The news about Dumisa has aged her gogo dramatically. When Zodwa sat her down and gently broke it to her, she’d clutched her chest as though the truth were an arrow through her heart. She’d broken down then, rocking back and forth as she wept, mourning not only her grandson but the death of the myth that had surrounded him. Zodwa’s gogo no longer speaks of Dumisa in awed tones. She no longer speaks of him at all.

As they walk to the village, her grandmother squeezes her arm. “You are getting too thin, my child. Is everything all right?”

“It’s just been a stressful few months since finding out about Dumisa.”

Her gogo nods but won’t be drawn into commenting about him. “But you’re okay otherwise?”

“Yes, gogo. Everything is fine.”

These lies have become second nature to Zodwa. She hasn’t told her gogo about Mandla’s existence or the disease they share. While she tells herself it’s better this way, to let the old woman live in ignorance rather than having her worry about things she can do nothing about—especially after the news of Dumisa’s betrayal devastated her so much—the deception eats away at her.

Perhaps her reluctance is as much from self-preservation as it is from altruism. For Zodwa, truth is a gift that should be bestowed generously and wholeheartedly, not dished out grudgingly in a piecemeal fashion, and so there can be no confession about Zodwa’s son that does not include an admission of her own sexuality. And once her gogo sees Zodwa for who she is, she’ll surely turn against her just as she turned against Dumisa.

Her grandmother and the greater community will see Zodwa’s sexual orientation as even more reason for shame than Dumisa’s behavior. They’ll believe that what came afterward—the rape and infection—are fitting punishments for her crime of loving another woman, and how could Zodwa bear living with that? Knowing that the way she was born, which she has absolutely no control over, is considered far worse than treacherous decisions her brother willingly made for self gain?

Also, even if Zodwa were able to divulge just the morsels of truth that her gogo would find palatable, how could she separate the meat from the gristle? What purpose could be served by delighting her grandmother with news of a grandson only to add that he could die any day from the dreaded virus that Zodwa herself passed on to him? She couldn’t bear to admit that she gave her son a death sentence before she ever gave him love.

This isn’t where she’s meant to be. Zodwa knows that now. Her place is back at the farm with Mandla and the sisters.