Chapter 15 - Chapter 14

"It sounds like things are going well," Dr Dhlomo says, her intelligent eyes peering at me from the screen of my laptop.

We usually meet at her rooms, but she's away this week. Thank God for Zoom. We only have a few minutes left in our session, and that same sense of peace I always come away with is spreading through the brightness of my home office.

"I think so, yeah." I smile and toy idly with a stack of paper clips on my desk. "I forgot to tell you I'm working with the Parkhurst Village Association again. We've had two events, and they went well."

"That's so good, Naledi." She sits back, folds her arms and smiles. "You should be proud of yourself. You've come a long way."

When I first started with Dr Dhlomo, I couldn't picture waking up excited, or making it through a day without crying at least once. That kind of depression is blunter than sadness. Sharper than misery. It is the impenetrable dark of midnight deepened with the blackest strokes of blue — a bruise on your spirit that seems like it will never fade. Until one day . . . it finally does. With the help of the woman on-screen, it did. Even in the years the medical aid savings ran dry by June and I kept coming anyway, paying her in cash we didn't have.

It is not an exaggeration to say Dr Dhlomo — with her always-on-point silk press, her fashionable blouses and pencil skirts, and her watching, wise eyes — changed my life. I trust her implicitly, and she has taught me more about trusting myself.

"How are things with the kids?" she asks. "How's Zinhle?"