by Malla Nunn
“Oh . . .”
In the dark, I think about what people might say about Goodness if she wasn’t a part of the Dumisa family. Have you seen her on the soccer field? Boots and shorts and mud on her face. She might as well be a boy. I wouldn’t trust her around my daughter!
“I’m sorry that your ma got hurt,” Goodness says. “But I’m glad I was in that alley. You understand?”
I stare up the kitchen wall and see the faint wink of a star that shows through a tiny crack high above the window. “I get it. Jacob didn’t care who your parents were. You threw that brick. You saved my life.”
“Lil Bit and Lewis helped,” she says. “We all played a part.”
“Us being together was a lucky thing.” Lil Bit yawns and snuggles under the thin blankets. The three-bar electric heater, the use of which Annalisa normally rations like gold coins, glows in the corner. It is enough to cut the chill in the air but not enough to warm the entire room. Tonight, we’ll stay close together to share our body heat. Lewis is nearest the heater and already asleep. I hear the steady inhale and exhale of his breath, and I know for sure that Auntie Mags is right. Our being together has power.
“It’s funny,” I say. “Annalisa is hurt. Mrs. M snores like a drunk with a blocked nose, and the floor is hard on my hip bones, but I feel lucky to be where I am.”
“Not lucky,” Lil Bit says. “Blessed.”
Blessed? Here, in a one-room shack on a dirt lane with a broken dresser and starlight falling through cracks in the wall?
Yes. Lil Bit is right.
Blessed.
* * *
* * *
Goodness falls asleep next and Lil Bit a short while later. Mrs. M’s rumbling snores come and go. Lewis’s deep and steady breath calms me. Annalisa is still sedated, her chest the only part of her that moves.
I lie awake and listen to the night sounds around me, and I think about my grandparents’ big white house. It’s beautiful, but who’d want to live there if you had to live with Neville? I wonder if he’s lonely with Mayme in the guest bedroom and all that space around him. Or is he happy to drift off to sleep knowing his security guards are patrolling the yard? He wouldn’t understand six people crammed into one room for the night and how good it feels. That is the last thing I think of before I fall asleep.
24
A hand taps my shoulder, and I crawl from sleep to find Lewis crouched close beside me in the cold dawn light. If my father made my mother feel the way I do right now, all sugary and sweet, then I totally understand why she wants him back so badly.
“I have to help my brothers with deliveries,” he whispers. “I’ll drop by and see you this afternoon. Your mother seems to be doing fine. I heard her mumble in her sleep a minute ago.”
“Oh . . . thanks . . .” I can’t make more words than that because my mouth is wide and smiling. Heat stings my cheeks and warms up the cold air around me. This stupid happiness is a feeling I want every day of my life. “Come by anytime.”
He nods, and I slip from under the weight of Goodness’s arm, which is draped across my collarbone. I am too polite and too much my mother’s daughter to not walk him to the door. Good manners, Annalisa says, cost nothing.
I pad to the front door, turn the locks, and pull it open. “Thank you for staying over. Your Auntie Mags was right. All of us being together made a difference.”
“Happy to do it again.” Lewis steps out of the house and straight into Maggie Mabula, who holds Primrose, her one-eared dog, in the crook of her arm. Her mouth drops open to see Lewis leaving through the front door in broad daylight.
“Oh . . .” Her gaze drifts to my stomach as if she expects it to go from flat to pregnant in an instant. “Sorry to disturb.”
“Lewis was just leaving.” Annalisa has taught me well. I do not squirm or blush. I look Maggie Mabula straight in the eyes and smile, knowing that the gossip about Lewis Dumisa and that colored girl will spread through Sugar Town faster than a winter flu. This does not bother me. Like Lil Bit, I have lived through worse.
“Again tonight?” Lewis takes my hand and laces his fingers through mine—giving Maggie a piece of gossip she will be unable to stop herself from repeating—all over town. It’s hard to keep a straight face. It’s ridiculous: Maggie thinking that Lewis and I took advantage of my mother being stabbed to get busy and sweaty in a room full of people.
“Come earlier.” I join the game and squeeze Lewis’s hand. “That way we’ll have all night together.”
