Why I have every reason to believe that the man who brought me up isn't my father

For over three decades, I have been clinging onto a wish that one day a man will appear and claim me as his biological daughter. But if that man ever existed, my mother is determined to take that secret to her grave perhaps for fear of embarrassment or ridicule should she ever confess.

If she got me with another man, obviously, it happened when she was already married to my current father because I am the last born among eight children. I have every reason to believe that the man who brought me up isn't my father. He has rubbed it on my face several times especially after a fight with my mother.

But I am in denial that my mother would have cheated on him and I was conceived. Quarrels between the two were endless as I was growing up. I didn't know who to blame but even as a child, I could sense I had something to do with the fights.

The aftermath of every one of their fights would be torrential insults poured on me by my dad. My mother on the other hand would remember a mistake I had made even a week earlier and would thrash me mercilessly accusing me of being the reason for her misery. It seemed like I reminded her of a deplorable past.

When I was still under their care, my father used to call me a "bad omen" to his family and had told me enough times to ask my mother who my real father was. My mother would however dismiss it as "words spoken out of anger" though I could see the fright on her face every time my dad touched that area.

I slowly observed that this harshness was only projected to me since my parents loved their other children a lot. "You will end up in prostitution like your mother," is an insult I started hearing from my father long before I joined primary school. I couldn't grasp the magnitude of that insult back then until he repeated it several other times when I was already an adult.

My siblings must have seen the animosity towards me hence followed suit because they also treated me with a lot of resentment. However, years later, a close relative disclosed to me how my mother would incite all my relatives against me. They obeyed her because she had the authority of a mother. Thirty years down the line, my siblings can hold parties at their homes and don't invite me. There are some of my seven siblings that I have not set eyes on for over a decade.

I grew up in small village in Machakos County to parents who were both civil servants. I was a very intelligent child and at the age of ten, I was able to detect that my family stigmatised me for a reason I didn't understand.

I momentarily thought my siblings were jealous of me because I was very bright in school but realised that the hatred was beyond my school performance. My father would buy clothes, shoes and beautiful school-bags for my siblings and I would be left to carry my books in a plastic bag.

I would be sent home for fees and would stay for several days at home yet none of my other siblings suffered that. My dad would attend all my siblings parents', visiting and study-clinic days but I can't remember a day he came to my school. He would drive to pick them on closing-days but my mother would begrudgingly come for me by bus or I would go home on my own.

If during the holidays the children jointly did a mistake, I would be the only one to be punished and my mother would beat me with such anger that shocked even our neighbours. I felt rejected at home and was only happy in school with other students. My family's rejection would later follow me deep into adulthood and disorient all my relationships.

I hate believing in superstition but I used to have a persistent nightmare where my parents would turn into monsters and start chasing me. Just when they were about to bite me with their monstrous teeth, a kind, fatherly man would appear and protect me.

Today, the dream is so vivid such that if I saw the man in real life, I would recognise him. I started fearing my mother and would not want to be left alone with her especially if the house was dark. Today, I think my mother had at some point tried to kill me or had an unsuccessful abortion hence the dream.

One day, I was sweeping the compound and, from their bedroom window I caught my father looking at me. A rush of adrenaline ran down my spine and panic gripped my entire being. That stare is still clear in my mind and even when I speak about it, I shiver in fear. The intensity of my father's hatred was so deep that I believe if he had gotten a chance, he would have sexually abused me.

At the slightest provocation, he would hit me with anything in sight. I have since felt so insecure and, consequently, I exclusively date elderly men - strictly over 20 years my age - who can "protect me." I swore never to have children because I feel safer and easier to handle when I am alone; a child would be additional baggage to my already complicated life.

My parents never took me beyond Form Four and so I did casual jobs which took me through college and university. All my other siblings joined prestigious universities though some of them had not even qualified. After a series of Christian counselling, I decided to be a fighter and make the best out of myself.

I am currently working with a non-governmental organisation and already doing my Masters in International Relations. Since I became independent, I live far from home and only visit my parents occasionally. My father begrudgingly receives my gifts and has never received me well. I have tried to contact my relatives to dig out any information about my background in vain.

The only clue I got was from one of my aunts who told me that my father used to work far from home at the time I was born and there was a doctor from Mombasa who would often visit our home. That maybe would answer the question why many people have mistaken me for "a Miriam from Kilifi." Not once or twice have I met people who have sworn I look like a lady called Miriam from Kilifi! Now that I think about it, perhaps my relatives are in the coastal region.

When I got this information from my aunt, I went home very excited and tried to trick my parents that I needed a DNA test to enable me donate one of my kidneys. My mother became so defensive and cried the whole night accusing me of having an ulterior motive. I have tried several other tricks to get a DNA test without raising an alarm but all my efforts have been futile.

An elderly doctor I was dating had offered to help me find out the truth - if I could cunningly get the specimen from my dad but I chickened out. I suddenly wasn't so sure what I would do with the information if I realised that this wasn't my father after all.

Every father's day arouses an undying desire in me to know my real father who will give me the reason to genuinely shout "happy Fathers' day!" This would be the man who will give me love, affection and a sense of belonging.

I would hug and narrate to him how I have missed him all these years. I would narrate to him what I have gone through without his love; I would tell him a thousand times how I love him and how I have always known that he would one day come for me.

But until he comes I have to address him in the disguise of the man who brought me up.