LIFE after mum and dad had divorced was slowly but steadily becoming more and more organized.  We saw much more of mum and although she didn’t easily let go of her habit of screaming at and using insulting and sometimes plain vulgar language against us, and of course regularly using her hands to beat us whenever she felt we had gone wayward, it wasn’t as bad as when we lived with dad.
Like I stated earlier, Uncle Bridges had become a regular visitor to our home.  He seemed to have fully taken over the responsibility of a father always ensuring we had something to eat at home.  Whenever they went shopping with mum, we had a field day offloading the stuff from his light truck.  There would be bread, butter, jam, sugar, Macaroni, spaghetti, packets of popcorn, rice, all types of meats, chicken, bath and laundry soap, insecticides…ouph!  What was missing any more in our house?  We suddenly seemed to have everything a home needed.  Uncle Bridges was a good man.  He never allowed mum to insult or beat us.  He was always saying nice and kind things and often sat Lucius, my younger brother in his lap and often held my hand as we walked.
Then I began to notice my mum’s tummy growing again, as it did before Lucius was born.  It was steadily growing bigger and bigger.  I heard people say she was pregnant, she was expecting, she would have a baby.  Dad once came unexpectedly and upon seeing mum, became very agitated.  He called her names, as usual, saying she was a sleep-about and didn’t even know whose child she was carrying.  Mum was surprisingly calm as she told him to spend time with us, his children, and show them some good manners so they too could grow with good manners, or just leave whatever presents he had brought us and go.
“I have one man only,” she told him calmly, “who is the father of my coming baby.  I have no problems whatsoever over the identity of the father of my baby.  Just leave me to enjoy my newfound peace.”
She had finally confirmed she was going to have a baby!  But dad still said unkind things to her like she was suffering from AIDS, that she would deliver a sickling of a baby who would die within weeks or months of being born.  Mum called the police.  Dad left immediately she did that.
Over the years, Lucius developed the habit of asking to be taken to dad for weekends or holidays.  Mum detested the idea but because the court had ruled that the children should be allowed the freedom to see both parents, she reluctantly allowed him to go.  Dad once insisted and persuaded me to go and stay with them over the holidays and I went reluctantly.  I didn’t like it when I got there.  There was another woman, a hostile woman who made so many rules.  You couldn’t do a thing that she appreciated.  She also drank beer.  There were times when she cooked food but refused to give it to us.  She ate with her four children and only gave me and Lucius our potions when she suspected dad was about to return.  We were second class children here and I quickly decided I would return home to mum.
The day we were to return to mum, Lucius just disappeared.  He went off with friends to play soccer and never returned.  They looked for him everywhere, dad and his wife, as well as mum and Uncle Bridges.  He was reported to Police as a missing child.  For days on end there was sheer panic as everyone searched for my only younger brother without success.
One day, we heard that he had been spotted on the streets in town, cleaning cars and begging for food and money!  He was much too young for that kind of life so the search was intensified by mum.  Dad said if Lucius was alive and had chosen to live on the streets, then he would not expend any more energies looking for him.  It was his choice.
Mum objected and continued the hunt till they located him and brought him home.  She was furious and beat him up so much but Uncle Bridges rebuked her and said what the child needed was love, counsel and persuasion not brutality.  What a nice man Uncle Bridges was.
After three days, Lucius disappeared again.  We knew where he would be.  Maybe not exactly the same spot he had been found but surely he must have gone back to street life.  Mum’s sisters blamed mum and dad for the wayward behavior of my brother.  They said he had been psychologically damaged by the poor standards of life fraught with hunger, abuse, lack of love and witnessing parents that were always drinking, quarreling and on each other’s necks.  Uncle Bridges was more sober minded about it insisting that it wasn’t time for blame games but to locate the boy and find ways of ensuring he didn’t run back to the streets.
They did forcibly bring him back home and he stayed.  But he started playing truant at school.  He started to steal from home and sell whatever he could get.  Things would inexplicably go missing and when confronted, he would deny having taken them.  Then he disappeared again.  And mum gave up on him.
She gave me another younger brother.  They named him Darius Bridges.  Nice English name I thought!  He was a lovely boy with big round eyes and I loved him so much.  Uncle Bridges came daily and held the baby and sang songs to him.  Then very suddenly, he stopped coming.  One day I just noticed mum crying.  She cried a lot and when I asked her what the matter was, she never said a thing.
Days went by without Uncle Bridges coming.  Days turned to weeks.  So, I asked mum why Uncle Bridges had stopped coming.  She said one day he will come back.  Then another day she cried again.  She cried so much I also started to cry without knowing why she was crying. It was such an unhappy time to see mum cry like that.
Then she told me between sobs that Uncle Bridges had been sent to jail in Kabwe.  She never told me what he had done but said he would never come out.  He would live his life there.  I cried ever louder.  Why would anyone send such a nice man to jail?  And while others came out after some time, why would they keep him there for life? It was one of the saddest days of my life.  Coming to terms with it was slow and very gradual, if very painful.  I had so many questions over Uncle Bridges case that mum kept mute about.
And slowly we started to feel the pinch of Uncle Bridges imprisonment.  Life started to change again with shortages of basic foodstuffs and other necessities.  Dad caught wind of what had happened.  He came home and showered abuse at mum.
“You prostitute!” he shouted at her.  “You caused a man to kill his wife so that you could take over!  You thought you were in heaven, now we shall see you…!  Your bitch-rider will hang by the neck till he dies!”
While I agonized at what dad was revealing, that Uncle bridges had killed his wife, mum got so upset she attacked dad with a kitchen knife.  They were fighting again.  Had we gone full cycle back to this?  Was this the end of our newfound love and peace?  Was this the end of the good life?  Aside to all these worries, the question lingered on my mind why and how did Uncle Bridges kill his wife?  Was it true such a soft and loving man could kill someone?  Even the thought of him having a wife elsewhere confused me because I saw mum as his only wife.
I never got immediate answers to my worries while systematically, things became very bad again.  Mum would leave me alone with baby Darius Bridges.
“Stay with your brother I go look for something to eat,” she would say.  “If he cries, put him on your back and ensure he sleeps.”
And most often, she left at night.  She would make herself up and dress in short clothes and go.  Why did mum go looking for something for us to eat at night?  She didn’t dress very well either.  I didn’t like to see her dressed like a small girl, with … questions, questions, questions.  Something was wrong here but at that age I couldn’t work it out.
In truth as I was later to realize, mum had gone into sex work.  That still hurts me as it does to remember the things my dad used to do to me.  How could MY mother?  How could she?  But she always said it was because of Darius Bridges and me! We were to blame for her going into prostitution!
My childhood?  I want to forget about it.  Isn’t God good that I scaled the high wall of troubles that came in different shape without becoming so mentally affected I would be in a mental asylum?  Mine was a childhood that made me resolve that I would do everything within my power to not subject my own children to.  It was a childhood that has made me a better wife, a better mother and a better citizen of the world who is so concerned about what we subject children to.  When I hear people deride child rights, I get sick.  No child should suffer like myself, like my younger brother Lucius and indeed even baby Darius Bridges.  It’s unfair.