I want to tell her I’m fine but what comes out is, “I don’t think I can do this. It’s too much. It’s not what I signed up for.”

She stops fussing with her bag and leans against the desk next to me. “So, what did you sign up for?”

“A healthy baby. One who would cause a bit of a ruckus in the community because he’s black, but nothing I couldn’t deal with since God knows I’ve caused enough ruckuses in my life. What I wasn’t expecting was for . . .”

“Him to be dying,” she finishes for me, and I wince.

“Yes.”

“Because, make no mistake, this diagnosis is a death sentence.” She sighs and reaches into her bag for a pack of smokes and an ashtray. They’re Dumonts, the long brown cigarettes that always make me think of cinnamon sticks. She taps the pack and two cigarettes eject on cue. “You want one?”

Damn right I do.

She lights up my smoke and then her own, taking a long, deep drag. After she exhales, she says, “This is about as real as shit will ever get. And I don’t just mean for you, because you’re all . . . you know . . .” She trails off as she waves her hand to take me in.

“All what?” I try not to bristle.

“Rich and white and privileged,” she says matter-of-factly. She isn’t trying to insult me. She’s just stating the truth. “I don’t know you, Ruth,” she says. “I’ve just known many women like you. Women who didn’t like getting old, so they made themselves younger. Women who didn’t like being alone, so they made sure they weren’t. Women who didn’t like having nothing and so they got themselves everything.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. That’s life, you know? But here’s the thing. You’re someone who’s not used to being helpless, to not being the master of your own destiny. And that’s the worst kind of person to be in the face of this.” She pauses and then asks, “What’s his name? This baby you thought you wanted so badly?”

“Mandla.”

“Mandla.” She breathes out a plume of smoke. “Don’t take him unless you want him more than you have ever wanted anything in your life. Because here’s the thing, Ruth. All that wealth, and your important connections, and your big, perfect tits, and your beauty-school charm? All of that means jack shit going forward.” With that, she stubs out her smoke and holds the ashtray out for me to do the same.

I see her leave through the mist of my tears. I know she’s right. I also know that sitting helplessly by and watching a child die is not something I can do.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Zodwa

17 December 1994

Big Hope Informal Settlement, Magaliesburg, South Africa