EVERY DAY THANDI FEELS THE FUTURE SLIPPING AWAY FROM her. Having light skin and going to medical school seem distant dreams, and even the results of her exams promise little in the way of hope. Her family is falling apart. She needs Charles. He is the one person who won’t fail her. She packs a few things in her bookbag—clothes, her sketchpad, Charles’s towel. It’s barely dawn, before the rooster crows. Delores and Grandma Merle are asleep. Margot is still gone. Thandi slips out the front door of the shack. She walks briskly down the path that leads farther away from the hill. She walks in the opposite direction of the women who saunter to the river with pails on their heads—women who march together to the river that is miles from where they live, only to see that it’s blocked off by cement and working tools. They return to their towns, each one with her neck held straight to balance her pail and what appears to be the weight of the world on her head.
The sun is peering above the hill, just the cap of its head rising. The sky is a clear violet blue sprinkled with leftover stars and half of a moon. Thandi quickens her pace. She has to get across the Y-shaped river to where Charles’s mother lives. She might be lucky enough to get Miss Violet to tell her where Jullette lives. She opens the gate despite the yellow tape. Mary and Joseph are no longer in the pen. Someone must have taken them to sell. Or killed them. The four dogs roam the yard, their bones more visible, protruding through their skin like ridges of broken sticks. They follow Thandi, sniffing up her skirt. “Shoo! Shoo!” She waves them off. She bypasses Charles’s zinc shed and goes directly to the main shack, where she knocks. There’s no answer. No sound. The familiar foul smell hits Thandi when she pushes the door open. This time there are no cooing sounds to guide her as she makes her way farther inside, feeling around in the dark shack. She pauses when she gets to the upholstery curtain that shields off the bedroom. Thandi pushes it aside, looking for the woman lumped on the bed. But when she parts the curtain there is no sign of Miss Violet. Just the soiled rumpled sheets. She has already left.
Thandi backs away, nearly stumbling this time over a footstool. She goes next door to Miss Ruby’s shack. Before she knocks, she sees an eviction note posted on the door. By the faded look of the paper, it seems to have been there for weeks. Thandi bangs on the door, her heart somersaulting in her chest. Her dream of finding Charles seems further away with Miss Violet gone. Miss Ruby might know something. When Miss Ruby opens the door, Thandi is surprised to see the woman’s face. It appears bruised all over with purple blemishes on her cheeks. Gone is the clear salmon-colored hue she bragged about just months before. Presently she appears to have aged, her skin paper-thin, wrinkled, and blotchy like a days-old navel orange. When Miss Ruby sees Thandi staring, she fumbles with her housedress, bringing the collar up to her mouth. “What is it yuh want so early in di mawnin’?” Miss Ruby asks.
Thandi tries her best not to appear troubled by Miss Ruby’s appearance. “Do you know where Miss Violet went?” she asks.
A deep scowl transforms Miss Ruby’s face. “Why yuh askin’ me dat fah? Me look like me keep tabs pon people? I survive by min’ing my own business.”
“Do you at least know where Jullette lives? I have to find her. I have to find Charles.”
“Where have you been? Yuh so locked into yuh books dat yuh not even know what time it is. Everybody want to know where Charles is. Him is a wanted man. Anyone who know where him is, is a rich s’maddy. Rich enough to buy a house and not be treated like shit. If I did know where dat brute was, me woulda move out long time. Suh why would you ask me such a stupid question? Now get away from me front door an’ nuh come back unless yuh have money for my service.” She looks at Thandi’s face. “From where ah standing, it look like yuh need more rubbing.”
“No, thank you,” Thandi says.
“Yuh sure ’bout dat? Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I tell yuh dat God nuh like ugly? Look what’s happening to us.”
But Thandi turns and walks out of Miss Ruby’s yard without looking back.
She hurries toward the square before the sun rises entirely. She passes Miss Gracie’s house and stops by the mango tree where she once spotted Charles and his gang stealing and devouring mangoes. Thandi reaches toward the lowest branch and picks one. But when she lowers the mango, she sees that it is rotting, the inside carved out by worms. She tosses it and keeps moving. When she gets to the pink house, she slows her pace. The French shutter windows are closed, but leaving the house in this early morning hour is her sister. Margot stops in her tracks when she sees Thandi. And Thandi halts too, her breath drawn so sharply that it hurts her lungs.