"It sometimes amazes Zodwa that beauty can exist in a place like the township. With all its shacks thrown together from things the white man has found no use for, or hasn't been vigilant enough to guard, it's a festering pile of scrap metal. And yet as unsightly as it is, as fragmented and desperate and temporary, all it takes is seeing it in the reflection of dusk's forgiving gaze to realize that the discarded can be beautiful."

"I know better than anyone how the heart can play the most terrible tricks on the mind. It's a traitorous beast that can't be trusted at the best of times, but even less so when it's so utterly broken."

"Children, for the most part, are nurtured and protected. Adulthood is the point at which we're thrown to the wolves. Wasn't it just as I'd stepped over the threshold of selfhood-at the very moment when I'd expected my life to get easier-that everything had to spectacularly fallen apart?"

"As women, we're told our worth and our value, and the many ways in which we fall short of others' expectations; we're told why we're whores and why society can't tolerate whores. We're reminded of the ways we dishonor the unwritten contract we didn't know we signed on the day of our birth: a contract in which we agreed to toe the line and know our place simply because we are the fairer sex."

"Hope is a trail of bread crumbs that she will follow."

I could flip open to any page and find a brilliant and/or beautiful line. Bianca Marais is a true gem. Her sophomore novel did NOT disappoint. I fell in love with Marais' writing in her first book [b:Hum If You Don’t Know the Words|28264701|Hum If You Don’t Know the Words|Bianca Marais|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1478677361l/28264701._SY75_.jpg|48309299] which I read right after it came out in 2017, and again towards the end of 2018, so I was glad I put off reading her follow up so that I could say I've spent some time with her voice and her characters once each year over the last 3. I'm a forever fan for sure, persistently in awe of the emotion that she injects into her stories, creating a broad landscape that encompasses her personal experiences as well as the history of her first home, South Africa. So gripping are both books because of how diligently Marais spent with the real world history, plotting here according to what followed the end of apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela, delving into the growing AIDS epidemic and the ceaseless racism. Her heart is deeply enmeshed in every piece of the book and it shows.

Here, the focus shifts between 3 women over 4 years: Zodwa, a young, poor woman, heavily pregnant and hiding her true sexuality; Delilah, a former nun who has come home after 40 years at the news that a priest is in critical care following an attack on his parish; and Ruth, a former stripper who has returned to her childhood home as she runs from the ruins of her third marriage and a botched suicide attempt. Delilah and Ruth are estranged sisters, forced together again ready to fight over whether or not they'll sell the farm they both found their way back to. Delilah refuses, even rescinds the power of attorney she'd handed over years before, but Ruth needs the money.

In limbo, Ruth drinks excessively and Delilah goes about her day, visiting the nearby ICU each day, hoping Father Daniel recovers, when she is startled on the street one day by her old friend,"Precious" or Leleti, Zodwa's mother. Days later, in a tuberculosis haze and hours from death, Leleti takes her newborn grandson out of the shack she shares with her daughter and delivers her to the front steps of the white sisters, telling Zodwa that her baby didn't live through the birth. Ruth is a big believer in signs and takes this to mean that she is meant to be a mother to this black child despite the vitriol the act of adopting him will surely bring upon the home. Delilah, traumatized by her past, won't help her less-than-maternal sister and insists they call social services to intervene and take the appropriate steps. All the while, an exhausted and confused Zodwa feels cursed, having lost her brother a decade prior and then also losing her son and mother within hours of each other, and she struggles to accept the truth she has been handed. She moves on, gets a job and a boyfriend despite the torch she carries for her ex-best friend, and spends some of her free time searching the orphanages of the countryside for her boy.

The preceding chapters unfold like a many-layered flower, allowing us a glimpse into the souls of these characters and the turbulence of South Africa's reality as this "unnatural" family comes together as best they know how in order to protect the child at all costs, no matter what threats come their way, no matter how much their lives flout tradition, they know love and are determined to share it with young Mandla. Though they have good intentions, there are many obstacles and revelations that they are confronted with along the way. This is very much a book full of lessons that advocate kindness and truth and perseverance and I was here for all of it.