“Where are you going now?” Gogo asked the question as she walked Naledi back towards the front door. “I hope you are going to lectures. Your uncle will be very angry if he hears that you have been skipping class again.”

“Not right now, Gogo,” said Naledi, leaning down and kissing the short old woman on the cheek.

Naledi paused to give her a hug, her body relaxing against the warm, soft body that she knew so well. When she had been very young this was the body that had carried her around, strapped to her back.

Although Naledi could not remember those times, she always felt as if her soul did, and in the absence of the woman whose womb had carried her, this had been the tight, close security that had kept her safe.

Naledi’s first memory was of Gogo. It was a vivid flash of memory in technicolour, and was of herself on a swing. She remembered falling from the highest point on the arc of the swing’s movement, up against the sky. She also remembered it was Gogo’s arms, and her voice, that had comforted her.

It had only been later that her uncle had told her the truth. Only eighteen months ago. He had been alone then, just recently divorced from the woman who had been his second wife.

Uncle’s wife had been a distant figure. She had never been any kind of mother to Naledi. She was a slender, willowy woman who lived in the corporate world. She was much younger than Naledi’s uncle, and she had hardly been at home anyway. The marriage had been short, and childless. In some ways she had been more like a sister to Naledi than an aunt. There were other children, from her uncle’s first wife, who were much older than Naledi, and they had their own lives.

It had just been Gogo, who had always been there.

Naledi clung to her at the gate a little longer, until she felt Gogo gently pushing her away.

“Whatever you need to do, do it,” said Gogo gently, “but then get on with your life, my girl. You are young. You should be happy.”

Naledi moved back into the street, and after a few minutes she caught another taxi. She gave directions to the driver and paid her fare.

It was still early and she wondered if Gloria would even be awake. She closed her eyes, leant back in her seat and let the rhythm of the taxi rock her.

She climbed out the taxi a little later and walked the rest of the way down a side street to the house. The house looked locked up. She paused at the steel gate and her finger hesitated over the buzzer. She opened her bag, unzipped a pocket on the inside, and took out a couple of keys on a ring. She slipped one of them into the lock of the gate and it clicked open.

After letting the gate shut behind her Naledi walked up the path to the front door. She hesitated there, too, before using a second key to open the Yale lock.

Inside, the house was silent and dark. Naledi stood in the alcove at the entrance and breathed deeply. She had never come to the house alone before. Gloria had given her keys eighteen months ago .

Naledi looked down at the keys in her hand.

Gogo had told her that she should throw them away. Her uncle did not even know about their existence. Naledi could just imagine his anger if he could see her now, with the keys in her hand, standing there like a resident.

***

Tell us: Who do you think Naledi is visiting? Why do you think Gogo told her to throw the keys away?