Page 45 - The Mending Season

stupid brats! I want to hear details when you come back. You have to call me.”“My dad wants to meet him. I’m, like, ‘Dad, I already told you: his dad is a doctor, his mom drives a C Class. They live in Sandton. What more do you want to know?’ You know?” She was saying all this without once turning to look at Dirusha.I stood there imagining a Black family who lived in the most affluent suburb I had ever heard of. I had never been there and could not even picture the house.“I think were going to his house after. Maybe we’ll play tennis, swim ... then ...” KB said with a grin, still playing with her hair.“Mmmm ... you’re thirteen, girl. How can your parents allow you to do that?”“I’ll be fourteen next month!”“Still ...”I heard a hint ofenvy in Dirusha’s voice.KB put her hair in a ponytail and started for the door andDirusha trailed behind her.As they walked out, they carried on chatting in the passage.I thought of a Black person calling her parents “Mom” and “Dad”, and even though I knew that they lived in the suburbs I could only imagine that they lived in one ofthose houses on the hill in the township, with gates that opened and closed with a remote control. I thought of my father, who lived and worked in the mines and whom I called Bra Pat. He would laugh out loud if he came to visit one day and I started calling him Dad. I wondered if KB would think it was strange that my father called me once a month and visited once a year.My father and I were no closer than other girls were with their uncles. The aunts liked him just enough to let him visit as much as he wished, but not enough to think or say that Mmamane Malebone should marry or live with him. Mmamane Malesedi called him indecisive, which I interpreted45