At that, I stiffened, trying to ignore the last part of her statement in case I went a bright, fire engine red. “It’s really nice that Zac’s found someone to play with,” I said.

“And it’s nice that Jake’s found someone his age to talk to too,” she added quickly.

“It’s nice,” I said softly. The word nice suddenly sounded wrong. Like when you say any word too many times in a row, it stops sounding like English.

“Should we call them in to cut the cake?” she asked.

I nodded and almost said “nice” again, but stopped myself. “Mmm-hmm,” I mumbled instead, which was probably just as bad as saying “nice.”

I glanced at the cake reticently. Zac hated brown food the most. Said it reminded him of poop.

“Oh, wait.” Jake raced off to the kitchen and came back moments later holding a vanilla cupcake in his hands. “We got this for Zac.”

“Oh my gosh . . . that’s so kind of you guys. Really, that’s so…” I couldn’t say any more, I felt so emotional. This small, yet incredibly kind gesture made me want to cry. It wasn’t often that gestures like this were made on Zac’s behalf. The world can be a cruel place for people like him—if you don’t fit into the box, well, there’s no place for you. But this cupcake was a place. A safe place. And those were rare.

After we’d whisper-sung “Happy Birthday,” opened some presents, and eaten some cake, I found myself standing outside on the balcony looking down at the sea in the distance. It looked calm now, like a still pond.

“Okay, seriously, how can you still prefer the city, over . . . this?” Jake walked all the way up to me. “Look!” He waved his arm across the vista in front of us. The sun was starting to dip lower in the sky, casting a bright, white light across the surface of the calm water, making it look like liquid mercury.

I shrugged. “I suppose it’s pretty cool.”

“Pretty cool?” he repeated. “You can’t beat this.”

I laughed. “But have you seen downtown Joburg at sunset?”

“Don’t have to. This is better.”

I turned and faced him. “Just before the sun goes down completely, there’s this moment when the whole city changes. The Nelson Mandela Bridge flickers to life, red and green and purple, and sometimes, if you’re lucky, a train comes in at just the right time and all its windows are illuminated and it’s like a serpent of light coiling under the bridge. And then in the distance, the Hillbrow Tower turns on, bright pink and blue. And then Ponte lights up, and the sun turns the sky a bright orange, and it looks like all the gray concrete has turned to gold.”