I started being afraid of you, you had apologized endlessly and I had forgiven you, but you had beaten me to a pulp, for just raising my views about being independent, Mthandeni.

I hid my bruises and kept to myself. I decided to never raise the issue of going to university again, but instead, I registered privately for an Art Degree.

I studied whenever you went out, and the boys were at school or day care. I revised whenever you were asleep. Distance learning had never been better.

I gave birth later in the year, and we were both shattered to learn that the baby had been dead for over 5 months. The doctor explained that the movement I felt, were my body trying to convince my mind that I was still pregnant and the baby was okay. 

And I was wrong, this time, it was a beautiful light skinned baby girl. I would have had a daughter, had it not been for Mthandeni hitting me. I became angry at you all over again, and I know you secretly blamed yourself too, for the demise of your only daughter.

Why had I not been going for scans? I had been busy studying, that’s why. As a result, I lost the only daughter I could’ve had, but never got.

Two months later, I found you crying in the bathroom, Mthandeni, wailing, when you thought I was asleep. I cried with you, under the cold shower water. We cried and mourned for our dead daughter. I had never seen you cry, you were always good at masking your feelings.

Under the shower water, our hearts hurt, and our baby girl in our minds, we made passionate love for the first time in two months.

That was when our sixth child was conceived. I have to give it to you! Your seed worked wonders, you only sprouted fertile sperms and they never got it wrong, or got lost.

When we found out I was expecting, you treated me like an egg, like I was so fragile. I even caught you praying to God that it be another baby girl.

I said “Amen” too, cause I also wished for a baby girl. How beautiful would she be?

Months moved, I studied harder and harder and I aced my exams. I passed my first year and moved onto my second, without you knowing. God bless Unisa.

I gave birth early June, and it was a baby boy. I guess that girl, was the only daughter God had reserved for us and you killed her! You fucken killed her, Mthandeni. My daughter was killed by the very same man who was supposed to protect her.

You named him, “Siphosethu”

I watched Siphosethu grow and become like you, like his four older brothers. I graduated without you knowing, when Siphosethu was two and a half.

I almost fell, when one day you came home drunk, and started beating me to a pulp, just because I had forgotten to pack your lunch. I sometimes forgot, but you never hit me, you just ordered.

The next morning you woke me up, and cried like a baby, apologizing again and again, and you even bought me a black Ferrari. I loved the car! I had always wanted it!