It’s not the need to pee that wakes her, it’s the soft knock on the door.

“Aphiwe. Aphiwe, wake up.”

She recognises Limi’s voice and goes to open the door.

She is standing looking up at her, holding her stuffed tiger toy and looking scared.

“Mama is dead again, she is dead on the floor,” the little girl says, pointing down the passage.

She hesitates because she was instructed never to leave her bedroom, but Limi pulls her hand and she can’t just dismiss her and close the door in her face.

Yes, her stepmother is lying on the bathroom floor on her stomach. Sengezo is standing looking down at her.

There is puke all over the floor and the toilet seat.

“She’s not dead, Limi, look, she’s breathing,” Aphiwe says.

It’s strange to her that Limi believes her mother is dead but she is not crying. Sengezo looks calm too.

“You must help me take her to the bedroom, Aphiwe, at least you are big, we can try to carry her. We don’t have to drag her on the floor like always,” Sengezo says.

Aphiwe has never had to carry a grown up anywhere, she had never even seen a drunk person in her home, just Uncle Musa from next door whom his family locked out every time he was drunk, which was all the time. Most times he passed out on the veranda and slept there until the morning.

And also, her stepmother is a tall woman.

“We must go and get Aunty Harriet.”

“No!” Sengezo says, in panic.

“Mama said we must never let Harriet back in the house after she goes to her house outside,” Limi says.

Well, surely it’s because she doesn’t want the housekeeper to know that she pukes on herself and that her children have to drag her to her bedroom when she’s drunk, Aphiwe thinks to herself. She is also shocked by the fact that Limi calls Harriet by name.

She grabs the arms while Sengezo grabs the feet and together they drag her all the way to the main bedroom. They can’t put her up on the bed though because Aphiwe may be 13 but that doesn’t mean she can lift up adults.

“We must put a pillow under her head and the duvet over her so that it looks like she slept on the floor by choice. In case Baba comes home,” Sengezo says.

Clearly they do not know he’s not coming home any time soon.

“Baba never comes home,” Limi says. She’s sitting on the bed now, the stuffed tiger still under her arm and her little legs dangling between the bed base and the floor.

Aphiwe and Sengezo do the work of putting the pillows under her stepmother’s head and the duvet over her body, and cleaning her face with a wet cloth to remove the vomit stains.
She looks beautiful, Aphiwe notices. She looks nothing like the mean woman she was when she picked her up from school.

She notices Sengezo has left the bedroom.

Tomorrow is a school day and these kids should be sleeping because it is way past midnight now. But something in her makes her believe this isn’t anything unusual, that they have had to do this many times before.

She finds Sengezo back in the bathroom where his mother was, wiping the floor and the toilet seat with a towel. He is doing it like it is something he has done many times before.

“Limi struggles to sleep alone every time this happens, can you sleep with her in your bedroom?” he says, without turning to look at her.

Limi is standing right at the door, still clutching at her toy like it is her safe space.

“OK, but let me help you with this first.”

And together they clean the bathroom spotless.

Tell us: Do you know anyone who suffers from alcohol addiction? How does it make you feel to think about it?