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I started living with him after the court case between dad and mom. 

Shortly after we started living with mom things had gotten pretty hard as she had no job save for the store which started running dry due to lack of money to buy goods in it. Dad had stopped sending our school fees and feeding allowance  and it wasn't easy for mom as everything was on her.

She had to pay the fees,buy food,buy clothes and other little things for us.

She would call dad but he would end up insulting her over the phone and breaking her fragile heart.

Ma-ma was our angel then,she was a light complexioned woman who worked with the government and also did business on the side,she was a jolly good fellow and took us like her kids. She lived next door to our store. She was a Yoruba woman who lived alone and was kind to us. She would give us food and other times lend mom some money or even pay our fees till mom was able to pay her back.

She was also like a mother figure to mom and most days when mom got so tired and cried,ma-ma would chide her and encourage her at the same time

"Iya kogi,stop all this crying ooo,when I was your age I suffered worse fate but look at where God has placed me now;by the time you are my age believe me,you would have achieved a lot. Don't worry,God is in control. Olorun a gba koso" she would say.

 It was she who suggested mom goes to the women affairs and child care to lodge a complaint about dad.

He was summoned to court but he refused to come. This went on for a while till he finally came and said he would rather take us back than send money to mom for our upkeep.

Those times were really bad and even though mom didn't want to let us go,she had to let him take us because sleeping in the shop which also passed as our house had become  a problem. The heat was unbearable on most nights and the bed wasn't enough to fit us all in. It was at the back yard that we had a little spot for cooking and in the morning we opened the store.

Most nights mom would wake up,cry and pray;other nights she would go outside and stare at the sky and talk to God asking him to bless her an send help to her. On such nights I would pretend to be asleep while I felt pains for her too,she was helpless and from a poor illiterate family. She was the only one who had struggled to get an education out of all her six siblings. She was left on her own to fend for her school fees when she had run into dad who professed love and promised to help with her education. Things were good,he kept his word but after the birth of my sister and I things had started getting tough as my dad's silly friends would ask him with a sneer". Is your wife your daughter that you are paying her fees"? And soon their words started having effect on him and he started changing. He would listen to their stupid advice's while they drank beer together and he started hurting her. It was one of the reasons why she had finally left him.