Can you make it to be in the house this Friday?", asked a good friend excitedly. "I'm having a small get-together for my daughter," he explained. "Your daughter?" I asked curiously, my mind working overtime. He was pushing 70, had only a son who was now happily married. Did he mean a granddaughter, or had a woman finally broken the jinx and had a new baby for him at 69?
"Remember I told you of that girlfriend of over 25 years ago? The one I said was the love of my life who left the country in a huff with a four-month pregnancy because of my other girlfriends? And how she vowed I would never see the child if she had anything to do with it? Well, my daughter has tracked me down! She pestered her mother so much that she gave her my address. And she's now here! She arrived here last night. I would love all my friends to meet her."
I didn't know what to make of Emma's news when I finally put down the phone. He'd relished his independence over the years. Women came and went , but he never got married to any of them. After his wife died over 30 years ago, he was happy living wild. And he had the money to sustain his playboy lifestyle. I definitely didn't plan to miss this intriguing chapter in his life.
The party was in full blast when I walked in. Emma pumped my hand excitedly, gave me a beer-hug and this girl appeared like a flash by his side. She was dark-skinned, so was Emma. Slim and sophisticated-looking, she wouldn't pass a beauty contest, but she wasn't ugly either. She held a freshly-lit cigarette in her hand and greeted me as if she'd known me all her life. There was nothing about this girl that suggested that she wasn't Emma's daughter, and we all settled down to share in his joy. After all these years of being a single parent of an only-child, he now has two!
Emma's son regarded the whole scene with a bemused look. He was polite, but didn't show his dad's enthusiasm. "He's probably miffed that he is no longer the only heir to the throne!", snickered one of the guests. The girl had even brought a few of her friends. When I asked Emma how she got to know them, he said Funmi, the daughter, had visited Nigeria from time to time. She'd in fact spent some years studying here before she went back for her degree course. It was because of her mother's vindictiveness that she never got to know where her father was - until now!
"God certainly works in a mysterious way," enthused Emma. "She studied business management and is already working in an insurance company. I've told her to go back to resign her appointment so she could work with me. You know my son is not the academic type. In fact he's a bit of an embarrassment. He entertains at parties with one of these combo bands and do rentals. Can you imagine him having a clue on how to take over when I'm gone?"
For the next few weeks that she was around, Funmi was chauffeured around in one of her dad's exotic cars, spent money as if it was going out of style and generally had a good holiday. She told her dad just how much money she would need to wrap things up abroad and ship her things down to the country. He gladly gave her all she needed.
A few months after she left, my phone rang and it was Emma. "Can you come over?" he asked heavily. "Anything the matter?" I wanted to know. "Just come over" he said and put down the phone. He quietly gave me an e-mail he'd recently received.
Someone had anonymously sent details of Funmi's birth father - and he wasn't Emma! Didn't he think the sender of the e-mail was having him on?
"I got in touch with my younger half-brother with Funmi's birth date" said Emma. "All he had to do was pay a small fee to get a copy of her birth certificate which he did. He faxed it to me. Another man's name was on it as her father. Pain seared as I realized I might have been the victim of a hoax!
When next I e-mailed her, I sent her all the details and asked her what was going on. I logged on the next day but there was nothing from Funmi. After a few days of trying to get her reaction, I discovered she was no longer on the site. I couldn't get through to her on the phone either.
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"For days , I'd stared at the documents exposing this hoax and I nearly went off my mind. I'd just sent some money to her when she requested for her airfare back to Nigeria. Now this? What could possess Funmi's mother to treat me this way? I was so good to her and never promised her anything than the good time I gave her. After 24 years, was she still carrying a grudge, or did she think I was at death's door and this girl could clean up big time? What were mother and daughter talking about now? You hear about this 419 people conning you out of your hard-earned money with phony financial deals, but for a mother to use her daughter in this cruel way makes you wonder how low some people would stoop for money.
"I'm just going to let this die quietly. It would be the height of embarrassment and humiliation to admit I'd been conned in the most cruel way..."
