Lily and Kari were quiet.

  Awkward. Not that I’m bothered by that sort of thing.

  ‘Don’t be like that, Shelley man, it’s not like we all talk and see one another without you. Lily talks to Di a lot because of the girls. And you see Di at the shop all the time, don’t you? I talk to Lily because I’ve been busy with Adam and getting my UNISA stuff sorted, and I check in with Di every now and then to see she’s not lonely on her own. I figured you are busy with the twins and Jerry and the shop.’

  Another bout of silence.

  ‘Why don’t we all make a plan?’ said Kari, always the peacemaker. ‘Let’s do something one Friday when you and Di are both off? Dirk can braai when he gets home?’ she asked, her hand gentle on my shoulder, as if I were Adam she was trying to appease. Lily didn’t say anything. She was a doctor, but she wasn’t going to make you feel better.

  ‘Yeah sure, talk to Di, see what she says.’

  I knew I sounded bitter, but I couldn’t help it. Even though we were ABS, Lily and Kari were always the two closest friends. I was used to that. But Di and I were usually the other two who knew things about each other. When did it become them three and me? Kari made more small talk and the time passed until the surf lesson was over.

  Wayde helped Harley, Stacey and Adam out of their wetsuits (he was even better at it than Jerry, I noticed) while they all ate Kari’s hot dogs and got ice creams from the ice cream truck in the parking lot. Chiara, Sarah and Kate joined in with their lean teen bodies and surfboards under their arms. Chiara was desperate to make a connection with Wayde – I could see that – even asking him to help her get the collar of her wetsuit over her head. She stood there next to him in her black triangle bikini top, perfect young girl boobs. They stood chatting to each other, looking like the ideal young beach couple. Everyone happy.

  Me? I went through the motions of being Shelley. Loud, jolly, laughing, cajoling my kids until Stacey told me to stop being such a noisy mommy and Harley came to sit in my lap, his body still cold from the sea on my hot skin. I hugged him close. Inside, I felt alone and sore. ABS used to be the one place where I could just be myself and where I never felt like the outsider. Not today.

  It was after one by the time I had the Range Rover packed with all our things. As I walked up towards the car with Harley and Stacey trailing behind me, I heard Wayde call out.

  ‘Hey, Shell, I’m just going to drop all my stuff at home; then I’ll see you at the shop. I’ll get us some smoothies on the way?’ He smiled. That one where a dimple creased in his left cheek. I saw Lily give Kari a look.

  ‘Okay, that will be nice,’ I shouted back. Exaggeratedly I blew him a kiss just for the scandal of it. Go on, talk about that, girls. I don’t know everything you all are doing, but you don’t know everything about me, either.

  20

  Sunday, 25 February

  Since the twins were born, and more so now that Coffee & Cream is open, Sundays have become our appointed Family Day. It was Jerry who transformed it from easy layabout lazy-bum Sunday at home to a day when we had to do something ‘as a Family’. It’s not always successful – last week’s Kirstenbosch picnic for instance was hell on wheels. The kids ran wild, pulled out the plants and jumped into every stream. I don’t like the pressure of Family Day, the officialness of it. I liked the ordinary Sundays we had before kids.

  That would’ve been a great thing to do with them.

  Wake up. Get dressed. Do something. Or not. Eat somewhere. Go somewhere. Meet friends. Stay home.

  Or not.

  With the official Family Day, we – I mean Jerry – always have a plan for what we are going to do. Book an ‘activity’ in advance. I kicked against it at first. I told Jerry that we see each other and the kids every day – we have a Family Life; we don’t need a Family Day. But no. Jerry wanted it and he killed whatever spontaneity was left in our lives with twin three-year-olds. For flowering sakes, can we not have one day where we don’t have to shout at or beg Stacey and Harley? ‘Come on … Get up … Let’s brush your teeth … Put these clothes on … Let’s go … Let’s go!’ Just one day where we – I mean, I – don’t have to fight with them or deal with yet another of Stacey’s teeth-chomping tantrums. I gave in to Jerry because I know why he wants this Family Day in our weekly diary. He hasn’t said it, and I never let on what I think, but I know why. I’ve never talked about it because who expects me to say anything smart or deep or sensitive or insightful?

