(Part 1/2) On the last day of my National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) camp, my mum called me around 3am and asked me to take a cab and come straight to her office. She asked me not to go home, that it wasn’t safe at home and she had left the house. I asked her what happened but she refused to tell me. When I got to my mum’s office (she had her own business and her office was quite big), she told me that was going to be our new home for now. She said we couldn’t go home, that she doesn’t care what anyone says, but she’s walking out of her marriage. My stepdad (who was a pastor) had tried to beat her again, and in the previous beatings she had suffered some concussion and headaches. So she took a handful of clothes with her and all I had was my NYSC uniform. My boyfriend at the time, (now my husband) had to shop for me. We tried going to the house to get a few things, but my stepdad didn’t let us in. He said since my mum ran away, we could never come into the house. That’s how my mum and I lived in her office for 4 months. 

None of her staff knew we were sleeping there. We would take turns to sleep on the couch. Some days I would sleep on the floor while she slept on the couch and vice-versa. I would go to my boyfriend’s house to cook a lot of food, and store it in the office fridge. We would use the microwave to warm the food. I had never seen my mum so low. But she just made up her mind that she was done. Her friends left her, people said all sorts, people mocked and laughed at us. But I stood by her. 

There was a day my stepdad came to beg her in the office and my mum told me to hide in the store. He kept saying to my mum, “Your daughter doesn’t want you to be happy, forget about her, she’s the one bringing bad luck and making us fight all time.” He told her that she should be happy he wants her back only on the condition that I don’t live with them. My mum refused and that was how it ended. My uncles came, the families met and the marriage was dissolved. My mum that was once a shadow of herself started coming back. She regained her health and we started living our lives.