We moved to Freetown for my dad’s work when I was seven years old.
There was a woman in the house the night we arrived, she made us dinner, helped us unpack and helped us get settled in.
My dad who had moved a few months ahead of us said she was his house keeper of sorts; she cooked his meals and kept the house tidy.
A few years later the woman become my stepmother and I would call her ‘Mommy’

My friend Eve dated an older man when we were teenagers.
Eve had always been mature for her age.
By Sixteen she’d loved two men (boys, really), each affair had been deep, passionate and tumultuous.
The next year she declared that she was done dating boys!
One day while playing house with the older-man boyfriend, his fiancée returned from where ever she’d been.
Not like a mirage, although she could very well be, because E. had no clue he had a fiancée.
To explain her presence in his life, the man told his fiancée that Eve helped him out around the house and cooked his meals.

I head towards the apartment in excitement; it’s going to be a surprise.
I see them on the balcony and pause halfway through pulling my keys out the keyhole.
It’s the peppy girl from upstairs, the one whose constant peppiness exhausts us.
They’re having brunch, she made pancakes… “it’s delicious, you’ve got to try it”, he says.
She giggles and flails about, she’s so happy to see me, it’s great to have me back, and life is just so great.
And just then, when no explanation was needed, when silence was enough, he said it;
“Kate’s been helping me out a bit around here while you’ve been gone”.