  No-one.

  Not Kari or Lily or Di or even Jerry. Shallow Shelley is what they see.

  But I do know why. I’m not stupid. I have a brain in my head. And I know Jerry’s heart enough to guess what goes on in his brain. He wants Family Day because that’s all he can have with me and the twins. He loves us. But he can’t have Shabbat dinner with us, no Rosh Hashanah with us, no Yom Kippur, no Passover, no Chanukah either. Nothing that counts in the tribe that he comes from. It’s the truth. And, as much as I love him, I cannot give him those days. I haven’t tried joining him and his family on all those days because I simply don’t see the point of it. Just because I have fake teeth and fake boobs doesn’t mean I’m okay with being a fake anything, including a fake Jew. In any case, I know that going with him won’t make me feel what he feels. I will never feel the pull of the traditions his parents and grandparents and great-grandparents practised. I wouldn’t be fooling anyone.

  Despite him asking me to come with him, I’ve never joined him for anything except those couple of Shabbats and that Pesach in the beginning. We don’t talk about the Jewish thing, and I’m not sure even he understands what it is that ties him into it, what anchors him in it. It’s not as if he lives his life in a way that makes him different to me. But I know he has this feeling of being Jewish, a pride in it, of being part of something bigger than himself. It is something I will never know, no matter how many Shabbats and holidays I fake my way through. He’s not told me any of this, of course.

  What I would say if I were him?

  All you know is a mother and your twosome childhood traditions that the shops gave you – Easter eggs and Christmas presents. And the Special Day spent in pyjamas eating junk.

  It would be true. I had my mother’s love, but I know nothing of faith, culture, community. Nothing of prayers and candles, fasts and feasts. I see it in Kari also – how the tentacles of her Muslim traditions still sneak into her being; not always obvious to those who look at her, but they make her falter on the high days. Yearn to belong again. I see how Kari automatically fits in when she is around them, even when she says she does not. Kari and Jerry – they always have somewhere to belong, even if they push away from it. They have people who would put their arms around them if they wanted it. As an outsider, without any of that, I see it even when they do not.

  I never ask him how he feels about being a Jew with a wife and children who are not Jews. Where would that go? What’s done is done. I didn’t have the magic birth canal that could give Jerry a son who would have a bar mitzvah or a daughter who would have a bat mitzvah. I think it never used to matter before. But I get it. Children change things. Now, I think it matters. And because I have nothing else to give, I give him his organised Family Day every Sunday. It’s the least I can do.

  Today’s Family Day was at Spice Route in Paarl, a regular place for us. Forty-five minutes’ drive from Blouberg, or an hour if you go through Melkbosstrand and Philadelphia for the views of the sea and then the farmlands. That’s what we usually do, and the drive is worth it, especially when we stick DVDs in the car’s system and headphones on the kids’ ears. When we are feeling strong, we ban the DVDs and make them look out the windows, keep count of the cows and sheep and ostriches as we go by. I like that part. It’s always novel to me as a single child, with a single parent. The part where there are two parents, two children, our pigeon pair, and we are driving together and talking to one another like we are in a Volkswagen billboard. I wonder if I will ever get used to it. Spice Route is originally a wine farm but with enough restaurants and ‘artisans’ (craft beer, gin, grappa and chocolate tastings, in Cape Town speak) sprawled over the estate to help us pretend we are not just there for the open spaces and grassy areas. ‘Child-friendly’ being the magical words needed for every Family Day. The only thing I keep the kids well away from on the farm is the glass-blowing studio. I want to take home the things I buy, not collect the shards from the shop floor, thank you very much. Today, Jerry’s twelve o’clock booking of choice was pizza at La Grapperia, followed by ice cream at the kids’ play area close by. That’s usually my favourite part of every Family Day – when lunch is done and we’ve stopped trying to get the twins to eat; when they’ve decided that we can stop pushing them on the swings and play together without us. That’s when I feel most settled – maybe it’s the food hitting my stomach and the wine smoothing things over – but that’s when I feel a calmness between Jerry and me. Stretched out on the grass with the other lucky parents who no longer have to stand right in the play area, we all watch our children with a mix of awe and admiration and sheer head-shaking exhaustion at what we have brought into the world.

