I was raised by my grandmother in Matwabeng, in the Free State, while my mother was away at university. My father didn't claim me at birth, and my relationship with him went from non-existent to complicated — I came to believe he loved his other children, the ones who lived with him or were his wife's, in a way he couldn't love me. I didn't move in with my mother until grade 6, after she'd finished studying, remarried, and built a life we could share.
I grew up anxious and afraid of being left — I'd cry at school drop-off, and call my mother in tears over every small inconvenience. Without fully meaning to, I distanced myself from her: I called her "ngwaneso" — the word for sister, later just "darling" — while "mme," the word for mother, I gave to my grandmother. There was a countercurrent belief too: a children's song from church said "my mother may not be the queen, my father is king of everything, and I'm adopted into the family, so I guess that makes me royalty" — and some part of me believed that, even while doubting my own father's love.