I ran into the waiting room at 10:30 a.m., out of breath but steeled for the fight I knew was waiting for me. Father Thomas had appointed himself as Daniel’s gatekeeper, but he wouldn’t keep me from seeing my son. Not again, not when he was moments away from death. I was almost disappointed when I didn’t see him there. At the nurses’ station, Rachel looked up and spotted me.

“I made it in time,” I said. “Please let me in to see him. I know it’s only supposed to be one visitor at a time, but I’m sure you can make this one exception.”

“Delilah.” She shook her head.

“I’m his mother. I know I said I wasn’t family, and maybe I’m not—at least not in the traditional sense, considering I gave him up when he was born—but I’m his biological mother. He needs his mother, Rachel. And I need him.”

Her eyes were filled with tears. “I tried to call you, Delilah, but you’d already left. He passed away just after we spoke. I’m so, so sorry.”

“No.” I shook my head. “No.” I turned away from her and made my way to the viewing glass like a sleepwalker.

The nun was there again and she was holding Daniel’s hand, my Daniel, who would still have been alive for me to say my farewell if I’d just called the hospital at the time I usually did. It seemed an unbearable cruelty to have me be an hour too late, as though God was still punishing me for my transgression almost forty years before. Then, I’d run from Daniel when I should have stayed, and this time, I’d rushed to his side just as soon as I’d heard the news of the shooting. Still, I’d allowed myself to be kept from him.

I never knew until that moment when the opportunity was taken away from me, how desperately I’d needed to talk to him, to tell him how much I loved him and how not a day had gone by without my thinking of him. For four decades, I’d held imaginary conversations with him in which I’d crafted apologies and explanations, entreaties and justifications.

And now, I’d never get the chance to voice any of them.

The church had kept us apart all those years ago and now it was God Himself who’d stepped between us. There was nothing more final than that.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Zodwa

2–30 August 1994

Big Hope Informal Settlement, Magaliesburg, South Africa

Zodwa makes her way along the laneways, hurriedly greeting people without stopping to chat. The first wave of workers leaving the squatter camp for their jobs in the city was already two hours ago. She’s getting a later start to her working day than most, but then she finishes later than most too.