  ‘Good lunch, hey, love,’ said Jerry, stretching his legs out in the grass in front of him, as we sat next to each other on the downward slope overlooking the play area, his arm loose around my shoulders. He was still happy, Friday night’s good Shabbos lingering in him. I nodded, flicking an ant off my legs, my white shorts leaving them bare from mid-thigh. Not such a great idea on the green grass, but better than Jerry in those jeans of his that ride up on the slope showing his Sexy Socks, bunching denim in his groin under his belly. He needs new jeans. A bigger size. ‘I’m always happy to be with you and the kids on Sundays. Gives me that family feeling, us against the world.’

  ‘It is stunning here today,’ I said, and I meant it. Not uncomfortably hot in the way that February can be – the sky was clear and we looked out at the thatched roof of La Grapperia on the other side of the children, the chequerboard quilt of farmlands spread out below. The Capetonians’ Table Mountain far in the distance. It was the first time today we’d both taken in the view, in snatches, but still, we saw it. Until this point, it was all about feeding kids, playing with kids, standing right next to them as they demand. All that work got us to the fifteen-minute sweet spot that makes Family Day worthwhile. We’d already taken photos of Stacey and Harley playing together to squash the memories of how many fights it took to get to the sweet spot.

  ‘One of my second cousins from my mother’s side, Leah, was at Shabbat on Friday night. I haven’t seen her in forever.’ I felt Jerry’s hand curl a little on my shoulder, touching my collarbone. Sweaty.

  I left his words hanging. Jerry didn’t usually say much about Shabbat, just answered that it was ‘good’ if I asked about it.

  ‘Oh, something special about her then?’ I said finally, glancing sideways at him. A wink, trying to tease him. It was clear he wanted me to say something. I hoped it was not going to be a serious conversation about my joining for Shabbat again. I recognised the build-up. He would become serious, extra careful with his words. The carefulness never lasted for either of us. Jerry snorted, half a laugh hidden in it. A tiny drop of snot flew out of his nose and landed on my leg.

  ‘Come on, you know you’re always the only one I see,’ he smiled, shuffling closer to me. ‘I don’t think you’ve ever met Leah. About your age, she’s got two boys. Three and six, I think. They were also there.’

  He paused. Jerry was going to say what he wanted whether I egged him on or not.

  ‘I haven’t seen her since she went to work on a kibbutz after varsity. I heard she married an Israeli, called Rael. He was something high up in the army when they met.’ I heard Jerry’s voice swell a little as it always did with anything related to Israel. That was also something I didn’t understand. He and Kari carefully avoided the subject, though Kari had recently put a massive Free Palestine poster up in her kitchen that Shireen had given her. That poster made Jerry stumble; he always sat with his back to it when we ate there. ‘They’re here in South Africa, planning to stay a few years. Leah’s parents are old and she wants to spend more time with them. I’m guessing she will eventually move them to Israel with her.’

  ‘You weren’t kissing cousins, then? You know in some places you can marry your cousin.’ I laughed at my own joke, pretending it was funny as I wiped more ants off my legs.

  He gave me that look. He knew when I wanted to talk about something else. ‘Don’t get so defensive, I think you’d like her. She’s very liberal. She’s direct, doesn’t mince words, that one – an opinion on everything. Israel has been good for her like that. She used to be a mouse. We ended up talking about schools because she is looking for a place for her kids. Asked me about Harley and Stacey. It got me thinking, the way she talked about the right schools and how they could have an impact on kids.’

  The warning lights were bright in my head. Jerry had always been content for me to deal with all the practical aspects of the twins. He trusted me to know what they needed, he said. I never had to check with him, not even schools. I shrugged. It felt like anything I said would inch me closer to the cliff.

  ‘Yes, we’re lucky – the twins are happy at Sunshine Kids.’

  ‘They haven’t been there that long, though. We could change if we wanted to,’ he said. A siren started up in my head.

