A knock on the door.
“Wake up,” my mother said softly. “It’s a long distance to your father’s place.”
“I’m not going,” I replied, pulling the blanket over my head.
“What?” she said sharply. “No… no, Tebelo. You have to attend your father’s funeral.”
Silence filled the room.
“I know it’s hard,” she continued, her voice gentler now, “but this is the only way to find closure, my son.”
“Can I come in?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “I’m not welcome there. I told you.”
My chest tightened.
“She lied,” I said, my voice shaking. “She lied in front of her family and friends. She blamed me for my father’s death.”
My mother sighed deeply and entered the room anyway.
“After all these years,” I went on, “she denied me my father—and now this?”
“Hey… hey, Tebelo,” my mother said, sitting beside me
