My excuse was that I refused to look a gift horse in the mouth. Hers was . . . well, she didn’t need an excuse, did she? She has more claim to him than I ever will. It doesn’t matter how much I love him, or how unfair this all is. She’s his mother and that’s what it boils down to. She’s his mother and children belong with their mother. Fucking illness is making me altruistic or forgiving or some other bullshit. I hope it passes as soon as I feel better.

“Have you given any thought to Zodwa coming back on Monday?” Dee asks now, reading my thoughts.

I’ve thought of nothing else. Still, Dee’s been so worried lately and I hate seeing that crease cleave its way into her brow again so many months after Daniel’s death. “It will all be fine,” I assure her. I have nothing to base this on except the fact that it has to all work itself out. It just simply has to. “You know what the crazy thing is?”

“What?”

“I always believed that Mandla ending up on our doorstep was a sign from the universe that I was meant not only to be a mother but his mother specifically. But then, after what Zodwa said, I realized that it was because of you that Mandla came to us. Because Precious saw you and wanted you to have him.” Dee looks skeptical and so I continue. “Think about it, Dee. You gave up a son and regretted it every day of your life. You don’t think that what I thought was my sign was actually yours?”

She smiles sadly and shakes her head. “It may have been my chance encounter with Precious that got her to bring him here, but it was you pissing me off that day that got me out of the house at that exact time so that I’d run into her. What were the chances of that? And you forget the most important thing. That I didn’t want him, Ruth. I didn’t want to keep him. That was all you.”

Her words are salve to a wound that I’ve been picking open over and over again. “Perhaps he was meant to be both of ours,” I say.

She nods. “Not just ours but Zodwa’s too. He was hers from the beginning and he should never have been taken away from her. Can you imagine what that must have been like for her?”

I nod. Someone is trying to take my son from me now. It’s excruciating.

“You’re the one who believes in signs, Ruth,” Dee continues. “Read the signs now. All of them point to us all being in this together.”

I nod again and the pain in my chest suddenly flares up, radiating outward. I must wince because Dee stands. “I’ll let you get some rest.”