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of things. I distinctly remember the last time we argued about it, too. It was sometime after
the bicycle, or when she was moving into her shack in the backyard. I was going off, begging
her for the thousandth time.
“Why? Why don’t you just leave?”
She shook her head. “Oh, baby. No, no, no. I can’t leave.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I leave he’ll kill us.”
She wasn’t being dramatic. She didn’t raise her voice. She said it totally calm and matterof-fact,
and I never asked her that question again.
—
Eventually she did leave. What prompted her to leave, what the final breaking point was, I
have no idea. I was gone. I was off becoming a comedian, touring the country, playing shows
in England, hosting radio shows, hosting television shows. I’d moved in with my cousin
Mlungisi and made my own life separate from hers. I couldn’t invest myself anymore,
because it would have broken me into too many pieces. But one day she bought another
house in Highlands North, met someone new, and moved on with her life. Andrew and Isaac
still saw their dad, who, by that point, was just existing in the world, still going through the
same cycle of drinking and fighting, still living in a house paid for by his ex-wife.
Years passed. Life carried on.
Then one morning I was in bed around ten a.m. and my phone rang. It was on a Sunday.
I know it was on a Sunday because everyone else in the family had gone to church and I,
quite happily, had not. The days of endlessly schlepping back and forth to church were no
longer my problem, and I was lazily sleeping in. The irony of my life is that whenever church
is involved is when shit goes wrong, like getting kidnapped by violent minibus drivers. I’d
always teased my mom about that, too. “This church thing of yours, all this Jesus, what good
has come of it?”
I looked over at my phone. It was flashing my mom’s number, but when I answered, it
was Andrew on the other end. He sounded perfectly calm.
“Hey, Trevor, it’s Andrew.”
“Hey.”
“How are you?”
“Good. What’s up?”
“Are you busy?”
“I’m sort of sleeping. Why?”
“Mom’s been shot.”
Okay, so there were two strange things about the call. First, why would he ask me if I was
busy? Let’s start there. When your mom’s been shot, the first line out of your mouth should
be “Mom’s been shot.” Not “How are you?” Not “Are you busy?” That confused me. The
second weird thing was when he said, “Mom’s been shot,” I didn’t ask, “Who shot her?” I
didn’t have to. He said, “Mom’s been shot,” and my mind automatically filled in the rest:
“Abel shot mom.”