The price of a dream

You know how they say you are a product of your environment? Well, my environment is a village so small that if you blink while driving through, you'll miss it. Fifty people. Maybe fifty-one if someone's aunt is visiting. We don't have a traffic light. We don't have a shop. We don't have a street name—just a dirt road that turns into mud when it rains and dust when it doesn't. I'm Elizabeth. Lizzy to the people who matter. I'm seventeen. I just finished high school, which in my village is basically like winning the lottery. Most girls my age are either pregnant or getting married or both. I'm doing neither. I'm working at a retail shop in town, folding clothes and smiling at customers, waiting for my university acceptance letter like it's a love letter from the universe. My sister Amandla is twenty-three. She works at the hospital as an HR officer. She's the responsible one. The one who makes sure I catch my bus, eat my breakfast, and don't do anything stupid. Every morning, I hitch a ride with her to town. She honks the car horn twice—once to say "wake up" and once to say "hurry up." I always make her wait. My mom is the glue. She wakes up before the sun, makes us breakfast, and pretends she's not tired. My dad passed away when I was twelve. Lung cancer. He worked in the mines. That's what the mines do. They take your health, your time, and eventually, they take you. So it's just the three of us. Me, Amandla, and Mom. We're not rich. But we're not poor either. We're somewhere in between—the kind of family that has enough to eat but not enough to waste. The kind that shops at the end of the month and makes every meal stretch. The kind that knows the value of a rand because we've counted every single one.