“I can’t wait to see you again. Hold you again.” Lewis winks and saunters toward Sisulu Street. He has a sense of humor, and Lord knows, he will need it. Goodness told her mother where she and Lewis were spending the night, but when Mrs. Dumisa catches word of what Lewis said and the way he said it, she will not be pleased.
“What can I do for you, Miss Mabula?” I wait till Lewis has turned the corner and disappeared. Primrose, the dog, pants.
“An old white man with spring-up hair is asking for directions to your house. City men have no business in Sugar Town, but the woman sitting next to him? She has your looks. Same nose. Same freckles. Your granny, I’m guessing?”
Maggie is fishing for a second piece of information to share over the back fence. A one-night stand—maybe even a teen pregnancy, with a Dumisa no less, and a white grandma that turned up out of nowhere . . . she’ll be hectic for days repeating this story.
“I’ll go see who it is.” I will not confirm nor deny that the white stranger is my grandmother. It’s time for Maggie to find her scandals somewhere else.
“No, you stay.” She moves fast out of the gate. “Get the house tidy. I’ll bring them to you, my own self. It’s safer that way.”
Please! It’s daylight. There’s no danger lurking in the lane, but Maggie smells the chance to make some money, and if Maggie loves anything more than Primrose, it’s the crinkly sound of banknotes being pushed inside her bra for safekeeping. Her courier business is strictly cash on delivery. But if cash is tight, she’ll take fresh eggs, canned food, and baked goods instead. If she expects a special payment for hand-delivering Mayme and Father Gibson to our home, she’ll be sadly disappointed. I plan to hang on to the money that we have.
“Thank you, Maggie. Bring them over.”
“My pleasure.” She runs in the direction of Sisulu Street with Primrose tucked under her arm like a fluffy handbag.
I turn and crack the front door open to peek inside. The room is tidy but crowded. Mrs. M snores in the cot across from a pale and still Annalisa. In sleep, her face is smooth and relaxed. She looks younger, less worn down by unpaved roads and unpaid bills. Lil Bit and Goodness curl together on the floor in a tangle of limbs and thin blankets. They seem to belong together somehow. They balance each other out, a sports-mad soccer star and a book-mad bandit.
I tiptoe into the kitchen area, grab two cans of beef in gravy from the cupboard, and slink out of the room. The sun breaks from behind a cloud. Father Gibson and Mayme here in Sugar Town. Family history and all its rules are changing fast.
“Amandla.” Maggie sweeps her free hand in a grand gesture. Primrose barks, adding to the drama of the moment. “See what I found.”
Father Gibson and Mayme stand outside the garden gate with dazed expressions. Father Gibson’s nighttime visit did not prepare him fully for the daytime visuals of township life. Hard light bounces off the flat tin roofs and strands of barbed wire curl around window frames like poison ivy. A stranger with no shoes picks through a pile of garbage a few houses down.
Mayme’s face is drawn tight. She’s aged ten years overnight. The lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes are deeper than I remember. Hearing about the attack on Annalisa and seeing how we really live has shocked her. She has no way of knowing that the lane between Sisulu and Tugela is not the bottom of the bottom. Plenty of people are far worse off than us.
“For you, Miss Mabula.”
Maggie raises an eyebrow at the dented cans, and under normal circumstances, I’d be ashamed of how little we have. These are not normal times, though. I am not my usual self. I choose to be honest. “That’s all I have to give you.”
She throws Mayme a glance. The glance is a question: What about the white lady? I give a shrug that says, Take it or leave it, sister. I won’t beg for money from my grandmother. Maggie grabs the cans and shuffles off.
“Come. Don’t be scared.” I walk out to Mayme and pull her gently through the gate and into our dead yard. There must be a way to change the soil and introduce a living patch of green. Mrs. M will know how. Plans for later.
Father Gibson follows us, glancing at the houses without windows. On the map, we are less than thirty kilometers from the big white house where I met him, but it might as well be another country.
The door opens before we reach it, and Lil Bit’s head pokes out. “Amandla,” she calls. “Come quick. Mrs. M needs your help.”
