Howzit babe.

Gina smiled to herself. Tyler. He had been her partner to the Matric Farewell.

Studying. Eating. U?

Hanging with my crew.

Gina could just imagine. Tyler and his friends, at a flat somewhere, playing video games. Eating Gatsbys and drinking beer. The smell of weed in the air.

Tyler had started university at the beginning of the year. But that hadn’t lasted. Since June he had not been attending any lectures. Since September his mother had stopped his allowance. Since October he had been living back home with his mother and younger brother.

But, he had made it to be her partner to the Matric Farewell. And he had made an effort. They had looked stunning together.

Aunt Sophie hated Tyler. At school most of the teachers had hated him too. He always had an opinion and a comment, and they were usually not popular with his elders.

Tyler and Gina had found each other when Gina was in Grade 9 and Tyler Grade 10. They met at a dance held in the school hall, a Valentine’s dance. The teachers had all stood around the sides of the hall and at the entrance like police officers. Somehow Tyler had still successfully sneaked her out with him, without any of them seeing. He had kissed her, around the back of the school, outside the art room.

Gina still remembered that. It had been her first kiss. With her eyes open she remembered seeing the artist Van Gogh watching them from a poster on the door. Her head had spun like the twirls and swirls painted around his self-portrait.

Tyler had been her first in everything.

Aunt Sophie did her best to keep them apart, but wherever Gina was, there was Tyler as well. And Aunt Sophie could control a lot of things in Gina’s life, but she couldn’t control everything.

Tyler joined the church youth when Gina did. Church was very important to Aunt Sophie. She went to church every Sunday, and always took Gina along. Tyler’s family did not bother with church, but it wasn’t long before Tyler did.

Gina smiled to herself. She turned towards her bedside table and picked up a photograph in a frame. It was a photograph of the two of them at the Matric Farewell. Tyler’s arm was tightly around Gina’s waist, and they were both smiling.

Gina sighed. Oh Tyler, she thought to herself. What is going to happen to you now, hey?

Gina replaced the photograph and picked up another one. A woman who looked very much like herself smiled out at her from the frame. Gina realised, with a start, that the woman in the photograph was probably not much older than she herself was now.

Gina ran her finger over the picture. “Mom,” she said softly. Aunt Sophie had told the story many times.

“You won’t remember any of it Gina,” she would say, “but believe me, I remember every detail very, very well. That day.”

Normally at this point Aunt Sophie turned away, because tears began to fill her eyes. Gina was never sure why, because at this point her aunt never looked sad. Not at all. She looked angry, furious even. But the tears were there nevertheless.

“Your granny was still alive then. All of us together. Us four girls. You, me, your mother and her. What your mother did killed her you know.”

Normally a cup of tea accompanied the telling of the tale of Gina’s mother. And Aunt Sophie took large gulps from the largest cup she could find, in between the telling.

“Well you wouldn’t know,” Aunt Sophie always reminded herself. “You were too small. But you were there that day. And you screamed and cried. For days. That helped your granny on her way as well, no doubt. You helped cry her into heaven.”

Here Aunt Sophie paused to gulp more tea.

“But she’s in a better place now. That I am sure of. That I know. But as for your mother? That I’m not so sure of. Not so sure at all.”

Sometimes Gina thought that maybe she did remember. She remembered a feeling. A pain. Or maybe it was just the same pain that she still felt every day. The loss. Maybe it had just started on a particular day and never gone away.

“She just got up,” continued Aunt Sophie. “She just stood up, your mother, as if she was going to make some tea. Or go to the bathroom, or go to bed. She stood up and opened the front door.”

Her Aunt Sophie indicated the front door, because it had been that exact door in this very same house.

“She opened the door and she walked out. She didn’t take a thing and she didn’t look back.”

Aunt Sophie paused for a long time, and Gina always waited for the final sentence in the story.

“She left you, me and her mother and she went and joined them in the park. The drinkers, over there, and she never came back.”

Some of the drinkers were still there. Gina saw them on her way to school. And her mother was no longer with them. The story had remained the same for all the years that Aunt Sophie had told it.

Gina had to add the detail herself, some facts and particulars gathered from others. Nothing changed the facts though. The fact was that sometime around Gina’s fourth birthday her mother had left home, joined a group of homeless people on the street, and then disappeared.

Later she had died. Aunt Sophie also knew that for sure. Died somewhere in a city far away. Gina had heard something about a cousin that she had called on for help, because she was ill, and there had been a short time in hospital, and then a death. There had been ashes, scattered in a windy and barren field, and a plaque on a wall next to the one belonging to her grandmother. They died within two years of each other. By the time she was seven, only Gina and her aunt remained.

And Gina knew, felt, believed, with every bone in her body – plus her aunt had always made it clear – that it had all been her fault.

***

Tell us what you think: Could everything that happened have been Gina’s fault? What other reasons might there have been for her mother’s behaviour?