As I grew older, the streets remained unchanged—dry, dusty, and unforgiving. Each morning, I traced the same cracked walls and sidestepped scattered trash, always wondering if life outside these alleys was any softer. Most days, it wasn't.
School felt like a battlefield, a place where I was always alert, always bracing for attack. Friends drifted in clusters of laughter, but I slipped by as a shadow, learning to read every nuance—the teachers who whispered, the classmates who averted their eyes, the way affection was doled out to some and withheld from others.
The same questions echoed in my mind: Who am I, really? Where do I belong? Sometimes I pictured my mother far away, maybe thinking of me, maybe not. I didn't know if she remembered my face, or if I existed only as a fading memory—or not at all.
Grade 7 brought the first cracks in the walls I'd built around myself. Dabawo's anger, sharp and unfiltered, was the first sign. I didn't yet understand the full truth, but I felt the sting of difference—the silent message that I was an outsider in what I'd thought was my own home.
Ntombentsha's moods came and went like storms—one moment sharp and cold, the next offering a scrap of food or a muttered kindness. The unpredictability left me unsettled. I never knew when to brace for cruelty or when to accept rare tenderness. Nothing lasted long enough to trust.
I became hyperaware of small things. A neighbor's lingering glance at the fence. A teacher's sympathetic look quickly withdrawn. Each interaction was a riddle, every unexpected kindness a question: Why did they notice? Why me?
Nighttime, alone in my narrow bed, I conjured my mother's face from dreams. Sometimes she smiled, warmth radiating from a presence I had never truly known. Other times, she was just a shadow at the edge of my longing, close enough to imagine, too far to reach.
It became more than longing—a deep, bone-deep hunger for answers. Why had she left? Why was I here, and not there? There was no map, no guide, no sign pointing to the truth. Only questions. Only the dirt and silence of the streets, reminding me daily that survival had its costs: silence, loneliness, and the ache of absence.
I found solace in secret ways. Books became my companions, borrowed or treasured when I could get them. I read between the lines, slipping into stories that let me imagine a world bigger and brighter than my own. I wrote secret notes to myself—tiny messages of hope, dreams I barely dared to voice. "One day," I would whisper, "I will find her. I will know her. I will know myself."
The memory of the teacher who bought my farewell outfit lingered. That one act of kindness was monumental—a sign I could not ignore. It told me that someone, somewhere, had seen me, even if just for a moment. Maybe, I thought, my mother existed somewhere too. Maybe, one day, she would see me.
The world outside my small life spun on. I was growing, but slowly, painfully. Every smile I offered, every gentle word, every small act of endurance was a thread in a tapestry I couldn't yet see. I was weaving my story even as I stumbled through it—never knowing the pattern, only trusting that each step mattered.
So I waited. I waited as I always had, nurturing hope like a fragile flame, careful not to let it die. Each day was a test. Every glance, every kindness, every small victory, became a stone in the path I was laying beneath my own feet. And somewhere, out there, my mother existed. She didn't know it, but I was searching for her.
That search—quiet and persistent—was only just beginning.