Fly Away Home (3 page)

Zukisa hung the dress on the rail reserved for unfinished orders. “Thanks, Mom.”

Francina and Hercules watched her skip up the stairs, on her way, no doubt, to join her grandmother on the couch watching television. The old woman and the young girl shared a bedroom and a love of soap operas.

“None of what you see on the screen happens in real life,” Francina would tell them with a mock-stern look on her face.

“Oh, yes, it does,” Zukisa would reply. “These shows deal with all sorts of problems.” Too real or not real at all, Francina believed firmly that they'd all be better off without what she saw on that little gray screen.

From upstairs came the muffled sound of Mrs. Shabalala greeting her granddaughter.

“What's wrong?” asked Hercules.

Francina had done nothing to make him suspect that anything was wrong, but with the same intuition that made him the only teacher at Green Block School who the students found impossible to trick, he could always tell her moods.

“Zukisa's aunt is sick.”

Hercules nodded slowly. They both knew the full import of these words. Zukisa was fourteen years old and totally capable of looking after a family. She'd done it when she was ten; she could certainly do it now. And the family that needed her were blood relatives.

“Perhaps it's not serious,” said Hercules, seeing the fear in his wife's eyes.

Zukisa was a girl of high moral principles; if her family needed her she would help them, even if it meant dropping out of school and moving back to Cape Town. It was not unusual in this country for a child to be the head of a household.

“Those children have a mother,” said Francina, pushing the chairs under the tables with more force than necessary.

Hercules shut the front door of the shop, flipped the Closed sign around and turned off the light. Then he put his arm around his wife's shoulders.

“It will all be okay, you'll see.”

“I hope so. I can't stand the thought of—”

“Shh…don't say another word. Let's go upstairs and see what drama those two are watching now.”

Zukisa looked surprised when Francina joined her on the couch. “You don't like soaps, Mother,” she said.

Francina took Zukisa's hand and for a moment was too overcome by emotion to speak.

“What's wrong?” asked Zukisa, her voice full of concern.

“Nothing, sweetheart,” replied Francina. “I'm just happy to be with you.”

M
onica saw the question in Dudu's eyes the moment she arrived at work the morning after her trip to Cape Town to see the fertility doctor. In some places it might be inappropriate for an editor to divulge the details of her private battle with infertility to the receptionist, but this was the
Lady Helen Herald.
And besides, Dudu not only answered the telephone, she was the director of design in charge of the weekly newspaper's layout.

Monica shook her head sadly.

Dudu rose from her desk. “I'm sorry. I've been thinking of you all night.”

“I've been thinking of me all night, too.”

“Will you try again?”

Monica shrugged. How could she adequately explain to a woman who had three children the toll—emotional, physical and financial—that this problem was taking on her and Zak? There were the daily injections, the forced immobility as she lay on a gurney while the ultrasound technologist counted and measured the follicles, as well as the financial drain. Thankfully, she and Zak did not have to go into debt to pay for it, but the weight of it all was sometimes too much to bear. She might not have mortgaged her house, but it sometimes felt as though she'd mortgaged her soul. They'd started trying to have a baby immediately after their marriage, and when their first anniversary had come around with no sign of a pregnancy, they'd gone to a reproductive endocrinologist in Cape Town.

Unexplained fertility. What sort of a diagnosis was that? How could anything be unexplained in this day and age? Scientists were able to clone sheep, for goodness sake. Almost every organ could be transplanted. Why couldn't someone just identify what was wrong with her? Zak obviously didn't have a problem. He already had a daughter. For two years, it had felt to Monica as though she were living suspended in time.

“If you and I both spent last night thinking, then maybe I should make extra strong coffee this morning and not rooibos tea.”

Monica nodded and managed a smile. Practical Dudu was a blessing to this office. While her colleague went to make their drinks, she walked into her office and looked at the to-do list she had compiled the previous day. Flower show in Darling. How delightful that had sounded with the prospect of a tiny seed growing in her belly. Now it sounded tedious.

She looked out the window at Main Street. Mama Dlamini was setting out her tables and umbrellas on the sidewalk. Lately, she had taken to leaving the café in the hands of Anna, one of her long-time waitresses, and no one knew where she went. Not even Francina, whose mother-in-law was a good friend of Mama Dlamini.

