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“Calm down, lady. Calm down. Who hit you?”
“My husband.”
“Your husband? What did you do? Did you make him angry?”
“Did I…what? No. He hit me. I’m here to lay a charge against—”
“No, no. Ma’am. Why do you wanna make a case, eh? You sure you want to do this? Go
home and talk to your husband. You do know once you lay charges you can’t take them back?
He’ll have a criminal record. His life will never be the same. Do you really want your husband
going to jail?”
My mom kept insisting that they take a statement and open a case, and they actually
refused—they refused to write up a charge sheet.
“This is a family thing,” they said. “You don’t want to involve the police. Maybe you want
to think it over and come back in the morning.”
Mom started yelling at them, demanding to see the station commander, and right then
Abel walked into the station. He’d driven down. He’d sobered up a bit, but he was still drunk,
driving into a police station. That didn’t matter. He walked over to the cops, and the station
turned into a boys’ club. Like they were a bunch of old pals.
“Hey, guys,” he said. “You know how it is. You know how women can be. I just got a little
angry, that’s all.”
“It’s okay, man. We know. It happens. Don’t worry.”
I had never seen anything like it. I was nine years old, and I still thought of the police as
the good guys. You get in trouble, you call the police, and those flashing red-and-blue lights
are going to come and save you. But I remember standing there watching my mom,
flabbergasted, horrified that these cops wouldn’t help her. That’s when I realized the police
were not who I thought they were. They were men first, and police second.
We left the station. My mother took me and Andrew, and we went out to stay with my
grandmother in Soweto for a while. A few weeks later, Abel drove over and apologized. Abel
was always sincere and heartfelt with his apologies: He didn’t mean it. He knows he was
wrong. He’ll never do it again. My grandmother convinced my mom that she should give Abel
a second chance. Her argument was basically, “All men do it.” My grandfather, Temperance,
had hit her. Leaving Abel was no guarantee it wouldn’t happen again, and at least Abel was
willing to apologize. So my mom decided to give him another chance. We drove back to Eden
Park together, and for years, nothing—for years Abel didn’t lay a finger on her. Or me.
Everything went back to the way it was.
—
Abel was an amazing mechanic, probably one of the best around at the time. He’d been to
technical college, graduated first in his class. He’d had job offers from BMW and Mercedes.
His business thrived on referrals. People would bring their cars from all over the city for him
to fix because he could work miracles on them. My mom truly believed in him. She thought
she could raise him up, help him make good on his potential, not merely as a mechanic but as
the owner of his own workshop.
As headstrong and independent as my mom is, she remains the woman who gives back.