Broken Chain

Chapter 8: Joburg Lights

The bus dropped me at Park Station at 5am.

Joburg hit me with noise. Taxis hooting. People shouting. A city that didn’t sleep, didn’t wait, didn’t care if you were 23 with R1,590 and a blue dress.

I stood there with my bag, watching buildings touch the sky. Mbombela had trees. Joburg had concrete. And lights. So many lights. Like someone spilled stars on the ground.

“You Nonhlanhla?”

A woman stepped through the crowd. Small, but her voice was big. Hair tied in a scarf, baby on her hip, another boy holding her hand. Gogo Thandi’s daughter, Zanele.

“You look tired,” she said before I could speak. “Come. Twins are chaos at 5am.”

Her flat was in Hillbrow. One room, two beds, toys everywhere. Smelled like porridge and baby powder.

“This is Amahle,” she said, pointing to the boy with her hand. Four years old, eyes big like mine used to be. “This is the noise,” she lifted the baby on her hip. “Thabo. Six months. He doesn’t sleep.”

Thabo screamed right on cue.

Zanele handed him to me without asking. “I start work at 7. You figure it out.”

The weight of him nearly dropped me. Warm. Wet. Smelling like milk. He stared at me with Mandla’s eyes. Not Mandla’s eyes. Just baby eyes. Accusing me of something I didn’t do.

For ten minutes I panicked. Then I remembered Gogo Thandi: “Work.”

I walked. Bounced. Sang the only song I knew. A church song aunt Nora hummed while counting bread. Thabo stopped crying. Looked at me. Grabbed my blue dress with sticky fingers.

“Good,” Zanele said, already leaving. “R3,500 at month end. Room is behind the curtain. Don’t steal. Don’t bring men here. Don’t quit when he cries at 3am.”

The curtain was a sheet. Behind it: a mattress on the floor. One blanket. A bucket. My whole room.

That first week, I didn’t sleep. Thabo cried at 2am. Then 3am. Then 4am. Amahle woke up asking for food. Zanele left at 6am and came back at 8pm with bags under her eyes.

I learned fast. How to mix formula with one hand while holding Thabo with the other. How to make Amahle laugh when he missed his dad. How to fold clothes so Zanele wouldn’t shout.

I was “helper” again. But different. This time the kids didn’t call me names. They called me “aunty.” They pulled my hair and drew on my blue dress with crayon.

Amahle drew a chain on the wall with red crayon. Then he crossed it out.

“Broken,” he said, pointing at me.

I didn’t correct him.

Week two, Zanele paid me R800 “advance.” She saw my shoes. Tops were open, soles thin.

“Buy shoes,” she said. “You can’t run after twins in those.”

I bought takkies from a street vendor. R250. White. They got dirty in one day. I didn’t care. They were mine.

My phone buzzed less now. No Mandla. No unknown numbers. Just silence.

Silence felt different in Joburg. Not empty. Just… space.

One night Thabo wouldn’t stop crying. 3am. Again. I walked him by the window. Joburg lights blinked back at me. Yellow, white, red. Like the city was breathing.

“Why don’t you sleep, sisi?” I whispered to him.

He grabbed my finger. Tiny fist, strong grip.

I thought of Mandla at 2am. “I need you.” I thought of aunt Nora at the gate. “Find your own place.”

Thabo didn’t need me to fix him. He just needed me to stay while he cried.

So I stayed.

When Zanele came home, she found me asleep on the mattress with Thabo on my chest. Both of us drooling.

She didn’t shout. She just took Thabo, covered me with the blanket, and whispered, “You’re not running.”

I wasn’t.

Month end came. Zanele counted R3,500 into my hand. Cash. New notes.

“Room and food is covered,” she said. “This is yours. Save it. Don’t give it to boys with Polo cars.”

I nodded. Held the money. R3,500. Plus R1,590 I came with. Minus shoes, minus soap.

R4,600.

I hid it in a empty formula tin behind the curtain.

That night I took out the dusty pink crop top. It was grey now, threads loose. I pressed it to my face one last time.

Then I folded it small. Put it at the bottom of my bag.

I didn’t need “one day” clothes anymore.

Joburg lights blinked outside. Thabo slept. Amahle snored.

I lay on my mattress, hand on the formula tin.

The chain on my wrist felt lighter.

R50 per car got me here. R3,500 a month would get me somewhere else.

I closed my eyes.

For the first time, I wasn’t alone. I had two boys who needed me. And a room behind a curtain that was mine.

The gate was closed. The door was open.

And I was walking through it.