Main Street ended in a park that ran along the beachfront for about a quarter of a mile, palm trees forming a natural break between the neatly mowed lawn and the white sand. In the middle was a gently sloping grass amphitheater, and behind it a rock garden that flourished with poker-red aloes, pincushion proteas and African heather. Last week, at a concert at the amphitheater, Monica had felt a twinge of nausea that had filled her with hope.

Now she noticed Anna walking up Main Street toward Mama Dlamini's, her youngest child—an eighteen-month-old daughter—wrapped in a blanket on her back. Sighing at the sight of the baby, Monica turned away from the window and sat down heavily in her chair as Dudu walked in with the coffee.

“I'm going to try something new with the layout of this week's issue,” said Dudu. “I'll do it early so I can change it if you don't like it.”

Monica had noticed lately that Dudu had stopped reporting the escapades of her children. Monica didn't know what was worse, casually curious people who unthinkingly asked when she was going to have a baby, or the unnatural caution of those like Dudu.

“What's Phutole been up to lately?”

Dudu's youngest had been diagnosed with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder in his second year of school.

“His teacher says she couldn't ask for a more disciplined child. I'm going to take him to Dr. Niemand to see if it's time yet to reduce the dose of his medication.”

Dudu never used Zak's first name. Most people in Lady Helen were on first-name terms, but some felt that doctors ought to be the exception.

Dudu didn't offer any more information about Phutole. Monica was about to tell her that Sipho had been accepted as an exchange student when the switchboard telephone rang, and Dudu hurried out to answer it. Sipho had only two days to decide whether to take the opportunity or not. Even at her strongest, Monica would feel panicked at the thought of letting him go, but as fragile as she was now she could barely bring herself to even consider it. Last night in bed Zak had pulled her close, but he knew her well enough not to rehash the events of the day or offer words of hope for the future, and so he'd merely held her until he'd drifted off to sleep.

She looked at her watch. Nine o'clock. He would be in his office drinking a cup of coffee and checking his mail after his morning rounds. She dialed his number.

“Will going to America really help Sipho get into medical school?”

Monica heard Zak swallow a sip of coffee before answering her. In other countries, students completed a bachelor's degree before applying to medical school, but in South Africa students went to medical school for six years straight out of high school.

“His grades are good enough to get in, but he doesn't have any other interests.”

“What about wildlife?”

“Yes, but that translates into hours wandering around in the bush alone, examining insects, birds and plants, and then coming home and studying books.”

“He's in the Young Conservationists Club.”

“But the members don't really do anything, aside from sitting around talking about dwindling species. If Sipho goes to America it will show that he has a sense of adventure, that he's up to the challenge of living with people he's never met before, that he has inner strength.”

“Mr. D. said his grades are the best in the province.”

“Sipho wants to go, Monica.”

She was silent.

“The two issues are not related, sweetheart,” said Zak softly.

She began to cry. “I know they shouldn't be. It's so hard.”

“I feel it, too.”

Monica sniffed. “He'll be devastated if we say no.”

“He's a good boy. If we have a valid reason to say no, then he'll come to understand.”

“But we don't, do we?”

“A mother's concern is valid.”

“But he'll be staying with a mother, his host family's mother.”

Zak was so good at this—making her fill in the holes of her own argument.

“And we could visit him. I'll find a locum to replace me at the hospital.”

“But what about Sipho's end-of-year exams?”

The South African school year, which had started in January, was more than halfway through, but the American school year started in just over a month's time.

“You know Sipho, he could take his exams now and still get straight A's.”

Monica heard another voice in Zak's office.

“Sweetheart, Daphne needs me in the ICU. We'll talk when we get home.”

Zak's nurse, Daphne, had a three-year-old son, Victor, who was in awe of Mandla. Another eight-year-old might find the attention of a toddler tedious and embarrassing, but not Mandla. He'd showed Victor how to fly a kite, how to play “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” on a drum set of kitchen pots and pans, and he was currently encouraging Victor to take the training wheels off his bike—which made Daphne very anxious, but Victor was itching to do it.

Monica replaced the telephone receiver and looked at her to-do list again. Nothing piqued her interest. Where had her predecessor, Max Andrews, obtained his inspiration all the years he had been editor of the newspaper? If he would just finish writing his memoirs she would find out. He'd been working on them since she took over his job five years ago, and Monica sensed that he didn't want to complete them because he feared that as soon as he did his life would end.

