SOMEBODY'S HUSBAND

About this story

In Dainfern, the houses are built for families: tidy kitchens, quiet gardens, school bags by the door. But a home can keep its shape long after the people inside it have stopped belonging to one another. Kea is nineteen and taking an after-school job to keep herself afloat at university. Sizwe is a married father whose wife has left to decide what comes next. Between them sits Bonga, asleep down the passage, and every rule Kea has been sensible enough to know. Their first mistake is staying in the same room after her Uber arrives. The next is calling it a little secret, as if a secret is something that cannot grow teeth. Told through the heat, hush and after-dark rooms of a Dainfern townhouse, this is a Quickie about wanting attention, wanting permission, and discovering that the two are never quite the same thing. Would you go back, knowing you might not leave unchanged?