When the whistle blew for the end of extra-time, we were all up on our feet, screaming like madmen. “We won! We actually bloody won.”

“It’s Madiba magic.”

Later, when the intercom’s buzzer squawked, Ruth looked up at it, frowning. She’d said she was expecting something bad to happen, and judging by her expression, you’d have thought it had just arrived.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Zodwa

24 June 1995

Verdriet, Magaliesburg, South Africa

Zodwa lifts her hand and presses the button before she loses her courage. She has no idea what she’s going to say or how she’s going to explain her presence. Her only goal is to see if the rumors are true and if so, to find out if the black child could possibly be her son.

“Yes, hello?” A disembodied voice floats up from the intercom.

“Hello,” Zodwa replies, bending down to speak into the box.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for . . .” She trails off, uncertain of what to say. Just then, a dog starts barking wildly in the background, drowning everything else out.

The camera, positioned on the electric fence and angled down toward the gate, moves and seems to focus in on her. Zodwa smiles up at it uncertainly.

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you with the dog barking. I’m opening the gate.”

And just like that, the electric gate slides open and Zodwa is inside the huge fence walking toward the house. She turns and looks for Thembeka and catches sight of her hiding behind the wild olive trees where she left her.

Zodwa wishes that they’d spoken about the letter—that Thembeka had told Zodwa her reaction to reading it—but after she arrived to fetch Zodwa that morning, Thembeka didn’t mention it again. Even with Zodwa’s mind so full of her baby, she’s still desperate to know what her friend is thinking.

The house door opens up ahead and Zodwa’s head snaps forward. An older white woman steps outside onto the veranda. She’s slender and has gray hair that falls to just below her ears. Though her hair has grown longer since the last time Zodwa saw her, she recognizes her instantly as the woman who hugged her mother on the side of the road more than a year ago.

“Hello? Can I help you?” the woman asks.

“Hello, ma—madam,” Zodwa stammers in reply.

A black dog suddenly slips out the house and runs at Zodwa, who shrinks back in fear.

“Jez!” the woman calls but the dog doesn’t listen to her.

Instead, it keeps barreling toward Zodwa, its tail wagging all the while. When it reaches her, it jumps up on its hind legs as though greeting a long-lost friend.

Oh my God. It’s Shadow. It’s Mama’s dog.