Before I can react, a woman rushes at us. “Leave it, Kyle. I said leave it.”

“But I want juice,” the child whines, and I’m about to tell the mother it’s fine, that Mandla hasn’t even had a sip yet, when the woman grabs the juice from his hand. She’s one of the patrons I caught staring earlier.

“It’s okay,” I say to his mother. “He can have some.”

The woman ignores me and speaks to her child. “This one is yucky. You’ll get sick if you drink from it.”

Kyle starts to screech and another mother nearby plucks a juice box from her own child’s hands and gives it to him. Kyle’s mother doesn’t say anything in protest as he takes big gulping sips from the straw even though the girl who unwillingly donated it looks like she has a cold judging by all the gunk crusted around her nose.

“I beg your pardon but what did you mean by that?” If word of Mandla’s HIV status has somehow spread around town, I need to be aware of it.

She finally speaks to me directly. “You know what I mean.”

“No, actually. I don’t. My child isn’t sick but that girl is. And yet you have no problem with your child sharing her germs.”

“God alone knows what kinds of germs he has,” she says, indicating Mandla. “Kaffirs are dirty. Everyone knows that.”

The slur renders me speechless for a second. It’s so utterly vicious and directed with such venom at a beautiful, innocent child that I feel sucker punched.

How dare she speak that way about my boy? How fucking dare she?

I’m about to give her a piece of my mind when the woman from earlier, Michelle, speaks from behind me. “Since you’re so concerned about protecting the health of other children, you probably shouldn’t have come here with a child that has impetigo. That’s really contagious.” She points at the scabs on Kyle’s chin.

All the mothers near him suddenly reach for their children to pull them away from his infectious scabs. Kyle, startled by all the activity around him, begins to cry again and his mother swoops in to comfort him.

“Not so nice when it’s your child being ostracized, is it?” I ask, picking Mandla up and walking away with Michelle. She pretends not to notice the tears that stream down my face as I kiss Mandla over and over again, telling him what a wonderful boy he is, how kind and sweet and precious.