discussed me as the child her mother dumped whenever I passed by. That was one of the most hurtful things I ever felt back then.

Dad's bad habit didn't stop and he kept getting himself into trouble every passing day when we relocated to Greenville. He gambled , did drugs and once was arrested for kidnapping. Although the case was later resolved and he was discharged on the basis of mistaken identity, but from that day our lives was never the same again.

When he returned from the police station, it wasn't up to two weeks he fell so sick. I had no idea what prompted the sudden illness when he had just gotten home. He was diagnosed with a growth in his lungs ,which I think was as a result of his excessive use of drugs and alcohol. He couldn't do the little things that fetched him money and I was about quitting school.

Then one day someone ran to our house to inform me that dad had passed out at the rice meal where he had gone to work in order to raise money for my tuition fee at school. I ran off straight to the hospital where I had been directed in fear and trembling. I wasn't ready to loose him, he was all I had.

At the emergency room, dad was lying on a stretcher with an oxygen mask placed over his nose. I watched from the glass window waiting for the doctors who were around him to attend to him.

" Hello miss", Someone spoke from behind tapping my shoulder. I turned to see a tall huge man smiling at me. His face was strange and I couldn't recall knowing him from anywhere and what was worst was the way he looked at me , like someone who already knew me for a long time.

" You must be his daughter ,I was told of", he said.

" Yes I am, who are you?", I asked.

He smiled again and I was confused, I wasn't ready to get tossed by a man now.

" I rushed your father down here as soon as he collapsed", he said.

My mood lightened up immediately, I had been so concerned about my dad that I didn't ask who had rushed him down here. I kept on thanking him while he only smiled and patted my shoulder. I looked at his hands which were on my shoulders and then back to his face as he withdrew his hands immediate, I could tell that he understood that look which I gave him.

" Well, I'm Sammie, you must be Rose", he said.

We both shook hands together, but I was a bit withdrawn when he called my name. I could only wonder how he knew my name.

Dad pulled through his attack and got discharged from the hospital. We were able to pay the bills with Sammie's help , he also got dad all his medicine that helped him in becoming a bit stable.

Sammie kept coming to the house every now and then. He got attached to Dad and they got along so well. Soon he always offered taking me out for dinner, and when I resisted , Dad got so annoyed. I went out with him just to make Dad happy and to reduce his pains as he was sick.

Dad announced to me one day that Sammie had offered to help send me to the university. I told Dad that I wasn't sure it was a good idea ,but he insisted that we took his help. He could no longer work because the doctors advices that he had enough rest. Dad reminded me of my dream to become a food scientist and that made me agree to Sammie's offer.

He took care of all our bills, from the water bills to electricity and even food bills. I was excited that someone cared but I had this indepth fear about everything. I kicked off my studies in the University and that was were I met Sharon , by close friend.

She was all I needed and our friendship was true from the beginning. We both had each other's back and studied hard to pass our exams. Sharon was from a middle class family, not so rich but they were comfortable.

One day , I had returned home from school when I found Dad and Sammie laughing hard at each other. I got to see them have good times with each other ,but that day was different. Dad told me that Sammie wanted to make me his wife.

I was so shocked to hear that and this had been the reason I never wanted any favours from him. When I refused ,dad threatened to kill himself, stating how nice he had been and how ungrateful we would be to turn him down.

" Rose , Sammie is a good man , what else would you want in a man that can't be found in Sammie", in Dad's voice.

We got married when I turned eighteen. Sammie was thirty and he had a bungalow at our little town, Greenville.

Our first night was rash and I cried all night. He was too rash and I could tell he didn't care about me all through the process. I was so trapped and when I tried struggling, I got a hot slap landed on my face. It was my first time and he had pushed himself in like he was making out with a prostitute. I felt no love, no desires and no pleasure that night. His touch only brought me goosebumps and I felt so unsafe.

The first three months of our marriage was fair. I got to school and returned every weekend and he got to travel to New Orleans every week where he worked at a construction site.

At the fourth month of our marriage , Sammie had visited me at Greenville University, where he saw me talking with a male course mate. He scolded me to get into his car and when we got home ,heavens where loosed on me.

When I tried explaining to him that it was only a conversation, I got a heavy blow on my arm. That was the first day he laid his hands on me.

I could recall rushing to my dad's to complain about the situation, but he only told me that I must have really offended my husband for him to have raised his hands on me.

Sammie became too possessive, he could harm any single man that approaches me without knowing their reasons and thereafter he got to beat me up at home.

The most depressing part of it all was that he got to kneel and apologize after beating me up.

I kept telling Dad, but dad said I shouldn't make him angry so he would stop his actions . I became a shadow of myself and always prepared my body to be punched whenever Sammie wanted.

It's been three years already, Sammie stopped me from schooling because he felt I was exposed to alot of guys there. Sharon was so sad that I had to drop out. She was already a graduate and so decided to open a little restaurant which she asked that I joined her in managing.

It was hard to get Sammie to agree on letting me work ,but when Sharon spoke to him he got to agree. He visited the restaurant from time to time whenever he was in town and would just drive in without my notice. So many times he got to pick a fight with men at the restaurant.

This was when Sharon placed a restricting order that he wouldn't be allowed to visit the restaurant anymore. He picked up a fight with me when he told me to quit the job and I refused.

He got me beaten up with his belt, I groaned in pains as he kept flogging me and asking if I was going to stop the job. I held unto the tip of his jean trousers while on the ground when he used his boots in kicking so hard on my tummy.

I screamed and he stopped looking at me keenly, when I tried getting up I found blood flowing out profusely from my vagina.

" Not again ! " I screamed as I gradually felt myself passing out.