Now I struggled to steady my hands; they were shaking so much I could hardly hold on to my letter. I was filled with fear. I had to sit down or I was going to fall over. I chose a chair across from my parents and continued to read the letter to myself. The words were not making sense – as if where there should have been full stops there were none. My eyes ran over the same words again and again and still they did not make sense.

I have read about people saying things like, ‘I saw my life race in front of me,’ when they thought they were about to die. Now I experienced that whirling panic. I thought of Humpty Dumpty and how all the kings’ horses and all the kings’ men couldn’t put him back together again. I too felt like my life had been smashed into a thousand pieces.

Everything I knew, everything I thought I knew to be true, was a lie. My life was all make believe. The woman I had called ‘Mama’ for all my life was not my mother!

I remembered her shushing people whenever they said things like, ‘Oh, you look exactly like your mother,’ when they saw me. I had sometimes wondered what they were trying to say, because I look nothing like my mother. My face is round; hers is oval. She is dark chocolate. I am much lighter. Her eyes slant. Mine are big and round. She is very short. I am tall.

My heart was beating loud and fast in my ears and I felt fear building up from my stomach. Though I wanted to know what the full text of the letter said, I was not ready. I was afraid of what it would say.

And the man I called ‘Papa’? Who was he? This man who wore thick-rimmed glasses and a neatly-trimmed beard?

Who were these people?

And as I sat there, drowning in fear, I began to recall odd bits and pieces of my life that I had stored away in my mind, in a place where I did not think about them. I remembered a family meeting when I younger. I must have been about eight, playing around nearby. I overheard my aunt saying: “It’s time you told her the truth. She needs to know. I said from the very beginning that what you wanted to do was wrong.”

And I remembered the face of a stranger who had come to our house one day. He had asked for my mother or father, but neither of them was home and the man went away and never came back, although he had said he would.

I tried again to read the letter, slower this time, so that every word sank in and the sentences made sense.

To my darling daughter, Senzeni

If you are reading this, it means I have not made it back to you, to tell you all the things that are in my heart. And neither has your father. We always knew that some of us would fall, but it was something we had to do.

But I know that if there is anyone who could love you closest to the way I love you, it is my sister. I am so thankful that she is your mother.

I remember holding you in my arms on the day you were born and imagining what kind of a woman you would grow up to be, and knowing that the world that you would live in was going to be different to the one we were enduring.

I am just next door, in Botswana. I walked here from home – a long, long walk through the bush. There were times when I wanted to turn back but we had to go on. Someone had to do what had to be done…

And so, I learnt my real mother’s name and my real father’s name from a letter brought to my home by a stranger. I found out they had named me Senzeni.

And just after finding out these facts, I learned that they were killed just when they were beginning to live their adult lives.

Emotion welled up; I sat shaking, shocked. I stared wildly at ‘my parents’ who stared back anxiously. Then anger in me raged up and I took it out on the people closest to me.

“I cannot live here anymore!” I ran from the room.

I had shouted out of desperation and anger and sadness like I had never felt before. I did not have any other home than this one, where I had lived in all my life, but in that moment I believed that what my ‘parents’ had done was unforgivable.

* * *

Tell us what you think: The relationship between Mpho and her adoptive parents has changed. Is it beyond repair? What can be done to save it?