ROWANI
My mother told me trouble doesn’t know when to choose, so she chooses the wrong time; not because she hates us but because she doesn’t know when to choose. “You are pregnant,” Aunty Misiu had told me. I was afraid, I thought only mothers got pregnant, “why am I pregnant?” “Because you father has been having sex with you,” she replied. Sex. Was that it? That’s one word I have only heard in hushed voices, but today Aunty Misiu had said it to me like it was the only word worth mentioning. But why did it make her cry? Aunty Misiu never cried, she was strong and every child in Dandata feared her. My name is Rowani, I will soon be thirteen years old. I am about to have my father’s baby. My aunt Doro suggested I’d be married off to Donkali, the shoemaker, but Aunty Misiu had objected. Aunty Misiu said I was too young to be anyone’s wife. My mother said it would kill her to tell the world what my father did to me, but Aunty Misiu said my mother looks dead already. ...