At home my grandmother's health is deteriorating. She has been moved from the other room, and is now in the Room-of- my-Birth. The bed has been removed from the wall that separates us from our neighbour. It is placed below the window. Yes, that is where the nurses will reach easily and that is where she will get the healing of the early morning breeze. I cannot help but imagine that where she lies is exactly where my mother's coffin had stood on the day of her passing.

On that morning, carved in my memory, a black car that carries dead people, with a sign reading “Dexter Bros Funeral Parlour” written on the side, had arrived at my home to deliver a long shining box of wood. The box had been carefully carried by gloved hands from the Dexter car into our house. My grandmother, the one who is lying sickly here, used to be very active. She would be moving about the house doing whatever chores. That morning, however, she was sitting on a mattress in the far corner of the Room-of-my-Birth.

In the first place, I had not understood why they had taken the chairs, the table, the chest of drawers, the wardrobe and the bed out of the house that morning, leaving only a mattress on the floor. Yet there were visiting people. It struck my small mind that something had happened. People were behaving in a very unusual way.

One person who had not been around for me to ask my questions to, was my mother. She had been out of my sight for some days. I would nag everyone at home about her whereabouts.

The long shining box was obviously important since it took the space of our furniture, and since everybody's eyes were on it.

“Mama, uphi uSis’Wendy?” I asked my grandmother. Our visitors had been talking in low voices, but when I asked my grandmother where Sis’Wendy was they became silent. Suddenly, it became tense in the Room-of-my-Birth. My grandmother's head remained bowed. Her forehead was covered with a black shining cloth.

With sheer intuition I said, “I know where Sis’Wendy is. You have hidden her in that box.” They were still quiet, my grandmother and those visiting people. I walked out and one of my uncles offered to put me on a wheelbarrow for a ride around the block.