2004 – 2006 | I Built My Own Jail, One Quiet Decision at a Time

When Daniel asked to stay with us for a few weeks while attending job interviews in Johannesburg, it seemed like a reasonable request. I mistakenly believed that there were still boundaries I could enforce, still a life I could protect. I had not yet realised that, by letting him in, I was beginning to build a life I would not be able to leave.

When Corné returned to Cape Town after his stint in the Northern Cape, he called occasionally, mostly to ask me to have groceries delivered to his father’s house, where he was still living. I still did not ask any questions, because I knew he did not earn much with his temporary jobs. It wasn’t until much later that I found out that Daniel had started drinking again shortly after the boys moved back in with him. His pension payment was soon used up, his relationship failed, he lost his job, and he sold his house and cars (not necessarily in that order). Karen and I were no longer part of their life, and I knew nothing about all this until much later. Only then did I realise that they were not having such a feast living with their father, and I worried about them all the time.

Now, with Corné back home permanently with Karen and me after the cancer scares in 2001 and 2003, Louis (my younger son) was the only one in contact with Daniel, although he no longer lived with his father. Louis then started calling from time to time to report that his father had no food or money. I refused to send Daniel any money because I knew where it would end up, so I ordered a few groceries for him to “help out”.  Stupid of me, yes, but I just did not know how to explain to my children that I cared very little about the contents of their father’s grocery cupboard. I remembered only too well those days when maintenance payments were withheld or deposited late, and I stood praying in front of the ATM for enough money to buy bread and milk. Daniel did not care about supporting me through those hard times.

Maintaining three households, my own with two children in Johannesburg, Daniel’s in Cape Town, and also paying an agreed-upon amount to my mother’s caretaker, with whom she lived in Durban, did not sit well with me. My income was not that substantial. Karen and Corné were new in their jobs and earning peanuts, and the rent they paid did not even cover their father's upkeep.

When Daniel called early in 2004 to ask if he could board with us for a few weeks while he attended job interviews in Johannesburg, I thought it was pure cheek on his part. Giving him the impression that he would be welcome in my house at any time was not my intention when I allowed him to visit the children those few days in 2003.

But then I reasoned it might be a good idea to help him back on his feet by providing boarding and transport for a few weeks. Thereafter, he could buy his own groceries, and I could once again live in peace. Yes, I was that naïve. I didn’t realise that, by allowing him back under my roof, I was sentencing myself to jail and throwing away the key. Daniel thought he now had a foot in the door after the few days' holiday that he spent with us earlier, and ridding him of the idea of a united family would prove impossible later.

Of course, there were no scheduled job interviews. Why did I even expect there to be? Just a few telephone calls assured me that nobody in the meat-grading business was inclined to give him the time of day, let alone a job. His reputation as a lush with an aggressive temper ensured that no one would hire him. I was livid and ready to kick him out, until Karen, the child whom he, on more than one occasion, denied as his, remarked that he would not survive much longer on his own. I knew this to be the truth. He was fifty years old but looked like an old man, a seriously ill one, and he was killing himself.

Great. So, if I kicked him out of my house and he died in the streets, my children would forever remember me, not as the good mother I tried to be, but as the woman who let their father die in the gutter. Children are unbelievably loyal and forgiving towards their parents; there is a lot of truth in the old saying “blood is thicker than water”. Some of my friends have told me that I should have left him to his own devices, that he was “digging his own grave”, but I dared such wise people to look my children in the eyes and repeat this piece of wisdom, knowing how deeply this situation was affecting them.

And bad things do not happen one at a time. Just before Daniel arrived, I fell and broke my arm, with the result that I had to put up with my arm in plaster for almost six weeks. There was a spate of break-ins in our neighbourhood, and the perpetrators were poisoning the dogs. Bazil was one of the dogs who ate some of the poisoned meat, but he was the only one in our neighbourhood that pulled through – the rest all died. As soon as we realised that Bazil had been poisoned, we gave him two litres of milk and forced him to drink all of it. Then the children rushed him to the veterinarian’s office in the middle of the night. Corné had to climb the high walls surrounding the surgery premises with a huge Boerboel-Mastiff in his arms because the electricity was out and the vet was struggling to open the gate. Bazil was put on a drip, and nobody was more surprised when he lived through that terrible night than the vet himself.

When Daniel arrived with all his worldly possessions in a suitcase (and I literally mean ALL of it, because he had nothing else in his name), all I could hear was the clinking of bottles. I opened the suitcase on the kitchen table, removed the bottles of liquor and emptied them into the kitchen sink, right there and then. I made it quite clear that alcohol still is and will always be forbidden in my house. Being allowed in the front door did not give him carte blanche to change our way of living. Here, on my turf, he would either agree to live by my rules or he could leave immediately.

After a while, I noticed that Daniel had started forming friendships with the neighbours and was regularly invited over for a drink. I visited all neighbours within walking distance and warned them off offering Daniel drinks, explaining that he had an addiction problem. They realised quickly enough that they’d better not cross the lines drawn by this authoritarian matriarch. I realised that I had to always keep Daniel busy to keep him from sneaking off to the liquor stores, and I took up a second bond on the house. I wanted to add a double garage, update the security and redo the kitchen and bathrooms. I put him to work overseeing the professional builders I hired. At this point, I added Emmy, Samuel’s daughter, to the staff to clean the house.

I also took Daniel to the local government clinic and hospital. It turned out he had a very aggressive form of skin cancer on his face, and he needed immediate surgery and aftercare. His back was also starting to act up, and I spent a lot of time driving him to and from his appointments, as he had to get the surgery at the old Johannesburg General Hospital, as it was known then, many kilometres away from where we were staying. Apparently, he had had a previous back operation during the years we lived apart. I didn’t even know about this.

With all this going on at home and being very busy at work, the next three years slipped by in relative tranquillity, although Daniel and I had regular little spats. He understood only too well that we would never resume marital relations and that I was now the undisputed head of this little family. He submitted to the house rules (not without testing them a few times), and we started getting on in a strange kind of friendship, where we each kept our distance from one another. But I knew, with Daniel around, I would not be able to bring old friends home or invite new friends over. Daniel’s possessiveness, jealousy, natural aggressiveness and tendency to turn to drink when crossed, took care of that. This is the life I got used to during our marriage, being alone and being lonely. This is how I would be living in the future. I was giving up on my dream of having a normal life, in which I could choose my friends, my lifestyle and my future, without always taking Daniel into account. I was effectively jailing myself.

Featured image: Our new composite family after years of estrangement.

Image in body: Stylised photo of Bazil, our Boerboel Mastiff