Timmy

My stepmother used to serve my food in a broken plastic plate and make me eat outside while her own children sat at the dining table. One evening, a visitor asked why I was being treated differently. Her answer made me wish the ground would swallow me. I was eleven years old when my father married again. My mother had left when I was very young, and for years, it had just been my father and me. When he brought home his new wife, I was happy. I thought I was finally going to have a mother again. I was wrong. At first, she was friendly whenever my father was around. She called me sweetheart, bought me biscuits and sometimes helped me with my homework. But the moment my father left for work, everything changed. I became the person responsible for washing plates, sweeping the compound, cleaning the bathrooms and looking after her two children. If I finished my chores and sat down to read, she would find another task for me. "Who told you to sit down?" I would quickly stand up. Her children had their own bedrooms. I slept in a small storage room beside the kitchen. They wore new clothes for special occasions. I wore their old clothes after they had outgrown them. When food was served, they ate first. Sometimes, there was nothing left for me. If I complained, she would say: "Are you not lucky your father even allowed you to stay in this house?" I wanted to tell my father. But whenever I tried, he would say I should respect his wife and stop creating problems in the family. So I learned to keep quiet. At school, my grades started dropping because I was always tired. One afternoon, my teacher asked why I had not completed my assignment. I told her I had spent the previous night washing clothes. She looked at me strangely. "Whose clothes?" I didn't answer. Then came the day that changed everything. My stepmother's younger sister visited us. She watched me serve food, wash the plates and clean the sitting room while her own children played. Finally, she asked my stepmother: "Why is this boy doing all the housework? Where are his children?" My stepmother laughed. Then she said something I would remember for the rest of my life. "That one? He is not my responsibility. I am only managing him because of his father." I was standing behind the kitchen door. She didn't know I had heard. And neither did she know that her sister had seen me crying.