Chapters (36)
Lottie also wanted to keep Darnell, and I feel guilty for brushing off her concerns about how he died. Maybe it’s like she said after the fire, that your mind goes over and over a bad thing, till one day it stops. Sometimes the bad thing stays with you forever and, for now, Darnell’s death won’t let Lottie go. She already has the memory of her dead father and the reality of her sad mother to carry.
“How did you meet Darnell?” I ask because, to most Keziah students, he was just the slow-witted boy who ran from school every chance he got.
“I caught Richard B hitting Darnell for fun, and I hit Richard B till he wasn’t having fun anymore. Darnell never forgot.” Her smile flashes bright in the semidarkness. “Last year, Darnell left a honeycomb on the windowsill of the big dorm room where I lived. Wasps found the honey and we couldn’t open the window for days. Poor Darnell. The idea was nice, but the details were all wrong. I hope he was friends with Bosman’s daughter. It would have been a sweet thing for the both of them.”
“I’m sorry he died,” I say and I leave it there. No words will fill the hole that Darnell’s death has left inside Lottie. I don’t even try.
“Good night, Adele. Sleep well,” she whispers, and the subject of Bosman closes for now. The two of us have more urgent business to attend to. Tonight we will fight our demons in our dreams, and tomorrow morning we will rise up from our cots, tired and wrung out, and get on with the day. And the next day. And the next fifty-six days till the end of term.
I stare at the ceiling and conjure up memories of our house in Manzini. My bed. Clean sheets and thick blankets. Milk tea and sugar biscuits. Ripe mangoes in a bowl on the kitchen table. Even the memory of walking to the telephone box at the end of Live Long Street takes on a sweetness. I will soak in the bathtub for hours and sleep late during the holidays. I will become Adele Joubert again.
Not Lottie. Lottie has to fight for what little she has, and how tired she must be. Each day is a struggle, yet still she has space in her head to think about finding justice for Darnell.
“Good night,” I whisper back, and lie awake wondering how to make things different.