It was uncomfortable, meeting his gaze like that, but it achieved what he’d wanted it to. I was looking at him, really focusing on him in a way that I hadn’t in years. That’s what happens when someone is so much a part of the fabric of your daily existence; you begin to look through them, not because they aren’t important, but because they become as essential as oxygen and just as easy to take for granted.

He was right. He was no longer a boy, and if not yet a man, then he was on the very cusp of manhood. I looked at him, taking him all in, and was surprised by the changes he’d undergone without my noticing. Riaan’s shoulders had broadened and his voice had deepened. His jaw was covered with stubble that in the moonlight looked like flecks of steel and fire. I wasn’t prepared for how scratchy it would be, how utterly foreign, when he leaned forward and took my face in his hands and pressed his lips against mine.

At first, the kiss was gentle, and his lips felt like a butterfly alighting on mine. He smelled of soap and rain, and he tasted of strawberry jam.

“Stay and marry me, Delilah,” he implored, pulling away and gazing at me, searching for some sign. “Please.” He kissed me more fiercely then, pressing into me as though wanting to possess all of me, until I was lying down on the blanket with him on top of me.

I saw the same fervor in his eyes now that I had during that last night together, but then he blinked and the moment was over.

“Good night, Delilah,” he said, his eyes glistening in the dark.

“Good night.”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Zodwa

10 May 1995

Big Hope Informal Settlement, Magaliesburg, South Africa

Zodwa’s hand trembles as it clasps the packet of tiny birthday candles. How they can justify charging so much for them is beyond her since they’re more expensive than an eight-pack of full-sized Price’s candles that would burn for hours. She’s slightly horrified that she spent so much on the frivolous things.

When Zodwa set out that morning to the Spar at the shopping center, she went like a sleepwalker, not knowing what she wanted until she stood in front of the cupcakes at the shop’s bakery.

“I’ll have one of those,” Zodwa said to the black woman at the counter, who wore a net over her hair and plastic gloves on her hands even though her white counterpart didn’t wear either.

“Hhayi, sisi. You can’t just buy cupcakes one, one. You must buy them like that in a pack. Six, six, sisonke.” She pointed at the packages of cupcakes in their plastic wrapping. “It’s not like buying cigarettes at the spaza shop.” She laughed.