* * *
* * *
Annalisa thrashes in bed. Her hair is wild, and her eyes are wilder. The front of her T-shirt is soaked with blood. Mrs. M tries to gently hold her down, but Annalisa fights. She twists and turns and says in a ragged voice:
“Just a little farther. Hold on, baby girl. We have to keep moving. We have to get out of here . . .”
Mrs. M says, “Talk to her, Amandla. Tell her that you are here. That you are safe.”
I try to speak, but nothing comes out. My lungs feel like they’re being crushed. There’s blood everywhere. It’s on Mrs. M’s hands, on the sheets, and on Annalisa’s nightgown, which will have to be burned in the fire barrel that Lewis rolled into the front yard last night.
“Shhh . . .” Mayme pushes past me and kneels on the grass mat beside Annalisa’s bed. She takes her hands, gentle. “I’m here. Mummy is here with you.”
The sound of Mayme’s voice calms Annalisa. She stops thrashing and leans back against the wall like a puppet with broken strings. “You’re home. You’re safe.”
“Amandla?” Mrs. Mashanini’s voice breaks through the haze in my head. “Come and help me with your mother. Slow and gentle now . . .”
I blink and edge past Mayme kneeling on the grass mat. A red bloom spreads across the right side of Annalisa’s chest, and I try to ready myself to be covered in my own mother’s blood. Mrs. M tears the neckline of Annalisa’s gown open and grabs a wet cloth from a bowl of water beside the cot. How can she stay so calm?
“Keep talking.” Mrs. M wipes blood from Annalisa’s neck and collarbone. “Tell her an old story. Give her something nice to remember. Amandla, come closer and help me take off your mother’s gown. We need to wash and rebandage the wound.”
“Does she need to go to the emergency ward, like Dr. Dlamini said?”
Say no. Please say no.
“Not yet,” Mrs. M says. “After the dressing is changed, I will give her a sedative. She needs to sleep and rest.”
Thank heaven. My medical knowledge is limited, but I’d prefer that Annalisa stays at home. At least here she has Mrs. M to look after her, one on one. And she has me. Mayme pushes up her sleeves and says, “What can I do to help, Mrs. Mashanini?”
Father Gibson leans across the foot of the cot, worried. “Take it easy, Amanda. Try not to put a strain on your heart.”
She waves him away. I have to do this, Tony.
After years of staying away, Mayme has finally chosen to be here with Annalisa and me, against Neville’s wishes, I’m sure. The white house is spectacular, but there is no place on Earth that she’d rather be than right here beside her daughter’s bed.
“If you need me, I’ll be outside having a cigarette.” Father Gibson bows out and backs away. Despite his flyaway hair and rumpled appearance, he understands the need for this meeting of Harden women. He brought Mayme here, after all.
“Go home, girls,” Mrs. M tells Lil Bit and Goodness. “Your mothers are waiting to see you, and Miss Harden needs her privacy.”
Goodness doesn’t want to leave, but this morning, she does what she’s told. Even she gets that the business between Mayme and Annalisa is old and painful and private.
“Catch you soon, Amandla.” Lil Bit grabs Goodness’s hand and leads her out of the house and into the yard. The door closes behind her with a metal click. Mrs. M instructs Mayme and me to remove Annalisa’s stained gown and help wipe the blood from her chest and shoulders. Mrs. M changes her bandages, and once we have wrestled Annalisa into a clean nightgown, we lay her back against the pillows. She sighs and closes her eyes, tired from everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours. Everything that’s happened in the last fifteen years.
“Wipe her forehead with this.” Mrs. M hands me the damp cloth. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes to give her another dose of painkillers. For now, the sound of your voices is all she needs.”
Mrs. M scoops the bloodied blankets from the floor and bundles them under her arm. Blind Auntie will have them washed and hung out to dry on the metal clothesline in the backyard before the sun is overhead. Blind Auntie’s hands are never idle.
Mrs. M leaves, and it’s just us. Three generations of one family, women with the weight of a silent, unresolved history resting on our shoulders. Mayme plucks at Annalisa’s clean sheets.
“Talk to her,” I say.
