Despite everything that’s happened, Zodwa can’t help but think how lucky Mandla is to be loved so much that two women are prepared to fight over who keeps him. It brings to mind the Bible story of King Solomon and the judgment he’d made between two mothers who both claimed the same baby to be theirs. She wonders if there’s a way to stop her son from being torn in two during their struggle, and if there isn’t, will she be the one to make the sacrifice to keep him whole? Or does Ruth love him enough to do the same?

Mandla is the planet around which they all orbit. They are his satellites. They couldn’t wrench themselves free of the gravity he exerts even if they wanted to.

CHAPTER NINETY

Ruth

5 August 1996

Verdriet, Magaliesburg, South Africa

I didn’t want Zodwa and me to be squaring off like this: me in bed like an invalid and her standing over me.

I imagined myself feeling strong and better able to deal with the power imbalance because, make no mistake, I may be the one with the money but Zodwa is holding all the cards. She’s Mandla’s biological mother and has every legal right to him. I’m just a woman who loves another woman’s son to distraction; someone who stupidly thought she could lay claim to something that wasn’t hers just because she wanted it.

When I said as much to Dee earlier, she wryly quipped, “You’re not the first white person to do so and you certainly won’t be the last.” Then she sighed and said, “Cut yourself some slack. You’ve come a long way in the past two years, Ruth. I’m proud of you.”

“Please, take a seat,” I say, and Zodwa sits in the chair Dee put there for her. “Thanks for coming to see me.”

As Zodwa fidgets with her watch, I’m grateful for her preoccupation because it gives me the opportunity to look at her unabashedly. She’s so young, just a little over twenty, and yet she still looks like a girl. I can’t help but think back to myself at the same age, knowing nothing and thinking I knew everything, but so much more carefree than she could ever possibly be.