Sitshengisiwe had left home at seventeen with a suitcase filled with her favourite dresses and the book she had been reading in school for literature class, The Return of the Native. When she became pregnant with her second child, two years later, she was still living with Philemon in the Rutherfords’ boy’s kia, and she was still wearing the dresses that her body had long outgrown. She had stopped reading books, finding in them nothing but empty promises.

After the birth of their second child, Philemon gave her a suitcase stuffed with his madam’s second-hand clothes. He was almost brought to tears by Madam’s generosity and wanted Sitshengisiwe to be as well. He never talked about the small-scale horticultural farm of his dreams any more. He was more interested in making sure that Madam’s garden won first place in the local, regional and national home and garden shows. When Philemon received his own suitcase full of clothes from Mr Rutherford, Sitshengisiwe understood why he had looked so good when they had first met.

When she found herself pregnant again, she told Philemon that she refused to raise three children in a one-roomed boy’s kia, and that he needed to be a man and do something about it. Evidently he had understood her to mean that she wanted the Rutherfords to extend the boy’s kia, which is what he asked them to do. That was when Sitshengisiwe fully understood the measure of the man she was married to.

When Eunice left her job as the Rutherfords’ maid, Sitshengisiwe realised that other things were possible for her as well. So when Philemon told her, with great pride, that Madam wanted her to take over from Eunice, Sitshengisiwe lied and said that she had already secured herself a job.

Due to her education, a trip to the industrial sites the next day had seen her gain immediate employment as an apprentice to the foreman in the bottling section of the National Breweries. Philemon, who was still looking to please Madam, had a lot to say about he being a man and she being a woman and about tradition dictating that he not only be listened to but obeyed. In response, she told him that he had wooed Cosmos Nyathi’s daughter, that he had wed Cosmos Nyathi’s daughter, that she was Cosmos Nyathi’s daughter still, and that she would die as Cosmos Nyathi’s daughter. Philemon was silent on the subject of her employment from that day forward. Sitshengisiwe used this advantage to make Philemon promise that he would leave the Rutherfords and find a better job at the first opportunity. He had made the promise, and then never kept it.

Over the years, not wanting to feel the loss of too many things at once, Sitshengisiwe had turned to the church, allowing it to consume her and swallow up most of her disappointments.