The sun hangs from the sky and burns everything it touches. Mbali’s gaze is drawn to the smiling face of the woman holding her in the photograph. In the photograph she is a baby, but she is eight now, and she is intrigued. 

Khulekani can sense his sister’s absence as she tries to flee the room and appear in the photograph. He feels uneasy on the small sofa by the bed, where he is resting. Musa is beside him, lying on his stomach. 

“Mbali, are you okay?” asks Khulekani, but Mbali does not respond. 

The room is cold with silence and eventually Musa speaks loudly into it, “That’s your mother…our mother, can’t you see?” But still, the photo takes Mbali away, she keeps gazing at it and she stays quiet. For a moment, Khulekani detects movements from her head, as if she is shaking her head in disagreement.

“This is not my mother,” says Mbali finally.

Musa jumps up. “She looks like you, doesn’t she?”

“That is your mother Mbali, you just don’t remember her,” says Khulekani. 

Mbali flips the album and says, “But she does not look like Mam’ Bongiwe or Mam’ Thandeka. Where is Mam’ Thandeka? Anyway I’m sure Mam’ Bongiwe is my mother. Not her.” 

“Bongiwe… Mam’ Bongiwe is your stepmother, not your real mother, and Mam’ Thandeka and father separated long ago,” says Khulekani.

Mbali shakes her head again and asks, “What’s a stepmother?”

Khulekani sighs and looks at Musa who shrugs his shoulders.

“A stepmother is… how can I say this?” says Khulekani, “A stepmother is a woman who takes the place of being your mother when your real mother is not there.”

“So, Mam’ Bongiwe is not my real mother?” asks Mbali, “But I want her to be my real mother.” Mbali’s eyes become teary.

“You don’t have to cry,” says Musa, “Mam’ Bongiwe can be your mother, just not…”

Khulekani clears his throat so that Musa does not finish his sentence. 

It’s all clear to Khulekani: Mbali’s ignorance about their mother, as well as Dlamini’s introduction of several unknown women to Mbali, whom she had to refer to as “mother,” had produced her predicament. She has no idea who her mother is.

Now Mbali turns to them again and asks, “Is this truly my mother?”

“Yes!!” says Musa throwing his hands in the air, “Can’t you see you two look alike?” 

Musa stands up and walks outside. After a few moments, he comes back and lies on the bed again. 

“If this is really, really my real mother, then where is she?” asks Mbali.

Dlamini had shoved the photo album Mbali held in her hands under his wardrobe for years. It wasn’t until recently that it showed itself, when Mbali was looking in the cupboard for some shoes. Except for those in the photo album, there are no photographs of Cecilia anywhere in the house. Even after all these years, Dlamini feels guilty about how his wife died; if he hadn’t gone to work that day, things might have turned out differently, he feels. 

At the very least the children would not have been alone with her when she died. He went to work for what reason that day? Sometimes he wonders. 

“So?” says Mbali, forcing the question.

“Mother is…she is dead, Mbali…dead!” says Khulekani.

Khulekani buries his face in his hands because he feels ashamed that Mbali will notice the sorrow on his face. The death of their mother has left a mammoth weight on his shoulders, one that he struggles to bear alone. 

Tell us what you think: How can the burden of grief be shared?