Mother to Mother

Mandisa and her mother return to Cape Town, where her mother keeps her "a prisoner in [her] home" for fear of anyone finding out about the pregnancy (117). This doesn't sit well with Mandisa, who wants to tell China about the pregnancy before he hears about it in the form of her family demanding reparations. While her mother is at work, she manages to sneak a note to him. The meeting, however, doesn't go well: China at first denies that the child is his, and then says that he intends to go away to boarding school. Mandisa, who had previously idolized China, is devastated, and throws him out.

When Mandisa is six months pregnant, her family takes her to negotiate with China's relatives. Matters remain unsettled, however, until Mandisa is eight months pregnant, at which point a priest convinces China and his father that he and Mandisa must marry. Before they can, however, Mandisa gives birth and names her son Hlumelo—"Sprig"—as a sign of her hope that "good things might come" from him (128). Meanwhile, Mandisa has decided she doesn't want to marry China, since she no longer loves him and wants to remain in school. Her father initially supports this decision, but changes his mind about a month after Hlumelo's birth because the clan at large wants Mandisa to marry.