She was quiet for a while and then said, “They came in to rob the place and weren’t expecting to find him here in the early hours of the morning. He must have given them a fright.” She was quiet for a moment, remembering. “He was an insomniac. And when he couldn’t sleep, he’d come here to work on his sermons or to read. He hadn’t been sleeping those few weeks.”

“You knew him well.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Oh, my. Yes. I helped raised him after you left.”

And all at once, I realized who she was. Father Thomas’s words from the hospital came back to me.

Take a look, Delilah. That’s Daniel’s mother. She’s been his mother ever since you left.

As I was still processing that information, she continued, oblivious to my surprise. “And then when he was ordained and was assigned here, I moved with him as a kind of secretary-slash-housekeeper. I should have been here that night as well, but he’d bought me a bus ticket to East London so I could visit with an ailing friend for a few days. He was that kind of man. Selfless and thoughtful. I didn’t want to leave him, knowing what he was going through, but he insisted that he was fine.”

“What he was going through?” She opened her mouth to speak, and then paused and cleared her throat. Her eyes flicked away before they were drawn back. Something about the gesture—her obvious reluctance to say what she was about to say—made my stomach feel fluttery. “What was he going through?” I repeated, throat dry.

“He’d just recently found out, you see.”

“About what?”

“Who you were.”

“Who I was?” I asked, confused.

“Yes, that you were his mother.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

Zodwa

1 October 1995

Verdriet, Magaliesburg, South Africa

It’s the first time Zodwa has gotten to spend more than half an hour unsupervised with her son. She has no idea what the emergency was or why the sisters had to suddenly go to Johannesburg, nor does she care. The day has been an unexpected gift.

Mandla sits on the couch next to Zodwa, fighting sleep as he gulps from his sippy cup. He’s exhausted from a frenetic morning spent chasing her from room to room. Each time he caught her and she lifted him up in a celebratory swoop, he squealed and then demanded to go again just as soon as his feet touched the floor. Zodwa winced when each scream of excitement was coupled with a bout of coughing that rattled Mandla’s lungs, but she didn’t cut the playtime short because of it.