I decided to walk home to clear my head a bit. I couldn’t get over the fact that Naadu had had her own family. That there was a man she might have been comparing Pope to. That there were children she might have been comparing Nene to. That she knew exactly how it felt when birthdays and anniversaries and festive holidays came around and the people you loved were not there to share them with you. I felt so very bad for the way I had treated her.

Once I got home I googled the name Klorkai Okai and got over 7,000 hits. The tears were threatening to fall. How was I ever going to find her? But I went on anyway, reading LinkedIn and Facebook profiles. I stayed up all night and finally fell asleep at the computer around 4 a.m.

It was Pope who woke me up the next morning when he came in to check on me. I heard him open the door and I woke up.

“What are you doing? You didn’t sleep behind that thing did you?” he said looking at my bed which hadn’t been slept in.

I shut the laptop before he got to me. “What were you doing?”

“I was uh . . . studying.” “Studying?”

“For the resit exams.”

He looked surprised. “Oh okay, just take it easy. I don’t want you getting sick.”

I nodded. He looked at me and then at the bed once more and repeated his advice about taking it easy.

I googled Ada Senior High School immediately he stepped out and closed the door. My luck had turned, they had an old students association group. I typed in Klorkai Okai and got one hit. The full name was Mary Klorkai Okai. Mary wasn’t a difficult name to pronounce so I ruled that out. It took me another ten minutes of staring at the computer screen and wondering what to do to realise that my biological mom had not graduated from Ada Senior High School. Nyewayo said she’d changed schools after having me. She wouldn’t have been part of the old students association.

On a whim I dialed the contact number for Mary Klorkai Okai. It was just past 8 a.m. I hoped she was an early riser. I hoped I wasn’t disturbing her by calling so early.

She picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”

I greeted her, introduced myself and asked if she had known another Klorkai Okai.

“People used to call her Kai when she was in school,” I added. My stomach was twisted in knots. I could hear my heart pounding in my chest. I so desperately wanted her to say ‘Yes’ that when she did say ‘Yes’ I didn’t know what to say.

I hadn’t planned on what follow-up questions to ask her.

“Hello, hello, are you still there?” Mary Klorkai Okai asked.

“Yes, I’m here. Do you know where she is?”

“No, she was ahead of me. We were not friends. I don’t think she even finished the school, I think she was transferred to Accra.”

“Do you know which school she transferred to?” “No, like I told you, we were not friends.” “Do you know anyone who was her friend?”

“I already told you she was my senior. We were not even in the same house. I only remember her because we had similar names.”

Another dead end. I hang up the phone and climbed into bed and hugged my pillow to myself and tried not to cry. Nene came in around 9 a.m. to ask if I was okay. I told him I had a headache and he left me alone. I watched him as he left the room. Nyewayo was right. The right thing to do was for me to leave and let Naadu and Pope and Nene and their unborn child be a family. They deserved to be happy.

If only I knew where to look. It struck me then that I hadn’t asked Mary Klorkai Okai my biological mother’s first name. I’d been so disappointed she didn’t know what school she’d transferred to that I hadn’t even asked. I picked up my phone again and redialed Mary Klorkai Okai’s phone number.

“Hi, sorry it’s me again. Please do you remember what the other Klorkai Okai’s first name was?”

“Hmm let me see . . . it was one of those funny English names.”

I silently willed her to remember. Please God, I’ll leave Pope and his family. Please let her remember.

After about three minutes of Mary Klorkai Okai ‘hmming’ and ‘oohing’ to remember she finally gave up.

“It was such a long time ago. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” I said. This time the tears did come. I cried myself to sleep and was woken up by my phone ringing about three hours later. It was a number I hadn’t stored.

“It just came to me. I just remembered it. It was Eulalia. Yes, Eulalia. That was it,” Mary Klorkai Okai said when I picked up.

“Thank you so much,” I said jumping out of bed and going to sit behind my laptop. I came up with one name when I typed Eulalia Klorkai Okai into the Google search engine. It came with an address at Kasoa.

I had overstayed my welcome with Pope. He had done enough to help my teenage mother out of her predicament. It was time I found her and decided what do with my life. I packed a few of my things into a backpack, stole some money from Pope’s safe and set out to find Eulalia Klorkai Okai. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. I just left home.