Choice Assorted

The kettle screamed before Dodo could stop it, sending a rush of steam up the tiled kitchen wall like smoke from a confession she hadn’t meant to make. She turned it off, sighed, and leaned her forehead against the cupboard. Monday. Portia was already stomping around in her school shoes like she was being charged per step. Henry, bless him, was half-asleep at the dining table, his eyes doing the slow close-and-pop like an old TV trying to stay on. He still smelled like boy sweat and toothpaste. “Portia,” Dodo called out, “did you take the bread out like I asked last night?” A pause. Then, from the passageway: “It was mouldy, Ma. Like, green-on-white.” Dodo groaned. “And you didn’t think to tell me?” “I figured you'd check,” Portia said, stepping into the kitchen in her blazer and thick lip gloss. “You always check.” Fifteen going on CNN analyst. Dodo eyed her daughter’s outfit, her deliberate hair part, the way her voice sat just on the border between respectful and defiant. Henry gave a small cough, then looked up. “Can I have cereal with hot water, please?” “That's poverty porridge,” Portia muttered. Dodo shot her a warning look. Portia turned away, rolled her eyes so hard they might've circled back into last week. “Mama, don’t look at me like that. It’s true. All the kids at school know. That’s what people eat when their power's off or the debit order for Pick n Pay bounced.” Dodo didn’t respond. She was busy staring at the cereal box, which was one good shake away from being empty. Just like her bank account. She poured what was left into Henry’s bowl and added boiling water like it was cream. She hated how she’d become good at this—rationing, bluffing, smiling like they were just between salaries, not actually surviving off fumes and favours. “Finish and go,” she said. “We’re already late.” Outside, the city was yawning into motion. Taxi horns barked on street corners. A hawker was selling vetkoek by the robots. Somewhere down the block, someone was blasting amapiano from a half-broken speaker. As they drove, Portia put in her earbuds, shutting them out with the sound of her world—some mix of Tyla and teenage fury. Henry hummed to himself, staring out the window. “Can you fetch us today?” he asked. “I’ll try, love,” Dodo said, though she knew she’d probably be in a late client call or trying to convince her data to stretch like pap at the end of the month. She dropped them off at the gates of their multi-racial school, the kind with glossy pamphlets, a rugby field, and drama productions featuring kids with accents from YouTube. Dodo smiled and waved until they disappeared inside, then leaned back in her seat. A beat of silence. Just her and the parking lot of a life that still felt like it hadn’t really started. Back home, the flat was quiet again. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that reminded her she hadn’t heard from Tobi in weeks—not since he asked if she ever saw herself saying yes to a man like him. She had laughed. Of course, she had said. But only after he changed his views on women leading households. And after he got saved. And after he proved he could be consistent. She was always adding conditions, always fine-tuning men into something they could never maintain. Then she left them. Like she’d left Portia’s dad. Like she’d left Henry’s. She called them her Choice Assorted. A joke, at first. Something to say when the aunties started in at weddings or prayer meetings. But some jokes harden into truths. She sat at the kitchen table and stared at her chipped mug: “Too Blessed To Be Stressed.” She snorted. Lies from a China mall. She missed love. Or rather, she missed believing in it. She missed softness. Safety. Someone who didn’t look at her like she was just another woman with too much baggage. But how could she say yes to a man when she couldn’t say yes to herself? Her phone buzzed. A message from Ma Gloria. “You still haven’t come to church. You’re slipping, Dorothy. I’m praying for your rebellion.” Dodo rolled her eyes. She didn’t need prayer. She needed groceries. And a break. But mostly, she needed to stop pretending she didn’t want what she actually wanted. Love. Marriage. Wealth. In that order, or maybe not. She was still figuring it out. She opened her journal and wrote: “I’m not broken. I’m not cursed. I’m just… complicated. And tired.” She closed the book, finished Henry’s soggy cereal, and decided to try again tomorrow. The drive to Umlazi on Sunday afternoon was quiet, except for the occasional sigh from Portia and Henry’s restless fidgeting in the back seat. The sun dipped lower as they turned off the main road into the familiar cul-de-sac. Dodo pulled up outside her mother’s neatly kept house, the front yard immaculate as always—short-trimmed grass, flower beds edged with stones, and not a single thing out of place. Ma Gloria was already home, as always on Sundays. The door was slightly ajar, the smell of stewing lamb curry and boiling steamed bread drifting out like a promise—or a trap, depending on how you looked at it. Portia muttered, “Here we go,” as she grabbed the Tupperware of store-bought cake Dodo insisted they bring along. Inside, the living room was still spotless. The brown leather couches gleamed under a layer of polish, stiff and upright like church pews. The family photos on the wall seemed to watch as they entered. Ma Gloria’s worn, bookmarked Bible sat open on the coffee table, beside a vase of plastic flowers that had never aged. “Greet properly,” Dodo whispered as they stepped in. “Good afternoon, Gogo,” Henry said with his usual calm. Portia added her “hello” with less enthusiasm but enough volume to meet expectations. Ma Gloria emerged from the kitchen with a cloth over her shoulder. “You’re late,” she said by way of welcome. “The curry is nearly off the boil.” Dodo forced a smile and kissed her mother’s cheek. “Good to see you too, Ma.” They sat—Dodo on the edge of a couch cushion, Portia sinking into hers with a bored sprawl, Henry neatly upright like he was expecting an exam. The room was silent except for the soft hum of the kettle and a clock ticking with irritating authority. Ma Gloria sat across from them, hands folded in her lap. “Let us begin with a word of prayer.” Everyone bowed their heads. Even Portia. “Amen,” Ma Gloria finished a few moments later, eyes now fixed on Dodo. “I saw your post online,” she said. “You’re still entertaining that man who ‘talks to God and the ancestors’? You think that’s cute? That’s not Christian, Dorothy.” Dodo exhaled. “We’re not together anymore.” “You shouldn’t have been in the first place. A man must stand on the Word, not jump between beliefs like he’s in a taxi rank.” Portia suppressed a smirk. Henry blinked, unsure if it was safe to laugh. Dodo replied, “That’s why I left. I’m not confused, Ma. I just want love that doesn't come with compromise on the one thing I can't bend—my faith.” Ma Gloria nodded slowly. “Then stop entertaining men who want you to bend in the first place.” Portia looked up from her phone. “Can we eat now?” The question snapped the tension like a stick over a knee. “The food is ready,” Ma Gloria said, standing. “But next time, come on time and bring your own steamed bread. I’m not cooking for convenience.” That night, back in her flat on the outskirts of Durban, Dodo opened her journal and scribbled beneath an older entry: “Ma’s house is neat like her faith—structured, unforgiving, spotless. Mine is messier, but it’s still real. Is there room in this life for both?” She closed the book and stared at the ceiling. The children were laughing in their room, replaying TikToks. Outside, the city coughed and buzzed. “Maybe I want love. But not the kind that demands silence in return. Maybe I’m still figuring out how to want out loud.”"