She got up and looked out the window again. The wind must have picked up, since Mama Dlamini had taken down the umbrellas. Spring was still at least a month away, but the warm sunshine had obviously fooled Mama Dlamini into thinking that it might be close. Spring officially started in Lady Helen the day the migratory birds returned to the lagoon. Usually that was after the first of September, and so, while the rest of the country marked the change of season by the calendar, the residents of Lady Helen eagerly scanned the skies for a sign of the homecoming. Sipho would miss the return of the birds this year if he went to the United States. Since coming to live in Lady Helen he had always been at the lagoon when the birds made their return, except once.

Spring was nature's perfect time for birth, but clearly, not for her. And perhaps not ever. She had to consider that it might not be in God's plan for her to give birth. Eggs would be hatching, on Peg's dairy farm there would be glossy-eyed new calves, but Monica's store of lovingly collected baby receiving blankets, booties and onesies would remain in their hiding place, on the top shelf of her closet behind her sweaters, gathering dust and tempting fish moths.

Making a face at her list, she pulled on her jacket and buttoned it up to her chin. She needed a walk in the park, with the wind blowing her hair into the crow's nest that always made Mandla laugh.

Her friend Oscar was leaving the park as she arrived. In the days after her arrival in Lady Helen, he had been a comforting source of help and advice, and he had remained close to the family after Monica and Zak's marriage.

“The wind's unpleasant here, Monica,” he said. “What's up?”

She shrugged.

“You aren't going for a walk in this weather because you're bursting with the joys of life.”

Oscar knew things without being told. And he never repeated anything when it was confided to him. She explained about Sipho, but didn't mention the failed fertility treatment.

“I hitchhiked all the way to Egypt the year I finished school,” Oscar said. “My mother didn't get a letter from me for six months.”

“Sipho will be with a family.”

“My point exactly. You could phone him whenever you wanted. It will be good for him.”

It was no secret that Oscar found Sipho a trifle studious, whereas Oscar and Mandla behaved like raucous sailors when they were together. Ever since Mandla first laid eyes on the tattoo of Medusa on Oscar's forearm, he had been intrigued by the man.

“You've got to let them go sometime.”

Oscar had no children. He had never even married. But he was probably right.

Oscar had once been in love with a woman from Trinidad, but her father would not let them marry. Since Oscar, a white man, was not allowed to marry a black woman in his home country, the father felt Oscar should not wed his daughter in Trinidad. And then Oscar had fallen in love with Francina while tutoring her for her school exams, but Hercules had snatched her away. He'd arrived in Lady Helen to ask her to give him a second chance, and Francina had agreed.

“Sipho will hold it against you for the rest of his life if you don't let him go,” Oscar said now.

“Thanks for the advice,” said Monica. She waved and walked off into the wind.

It was colder out than she had anticipated. Winters in Lady Helen were often mild, but there seemed to have been more biting cold days than usual this year. One morning, snow had even appeared on top of the koppies. To Mandla's disappointment, the sun had melted it before the end of the school day. Monica wondered if there would be changes to the weather this summer, which was usually perfect, with hot, dry days, a natural drop in temperature at dusk and cool ocean breezes.

She had forgotten her sunglasses, a necessity even in winter in Lady Helen. The achingly bright light always made the landscape look as though it were begging to be painted. Within fifteen minutes, she could no longer feel her toes because of the cold. She turned and, with her hands stuffed deeply into her pockets for warmth, trudged back to the office.

 

Sipho didn't say a word about the exchange program when she returned home that afternoon, and for a while she wondered—and hoped—that his enthusiasm had dimmed. But then she saw the acceptance letter waiting for her on the dining room table, which he'd set for dinner. She took her time preparing the salad.

Monica was the last to sit down at the table. Sipho and Zak were staring at the letter. She shook her napkin out slowly and placed it in her lap. Then she poured a glass of water for herself from the carafe.

“I hope I didn't put too much balsamic vinegar in the salad again tonight,” she said.

“Mom, please tell me. Am I going or not?”

Monica looked at Zak. Mandla stopped pouring chutney onto his bobotie.

“Do you really want to?”

“Last night I almost chickened out.” Sipho's voice caught. “It will be hard for me to leave.”

“We're coming to visit you at Christmas,” said Mandla.