“Of course I wasn’t.” I snort, setting us both off again, and then wince at the stab of pain the laughing elicits. When it passes, I continue. “He waited a year, until after we both got clean, to call me up, and then he just kept on doing so until I agreed to go out with him.”

“So, what happened?”

I shrug. “We fell in love and got married, and it was wonderful until I messed it all up.”

“How?”

“I started drinking again. Popping pills.”

“Why?”

“Same reason why I probably started drinking in the first place and why I always fell off the wagon. Not being able to get over wanting what I couldn’t have.”

“But surely he understood that?”

“He was sympathetic, but he thought we were enough, just the two of us, so he didn’t understand. Not really. And he told me time and again that he couldn’t be with someone who wasn’t sober. Each time I apologized and promised I wouldn’t do it again, he gave me a second and a third chance, but of course I kept on relapsing until I ran out of chances.”

After telling Dee about it, how I’d been expecting it and yet was still surprised when the bottom finally dropped out of my world, I surprise myself by saying, “He deserves better. He always did. He’s a good man who should be with someone who doesn’t drag him down.”

Dee sighs. I suppose there’s nothing I can tell her about wanting what’s best for someone else and knowing that you aren’t it.

“You’re sober now,” she says.

“Mostly.” I color with embarrassment remembering my lapse that Dee knows nothing about as well as the one that she does, and then I change the subject. “When did you last hear from Zodwa?”

“She called yesterday. Her brother’s burial is going to be on Saturday.”

“Good. I’m glad they’ll all finally have some closure.” And I find that I actually mean it.

I’ve been so angry these past two weeks and almost all that fury has been directed at Zodwa. Though, to be fair, I’m almost equally pissed off with the universe. It seems a cruel joke to grant me what I’ve always longed for most and then to snatch it away. I suspected something was strange about Zodwa’s unwavering devotion to Mandla but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Then again, who am I to talk? Didn’t I fall in love with Mandla at first sight? Despite our differences? Despite everything?