  ‘Why would we want to change? They’ve just got settled. They like their teacher and Kari’s Adam is also there. It’s a small group, but it’s a nice mix of kids. All different cultures.’ There were two black kids and three brown kids, an Indian girl and a Chinese boy among the very slight vanilla majority in the class of fifteen. I’d joked on ABS that the school was like a vanilla ice cream cone, sprinkles of colour on top. Lily crapped on me for that. When Kari arrived and said she wanted a mixed school that was non-religious, where Adam wouldn’t feel pressured to fit in or choose a side if the teacher taught something different to what she told him, I introduced her to Sunshine Kids. In my opinion, she was overthinking a school for a three-year-old, but I pretended that those were also the reasons I chose Sunshine Kids for the twins. I’d liked that it was a mixed bunch of kids, but mostly I’d chosen it because it was close to home, safe, had good toys, plenty of outside space, and the twins liked the teacher, Amy, the first time I took them there. It seemed a no-brainer.

  ‘Leah is talking about putting her kids into Herzlia Sea Point to start in the second term, earlier if the school will let them in. Made me think …’ He paused to wave at Stacey all the way at the top of the climbing frame. ‘I like the idea of Herzlia for Stacey and Harley. We need to start thinking about where they’ll go for grade school and if they do pre-school at Herzlia, they could stay there. I could always drop them on my way to work in the mornings. You or Theresa could fetch. And then the twins will end up knowing some of my family, seeing as Leah’s kids are going to go there too.’

  I shouldn’t have laughed. But I was nervous and I laughed so loud, Stacey and Harley looked up.

  ‘Are you crazy? You know Herzlia is a school for Jews, right? The twins are not Jewish; they know nothing about any of it. We all had bacon on our pizza just now, for hell’s sake. And Sea Point? Getting them to school on time will mean sitting in an hour of traffic every morning. You only leave home at nine!’ I laughed.

  Jerry went very still. His words came out careful, measured. I knew it meant he had been thinking about it a lot. The loud shouty impulsive Jerry was the one I usually saw; the clipped controlled Jerry was a beast that wasn’t often roused. The only other times I’d seen that side of him was when his brothers tried to convince him that marrying me was a bad idea – and again when I’d first refused to take the twins to Joburg to meet his mother.

  Jerry had won both times.

  ‘I know they know nothing about being Jews, that’s exactly why I want to send them to Herzlia. Their father is a Jew after all.’ He said it in the way of a challenge.

  ‘For real, how are we going to get them into a Jewish school? What’s even the point? It’s not going to make them Jewish, even if you,’ I emphasised the word the same as he had earlier, ‘are a Jew. They’re just going to feel odd kids out.’ I didn’t want my kids to find out that they weren’t the chosen ones because of me.

  Jerry looked as if he was winding himself up inside, but the words still came out distinctly.

  ‘You don’t understand.’ Well, that was predictable of him. ‘I may not be the most observant Jew in the world, but I am proud to be a Jew. It’s who I am; it’s my culture. I want to expose the kids to it.’

  ‘Jesus, Jerry. Should’ve married a Jew and not a shiksa if it was such a big deal. You can’t turn the clock back now that they are three already.’ I could feel my tongue loosening. More words were coming; my attempts at being careful always fail me. Jerry cut me off, all his attempts at being careful also forgotten, the things we never talk about rushing at me.

  ‘Shelley, can you cut the crap talk? I’m trying to have a calm conversation with you here. When we met, it wasn’t important to me that you weren’t Jewish. I thought we would just figure it out as we went along – it’s not like I was orthodox or wanted to keep kosher or anything. You never talked about wanting kids, until out of nowhere you decide you do and next thing I know we are at fertility doctors and you are sticking needles in yourself. I went along because I wanted kids with you; I didn’t care if they were Jews or not.’ He paused to fake smile and wave at Harley, who was calling him from the play area. ‘You know, my mother asked me how I would feel about my kids not being Jewish—’

  ‘Good old Miriam,’ I interrupted. Anything about his mother was a hot poker in my back. ‘Always ready to manipulate her little boy by pointing out the lack of Jew in his life. Anything less might as well not exist. I bet she guilt-tripped you good and solid last time you were there. I should’ve known this all started with something Ma said.’