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daughter’s dedication to the tedious job of sewing beads onto this wedding gown, when other girls would be wandering idly up and down Main Street with their friends.
    â€œMy aunt couldn’t come to the phone this afternoon,” said Zukisa.
    Francina did not allow herself to ask about Zukisa’s weekly phone calls to her aunt, and instead waited patiently until the girl offered her tidbits of information.
    â€œWas she working an extra shift?”
    Zukisa’s aunt cleaned a restaurant frequented by men of the nearby dockyard. After the death of her mother from AIDS, Zukisa had gone to live with her aunt, where she helped out taking care of her aunt’s grandchildren while the woman was at work. Zukisa’s aunt said that her daughter—the mother of the children—had fallen through the cracks of life and could not take care of them.
    â€œShe didn’t just fall,” Francina was fond of telling her husband, Hercules, “she lost her balance because she raised a bottle to her mouth.” Francina could not understand how a woman with three beautiful children could abandon them for a life of sin, when she, Francina Shabalala, a woman who had passed her prime early and could not have children of her own, managed to live a decent life and put the violence she’d suffered at the hands of her first husband behind her.
    â€œNot everybody is as strong as you, my dear,” Hercules would say. “Addiction is a medical problem.” The worst of it was that the wayward mother had joined the oldest profession in the world so she could afford her liquor.
    Zukisa had stopped going to school in order to take care of her sick mother, and didn’t go back when she moved in with her aunt. Zukisa had been another mouth to feed, another child who needed school fees paid and school uniforms. The aunt’s meager state pension was just not enough.
    Now, four years after Zukisa had come to her, Francina still thanked God daily for His gift of the child.
    Zukisa stopped sewing and looked at Francina. “My aunt is sick.”
    From the anxiety in her eyes, Francina could tell that Zukisa believed the same disease that had taken both her parents would now take her aunt.
    â€œNo, it can’t be what you’re thinking,” she replied in a gentle voice.
    Zukisa’s expression relaxed a bit. Her adopted mother had never lied to her.
    â€œAre the boys looking after their baby sister?” Francina asked.
    Zukisa shook her head. “Those two wouldn’t know how to look after a dog, never mind a five-year-old girl.”
    Francina saw the question on her daughter’s face. She took a deep breath. “We can drive down on Saturday if you want.”
    Zukisa smiled. “Thanks, Mom.”
    Francina did not know why, but she still lost sleep over her daughter’s monthly visits to her blood relatives. Zukisa had come into Francina’s life so unexpectedly and with such ease that it seemed likely the girl could leave it in the same way. But God wouldn’t grant Francina happiness only to take it away one day, would He?
    Footsteps sounded on the stairs leading down to the shop from the family’s two-bedroom flat. It was Francina’s husband, Hercules. His mother, bless her heart, made her impending presence known with greater volume. Ever since Francina had met her, Mrs. Shabalala had been trying to lose weight. Some months she’d be successful, but her close friendship with Mama Dlamini of Mama Dlamini’s Eating Establishment was her downfall. Mama Dlamini’s cakes and pies could melt the resolve of even the most motivated dieter.
    â€œWhen are my girls going to call it a day and come up and see my new painting?” Hercules said, entering the shop.
    Francina had met her future husband at a choir competition in Ermelo, a small town east of Johannesburg. Her fellow choir members had mistakenly left her behind at the hostel when they’d