I wrote this as a lead magnet for my novel, Red To Stop, but then it turned into a short story with a life of its own.
Ruan Jakobus Louw was thirteen the day he decided to find his brother.
It started two weeks earlier, when Ma was at her night shift office cleaning job.
He usually watched TV after he’d finished his homework, but that night he had been bored. He started poking around in the cupboard above the stove, the one she kept locked with a little brass key she thought he didn’t know about. The lock was easy to pick with a paperclip. Inside, he found old papers: her ID book, his birth certificate, a few payslips, and a yellowed envelope with no writing on the front.
He’d opened it carefully, heart thumping as if he might be caught at any moment. He knew Ma wouldn’t be back for another two hours, but he listened for the key turning in the door, as if she might walk through it at any moment.
Inside the envelope was a newspaper clipping from years ago: a photo of a boy about ten, light brown hair falling over his forehead, big blue eyes staring straight at the camera. He was wearing a blazer with some fancy school crest. The caption read: Daxton Klein, Grade 5 Dux Scholar, Bishops Preparatory.
Under the clipping was a small photograph: creased, edges soft from handling. The same boy, younger, maybe three or four, sitting on a man’s lap. The man had the same eyes. On the back, in Ma’s careful handwriting: Daxton Sr and Jr
Ruan had sat on the kitchen floor for a long time, staring.
So that’s him.
The words kept circling in his head, over and over.
My brother. Daxton. Dax.
He knew the story in fragments: things Ma muttered when she was tired or angry.
His father had been married to someone else. Had a proper family in a proper house. Had promised Ma the moon, then disappeared when things got hard. But there was always this other boy. The real son. The one who got everything.
Ruan hated him at first. Hated the perfect hair, the perfect smile, the perfect life that should have been partly his. But hate was heavy, and after a few days, it turned into something else, curiosity that itched like mosquito bites.
Does he know about me? Does he ever wonder why his dad was sad sometimes? Does he have my eyes?
He didn’t tell Ma. She’d cry, or shout, or both. She’d say rich people didn’t want reminders of their mistakes, that it would only hurt more. But every night after that, lying on the narrow bed listening to the neighbour’s TV through the thin wall, Ruan pictured the boy in the blazer.
Maybe he’s lonely too. Maybe he’d be glad to have a brother.
The thought felt stupid even as he had it, but he held onto it anyway.
On a Saturday in late summer, when the air smelled of dust and braai smoke drifting over Bellville, Ruan waited until Ma left for her shift. He put on his least-worn jeans and the one collared shirt he owned. Then he took the R50 he had saved and the scrap of paper with the address.
Today I’ll know.
The first bus was the usual one; packed with women carrying plastic shopping bags, a guy with a boombox playing too loud, and a few kids hanging out the windows. One boy’s mother managed to pull him back just in time, before he would have fallen out onto the road below.
Ruan stood near the back, clutching the overhead bar as the bus lurched through the northern suburbs toward the city.
What if he’s not home? What if he laughs at me? What if he’s exactly like I imagine: nice, funny, glad to see me?
The possibilities spun in his head until he felt dizzy.
At the Grand Parade terminus, he changed to the southern suburbs bus. The people looked much the same as the ones on the bus he just left; rich people didn’t use public transport. No one looked at him twice; he was tall, so he could pass for older.
The bus climbed slowly into the southern suburbs. Flats gave way to trees, then to high walls and electric gates. The air through the open window smelled different: green, expensive.
He lives here every day. This is normal for him.
The thought made Ruan’s stomach twist with something between envy and wonder.
When the driver called “Constantia Village,” Ruan pressed the bell and got off.
His legs felt wobbly as he walked the last kilometre. The street names were unfamiliar; names like Silverhurst and Hohenort. Houses hid behind hedges taller than he was. He checked the scrap of paper again, heart hammering so loud he was sure people in the big houses could hear it.
There it was.
The gate was black wrought iron, tall and pointed at the top like spears. Behind it, a long driveway curved up toward a house he could barely see; white walls, huge windows, a garden that looked like something from a magazine. A silver Mercedes gleamed in the shade of a massive oak.
Ruan stood there a long time, fingers curled around the bars.
He rehearsed the words again.
Hi. I think… I think we’re brothers. My ma is Lienkie Louw. I just wanted to meet you.
Simple. Brave.
Please don’t hate me. Please don’t laugh.
He pressed the intercom button.
A pause. Static. Then a woman’s voice, crisp and cold as winter grass.
“Yes?”
He swallowed. “Um… is Daxton home? Please?”
Another pause, longer.
“Who is this?”
“My name is Ruan. I… I need to speak to him.”
The gate camera whirred, turning toward him. He lifted his chin, tried to look older, braver.
The gate didn’t open. Instead, a side pedestrian gate clicked, and a woman stepped out.
She was tall, her hair pulled back tight, wearing a dress that looked expensive.
Her eyes were green and sharp, like cut glass. She looked at him the way people looked at dirt on their shoes.
“You’re Lienkie’s boy,” she said. Not a question.
Ruan nodded, throat dry.
She knows. She knows who I am.
The woman’s lips thinned. “Go home.”
“I just want to — ”
“You will turn around and leave. Right now.” Her voice was quiet, but it carried like a slap. “You are not welcome here. You will never be welcome here. If you ever come back, if you ever try to contact my son again, I will call the police. I will make sure your mother loses her job, her flat, everything. Do you understand?”
Ruan stared. The words hit harder than any hiding he’d ever gotten.
She’s lying. She has to be lying. She can’t do that.
But the look in her eyes said she could. And would.
She hates me. She hates that I exist.
His eyes burned, but he blinked hard. He would not cry in front of her.
“I just wanted to meet him,” he whispered. The words came out smaller than he intended.
“You don’t have a brother,” she said. “Go.”
She turned and walked back through the gate without looking back. It clanged shut behind her.
Ruan stood frozen. The sun beat down on his neck. Somewhere inside the property, a dog barked once, then stopped.
You don’t have a brother.
The sentence echoed in his head, over and over, until it felt true.
I was stupid. So stupid. Of course, he doesn’t want me. Of course they don’t.
Everything he’d imagined, someone who looked like him, who might understand him, who might choose him, crumbled like dry sand.
He backed away slowly, then turned and ran.
He didn’t stop until he reached the corner, lungs burning, tears finally spilling now that no one could see. He ducked behind a jacaranda tree, pressing his back to the rough bark, fists clenched so tight his nails cut half-moons into his palms.
I hate her. I hate this place. I hate him for living here and never knowing.
But underneath the hate was something worse: shame. Shame that he’d hoped. Shame that he’d come all this way for nothing.
A low engine growl made him peek around the trunk.
A black BMW convertible turned into the driveway. Two boys in the front, school uniforms, ties loose, laughing about something. The driver had tousled light brown hair that fell over his forehead. Even from this distance, Ruan could see the eyes: big, blue, just like the photo.
Daxton.
Next to him, a darker boy, a friend probably, was saying something that made Dax throw his head back and laugh.
The car stopped at the gate. It swung open automatically. They drove through, music thumping faintly, oblivious.
The gate closed again.
Ruan watched until the car disappeared up the driveway.
He’s happy. He doesn’t need me. He never will.
Something inside him folded up small and quiet, like a fist closing.
He wiped his face roughly with his sleeve, turned, and started the long walk back to the bus stop.
He didn’t look back.
On the crowded bus home, squeezed between strangers, he stared out the window at the city sliding past. The mountain, the flats, the glittering sea far away.
I don’t have a brother.
He repeated it like a promise.
I don’t need one.
I’m fine alone.
But the lie tasted like dust all the way to Bellville.
