WHERE DO I CRY?

Chapter 2: The Last Straw

I then stand up and warm his food that I prepared yesterday then I put his plate in the small coffee table . Pap and yesterday's chicken, covered with another plate to keep warm.

Daniel looks at it once from the door.

"I'm not hungry," he says. "I need to prepare for work."

He says it like I poisoned it.

Noah is still on my hip. I nod.

He walks past me into the bedroom. Our room is so small the wardrobe door touches the bed when you open it. I follow him because I know what he expects. His work shirt needs ironing. The blue one. He likes the blue one when he goes to see those women.

I go to the wardrobe to take it out. The light is yellow. The curtain is half-torn.

I'm reaching for the hanger when he comes in behind me and closes the door.

"Amanda."

My back is to him. My whole body freezes. I know that voice.

He comes closer. That expensive vanilla is still on his collar. He puts his hand on my waist, not soft.

"Daniel, the kids—" I whisper.

"Ella is in the sitting room," he says.

He pulls me. I don't fight. Chomi, I don't fight because if I fight, it ends with him hitting me while we are like that. Last time I said no, he slapped me in that same position and Noah was crying outside. I learned. If I obey quickly, it's shorter.

I just stand there and let him move my skirt. There is no romance. No kiss. He doesn't look at my face. He bends me over the edge of the bed where his work pants are.

I stare at the crack in the Pep mirror from that angle. I see myself — milk stain, tired eyes. I cry silently. No sound. Tears just go down to the mattress. I don't enjoy. I never enjoy when it's like this. It's just his thing, fast, breathing on my neck, vanilla perfume making me sick.

When he finishes, he stands up. No word. He takes his clothes and goes to the bathroom.

The shower is quick. Two minutes. Water runs. He is always quick when he has to go to work, or to them.

He comes out, towel around waist, dresses fast — blue shirt, black pants, shoes already clean and polished from the hotel night. No ironing. He takes his car keys from the table where he dropped them.

He doesn't look at me again. He doesn't look at Ella in the sitting room humming to Noah, calling him Messiah.

The front door opens and closes. His car — that old Toyota — starts downstairs. I hear it drive off. 6:35am maybe. Going to work.

Usually at past seven I walk Ella to school. Her school is in the same neighborhood, just three blocks down in Berea, starts at eight. Noah's creche is next to it. Usually I walk them.

Today they will not go to school. stand up from the bed. My legs are shaking but I wipe my face with the bottom of my T-shirt.

This is the last straw. This is the last time.

Now I have time. He is gone.

I move fast. I take one small bag — the black one with broken zip. I open the wardrobe and take two dresses for me, two for Ella, Noah's small jerseys. I take the blue Checkers packet with clinic cards — Ella's Road to Health and Noah's.

I take my R300 cash that I saved folded inside the Checkers packet, I take my Capitec card — it has less than R600 inside — and I take the R80 coins from under the couch that I saved from bread money.

I don't take his food. I leave his plate on the table.

I go to the sitting room. Ella is sitting on the floor, Noah next to her.

"Ella, wear your shoes," I whisper. "We are going to Auntie Sarah in Cape Town."

She looks at me, sees my red eyes, doesn't ask. My smart girl. She puts on her pink shoes, wrong feet.

I carry Noah on my back with a blanket, bag on one shoulder, Ella holding my hand tight. We don't close the door properly, we just leave.

We don't go towards school. We turn opposite, fast walk, fear walk, to the main road. To the taxis that go to Park Station. To the bus to Cape Town.

Behind me, the flat is empty, his plate still there. And for the first time in two years, I don't care if he comes back and finds us gone.

We are already on the main road.