Jezebel continued to pine for Ruth. She walked from room to room searching for her and it was the most pitiful sight in the world. Jez still protected Mandla fiercely and was always just a split second behind him, like his shadow. Zodwa told me that’s what Jez’s name had been when she still belonged to her mother. Precious named her in honor of my own childhood dog, who she must have thought of when she adopted her.

Jez had also taken up where Ruth had left off all those years ago, spying on me when I prayed. I didn’t do it on my knees next to the bed anymore, which was just as well. I suspected Jez would hop up on the mattress while I was busy and lick me in the face. Now that I thought about it, I was surprised Ruth had never done the same.

Ruth would be so happy to know that her boy continued to thrive. His beauty astounded me, as did his quick mind and easy nature. He did her proud every single day, and still sometimes called her Mama when we went through the photo albums and he saw pictures of her. How lucky they were to have each other despite how fleeting their time together was. Perhaps Ruth’s love for Mandla was so fierce because she always suspected how temporary their union would be.

Ruth left most of her money to Mandla in a trust and stipulated in her will that I should oversee it as Mandla’s guardian in the event of her death, but she wrote it before we knew the truth about Zodwa. She had asked me to legally adopt him but I couldn’t do that. Not with Zodwa being his mother and with her living with us in the farmhouse. We were all seeing a family therapist to try to figure things out. One of the last things Ruth said to me was that it would all be fine and I believed her. It would be.

There was an article in that day’s paper commemorating the one-year anniversary of Ruth’s death. It was a small article, but still . . . she was being remembered. All the press she got after she died would have made her insufferable. She always did like attention. I’d made another two collages from all those tributes to “South Africa’s Wild Child” and they hung next to the one I made her for Christmas. Mandla was most impressed with the picture of a clothed Ruth with the snake.