The night I found out my father had another family in Ibadan, and I was the only one who knew

I was 28 when I found out. My father, God rest his soul, had a whole other wife and three children living in Oke Ado. I was the only one who knew because I saw them at a burial in 1989. The woman looked at me and smiled like she knew me. My father saw me from across the crowd and his face changed. He came to me that night and said, 'Kunle, a word is enough for the wise.' That was all. No explanation. No apology.

I carried that secret for 15 years. Every time my mother cooked for him, every time my siblings praised him as the perfect father, I just sat there quiet. He died in 2004. At the funeral, that woman came. My mother saw her and started crying. She said she always knew. She said she chose to keep quiet because of us, the children. I looked at my mother and I realised she had been carrying the same secret I was carrying, but heavier.

The Yoruba say bi oba ti ri ni mo ti n ri. We see what we choose to see. My father was a good man in many ways. But he was also a man. I have never told my siblings. Maybe they know. Maybe they don't. But I know now that silence can be both a shield and a prison.