He sat up against the headboard with his mind made up. “I told you how I left the orphanage at ten for my first foster family and how I felt abandoned all over again when my foster parents divorced and I was returned to the orphanage.” He paused.
Gladys shifted closer and wrapped her arm round his lean waist with her head on his chest. “I miss my dad sometimes too and I understand about being abandoned. I‘m so sorry.”
“You don‘t have to be, baby. Knowing you has gone a long way to heal me. As you know, I was returned a couple more times.”
Gladys kept quiet and waited for him to continue.
“What I didn‘t tell you was how I ended up in my last foster home. The ‗mother‘ I had grown up in the orphanage with retired and the new one wasn‘t enamored of the older boys. She made it clear we would leave by eighteen, I was fifteen then. She worked us like slaves and made money from our labor by hiring us out to factories around.”
“Was that allowed?” Gladys interjected when he paused.
“Sometimes, but not the way she did it. I was hopeless about my future. There was this drive within me but I didn‘t know how to channel it, I wanted to attend university but there was no one to help. I acted out, got into drugs, and fought anyone at the drop of a hat..
“The administrator took all the money we earned and didn‘t pay for our upkeep most of the time. She took in babies to get money from adoption while we slept outside on the verandas. Things had gotten harder in Nigeria; the austerity measures of the mid-eighties were pinching everyone and the home was even harder hit.”
He stopped and rubbed his hand over his shaved head.
“You don‘t have to tell me everything today, Edward…”
“Gladys I want to. I want to get this all off my chest. I want you to know all of me. Nothing left out.” He tightened his grip on her hand and stared directly into her eyes as he got on with it.
“It was during this period that I met this Igbo couple. I was working at this groundnut oil factory and had gone to the admin office to get paid. This woman walked up to me and asked my name. She said I looked like someone she knew. I admitted I was an orphan and wasn‘t sure of my parentage. She then asked me to wait to meet her husband who was the owner of the factory. Before the end of the week she and Chief expressed interest in taking me in.”