Chapter 42 - Chapter 41

"No school!" Sphe runs through the house delivering the news. "Ma, there's no school!"

The message came through on my phone at six, Ashford's broadcast list, half of it in capitals. I walk over to my bedroom window and watch the water still running down First Avenue, brown and quick along the kerb. Mahlathini, staying with us while Siyabonga's in Durban, yawns from the foot of my bed.

"It takes one orange warning for this city to close the schools," I say. "Or the rumour of one."

"Won't hear me complaining," Zinhle says, coming into my room in her pyjamas and standing next to me at the window.

There have been awkward moments since she caught Siyabonga and me on Sunday. I imagine you never forget the image of your parents having sex. Not that she actually saw the act, but close enough. A few minutes earlier and she'd have seen her mother riding her father like a rollercoaster.

Ijoo. Even Mama's Jik couldn't have scrubbed that out of her head.

But in between the awkward moments there's been an ease, a loosening. I don't expect her to forget overnight what she heard when Siyabonga and I argued, or the anger she's felt about it, but it seems like she's trying. Like she heard me, believed me when I said I wanted things to be right between us and that I'm willing to work at it.

"What do you want to do today?" I ask her.

"Eat? Watch TV. There's a whole pile of episodes sitting on SABC+."

"Of what?"

"Skeem Saam. I've heard about it my whole life. I've just never actually watched it."