“Words aren’t enough to fix what I did,” she says. “Words won’t change anything.”
That is not true. Words have power. String enough words to together and you get a story. That is what Annalisa needs right now. Her own story, told to her in her mother’s voice.
“Here.” I unzip my backpack and pull out the private investigator’s report, still unopened. “Read this and tell Annalisa what happened fifteen years ago. Tell her everything. Do it for yourself. Do it for her.”
Annalisa’s soft breath breaks the silence that fills the room. The report hangs in midair as I wait for Mayme to make a move. Minutes pass. My arm grows heavy, and my patience begins to evaporate. Right now, she needs to put Annalisa’s suffering ahead of her own fear.
“It’s hard to face what’s in there,” she whispers. “I can’t do it.”
Oh, cry me a river, rich white lady. Life is hard. And life in Sugar Town is even harder. I don’t have the time to protect you from all the bad and the sad things that we deal with every day.
“Look around and tell me how hard your life is.” My voice vibrates with anger. “This is all we have. Two cots. A table. Four chairs. A sink and a stove and a toilet in the backyard. Annalisa gets up every day and cleans the house from top to bottom. She has made this tin room our home, and she has done it by herself. Your money helps, but it’s not enough to make Annalisa’s life easy. Or mine. Our life is hard, but guess what? We are grateful. I know that ‘into each life some rain must fall,’ but if you believe that reading a report is harder than being stabbed in an alley to stop your daughter from being killed by a maniac, then you are not my grandmother.”
I fling the report into Mayme’s lap, tired of carrying the weight for the women in my family. Once, just once, I need someone else to do the heavy lifting. I’ve had enough. “Take the report. Father Gibson will drive you home. Mrs. Mashanini and I will look after Annalisa.”
Still, she doesn’t move.
“Please go. Leave us alone the way that you’ve done for fifteen years. We’ll be fine. We’re used to you not being here.” The fury drains from me, but I don’t regret anything that I’ve said. Every word is true.
“You look like me, but you take after her.” Mayme’s voice is low and soft. “When she was younger, Annalisa was fierce; you had to listen to her. Her boldness made me uncomfortable sometimes, and other times, I was proud of her strength. Much stronger than me. I have wasted so much time on meaningless things . . .”
Anger I was prepared for, not honesty. An ache grows inside my chest. Mayme has thought about where her life went wrong, many times.
“You’re right to criticize me,” she continues. “I never got my hands dirty. Think of all the years that you lived so close. A forty-minute drive away, but I never set foot here till this morning. I didn’t visit you because I was scared. Scared to stand up and claim you and Annalisa in public. I did not stand up and claim you because I was ashamed of who Annalisa was: poor and broken and with an illegitimate child from a black man . . . I did offer Annalisa more money, but she refused. For some reason, she didn’t want Neville to know where she lived. She couldn’t tell me why. I should have confronted Neville and fought for you both, but I let things slide. By staying away and making up stories about Annalisa, I could keep being a queen bee . . . Mrs. Bollard . . . whatever that means . . . It’s the worst exchange I ever made.”
She rips open the envelope with shaking hands and takes a deep breath. “Now I’m dying, and you deserve the truth. Annalisa deserves the truth. Please forgive me, if you can.”
Mayme is about to give this family what it needs. Love. Honesty. Courage. Closeness. She’s an old lady who has found the bravery to take a step that will likely damage her heart. I knew it was in her somewhere. Her fingers slide along the back of the envelope . . .
“Wait.” I hold my hand out to stop her. There is danger inside the report; is it enough to kill a sick old lady made weaker by her own guilt? “I’ll read it. But not here. I have to go somewhere by myself. You stay here with Annalisa. I’ll be back in an hour.”
“No, we go together.” She runs her thumbs over the smooth skin of Annalisa’s fingers, perhaps remembering a time when Mother’s tiny hand fit perfectly inside hers. “When I die, I want to go knowing that, for once in my life, I was brave.”
“I know the perfect place for us to go and read the report.” I grab the envelope and my backpack on the way out of the house. Father Gibson leans against the gate and lights up a smoke. Not his first. There’s a stack of cigarette butts piled neatly by his feet.