Bright’s Children

My husband and I have known Bright for a while. We did not fully understand him but he is a valuable friend who we respected. He was so wealthy sometimes I wonder how he does it, things just seem to fall into his lap. He got my husband his job and was the one who gave me the business idea that started me on my career path, also he took it further by recommending me to people. We deeply appreciate him for his benevolence.

We were pleasantly shocked and surprised that Bright made us guardian/caretaker of his children when business required him to travel often and for long periods, I don’t know why he chose us because we had no experience in that area but we were determined not to let him down.

Since we knew how rich he was, money would not be an issue. So you can imagine the shock on our faces when the children arrived that faithful day with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a big book the driver dropped on the table. My husband called Bright and when we confirmed their arrival, he proceeded to tell us the schools he wanted them alongside a very long list of instructions. According to him, he would be gone for a long time, possibly years and the children already knew this and would be seeing us as their parents from henceforth.

I wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. We welcomed the children as warmly as we could and adjusted to having dependents since we had no child of our own.

We had to dip into our savings when school resumed to put them in the school specified, get a bigger house to accommodate us all, the cost of food, clothing, hospital bills amongst other things kept digging into our pocket. We hoped Bright would come back soon but he never said anything about the money or taking them back during his visit and calls and we did not want to be too forward, so we dropped hints that he refused to pick up. We struggled on our own and sometimes I cried in secret but I maintained a happy front before the children because we loved them despite.

Then the children came with different attitude, behaviour and demands, we had to learn how to be balanced parents overnight. Gosh, it was so frustrating.

Sometimes my husband and I disagreed on how to correct them, other times I was resentful because I felt he left them for me and went his merry way, then there were days he complained I used them as an excuse for shirking my duties… Everything was a hot mess as my tired was tired.

This went on for years and we all adjusted and learned to manage, believing Bright will repay us someday.

I was cleaning out some old things in the house when I came across the book Bright had sent with the children, we had abandoned it thinking it was their bedtime story. Curious, I looked inside and was shocked at what I discovered, I ran to get my husband who was playing with the children outside and we both read the book in shock.

Bright had not left us alone as we thought but rather had written down everything the children would need and made payment for them. A running payment in a boutique for their clothes, school fees account for each of them, vacation allowance, tutors for different extracurricular activities, food and snacks allowance, a car with a driver waiting for our call to take them wherever, a running account with a domestic help agency to cater for the salary of any help we will require and the list went on and on. In fact from the book, we got to realize before the children came everything about their life has been planned for and taken care of. There was even his PA who had been trained to handle everything and show us what to do if we ran into any difficulty with the children. We were not left out either, Bright had written down a list of contacts he had spoken to whom my husband and I were to reach to connect us with what we needed for our career and business… To be continued