Chapter 1 – How It All Begins
What does stability mean to you?
If that question was posed to Victoria Mdakane, it could be attributed to her unapologetically steadfast dedication to her relationships.
At thirty-two, she had successfully managed to get herself through six marriages, all of which couldn’t have lasted more than a year.
That was probably the most consistent thing in her life, of course, not forgetting to tag her young daughter along those relationships.
The sun had long set, the bosses had returned from work, and the table had been prepared for supper.
Victoria took the little time she had to sneak food into the backroom for her daughter, and then rushed back to the kitchen in case the family needed her.
She was beyond exhausted, but the excitement she felt was enough to supplement her energy. This was the last month she would ever have to work this hard, soon enough she wouldn’t even need to lift a finger.
“Victoria!”
She jumped off the kitchen highchair. “Yes, Madam!”
By the time she finished the last batch of dishes, she was fed up and didn’t want anything.
She rushed into the cold night, clinging onto her own skin for warmth as she paddled through the long garden pathway, all the way to the secluded backroom.
Her fingers were frozen, she couldn’t even foster them into a fist, she knocked on the door with her palm. “Aphiwe!” She called in a muffled voice. “Baby, open up!”
Light footsteps sounded from the other side of the door, the jingling of keys like music to her ears.
The moment she heard the key turning, she did not waste another second pushing the door open, letting go of her breath as soon as the door shut behind her.
She turned on her two-plate stove to quickly warm up her hands and heat up the room, sighing contemptuously when her daughter was nowhere to be seen in the tiny four-walls of the room. “Aphiwe.”
She knew her 12-year-old daughter was hiding under the bed, a habit she had since she was a toddler, and not even her first period seemed to outgrow her from it.
“Aphiwe, come on out, baby, I have some good news for you!”
Aphiwe giggled from under the bed, wondering what news her mother brought. She was hoping that her mother would be telling her that they were going home and finally leaving this hellhole her mother called a job.
She didn’t like that she was always locked in the room and was not even allowed to go out and play with those kids, she despised the fact that her mother spent more time with them than she did with her.
She couldn’t wait for schools to reopen so that she could go back to her township and see her friends, she missed them a lot.
“Aphiwe!” Victoria’s last call came with pulling up the bed covers and looking under the bed, spotting her daughter lying on her back on the cold tiles. “How many times do I have to tell you not to sleep on the tiles because you will catch flu?” She scolded, her face and voice softening as quickly as they hardened. “Come out, I have good news.”
Aphiwe crawled out from under the bed, wondering once more what could make her mother this happy.
She sat on the bed, welcoming her mother’s warm hands.
“Phiwe.”
Her mother’s eyes were light brown, they looked warm and always shined like stars, it was the one thing Aphiwe got from her mother. “Ma,” she responded.
“I met this guy-” Right then and there, Aphiwe knew she was doomed, this was a fate worse than being locked in a backroom all day, only seeing the sun through a tiny window.
Another husband! She thought begrudgingly.
“He is a nice man, a pastor. He has his own church in Soweto and lives in a big house.”
Well, that was a first. Aphiwe thought. All her mother’s previous husbands would move in with them in their shack, and they usually did odd jobs.
A pastor was not so bad, and a house sounded good too. Aphiwe hated the musky smell their shack had sometimes, and it was too small and didn’t have much space.
“We are getting married in the church at the end of the month, we are going to wear beautiful dresses!” Victoria squealed.
A wedding?
Another first.
Aphiwe had never attended any of her mother’s weddings, mainly because there was never one; she would go and sign at Home Affairs and then present her newly signed husband to Aphiwe.
“And the best news for last, you are going to have a brother!”
A brother? Was her mom pregnant?
But she declared that she never wanted to have another child again and swore that Aphiwe was the lucky one.
And now, she was going to have another baby? Aphiwe found the idea horrifying. A baby brother at her big age?
“You don’t have to look so scared. He’s a sweet boy; he is a little older than you… I think he just turned 15.”
“Oh.”
“Isn’t that great?”
Great? No.
Aphiwe found herself not looking forward to this arrangement anymore. The setup was too good to be true, it was the worst thing possible.
A perfect wedding, children in the picture, a brother?
Pastors did not exactly give birth to pastors, did they?
