I needed from him in order to be happy. I spent three years on the arm of this man, grooming him, helping him get ahead, loving and supporting him with everything in my being, and then he had the gall to say that I wanted too much from him.” Masedi was getting all worked up now. “Why would I give anyone else a chance?”
“You’re just scared,” Kagiso stated.
Masedi scoffed and took a gulp of her margarita.
“Of course you’re scared. But you have to give life a chance and enjoy the gifts that love has to offer,” her friend insisted. “After all, everyone has a right to change their minds. That’s what Brian did. But you can’t live in fear.”
Masedi listened, knowing that Kagiso was right, but still she felt the trembling terror that fills your bones before you decide to take a leap of faith.
“Anyway . . . We don’t know if he’ll call.”
“I guess we don’t. But what if he does?”
“I’ll go on a date and see if there really is anything.”
Kagiso beamed. “I have to tell Tsholo,” she said, picking up her phone.
“You’re such a gossip.”
Kagiso winked. “Caring is sharing, darling.”
Masedi watched the relishing delight flow over her friend’s face as she told Tsholo all about the encounter, and that she and Pelo had practically had sex on the dance floor the previous night. She couldn’t help but laugh.
* * *
Pelo looked over the tidy little work space in the back as the boys packed up.
“Abut’ Pelo, can I take this bracelet for my mom?” Zakes asked. “She hasn’t been feeling well recently, and I think it may cheer her up.”
“Are you sure it’s for your mother, or is it for that girl that you have been making goo-goo eyes at?” Drums teased.
“You’re a fool,” Zakes responded, getting peeved.
The other boys chuckled at him.
“Zakes, I don’t mind if you take it for your mother. You should be proud of the progress you’re making,” Pelo said. “But as for girls, you guys really should focus on getting yourself out of your situations first.”
“A guy can mos look, bra Pelo?” Drums commented.
“Yes, well, at the end of the day it’s your life and your choices. And if you make the wrong choices, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself,” Pelo told them all seriously.
“Couldn’t you get someone in to help us with this craft?” Drums asked. “I mean, we can sukkel through it and eventually become good. But maybe if there was someone else to help, it’ll be a bit easier?”
“I think I may just know the right person.” Pelo beamed as he thought of the beautiful Masedi. “Come now, it’s time I went home and enjoyed my Saturday,” he said, showing the guys out of the shop.
* * *
Masedi had got up early that Sunday and driven to her parents’ homestead on the hills of the Magalies. As it was at most a 45-minute drive to her parents’ house, she was prone to just dropping everything and going to see them. Especially after her encounter yesterday. She had just felt the need to go and see her mother. Actually, she was hoping her mom could tell her what to do, look into the future and see how all this would turn out.
“I’ve been expecting you,” MmaMotsumi said, pulling her daughter into a hug.
“Of course you have,” Masedi replied, amused. “Lo tsogile?”
“Ah, we’re well, my girl. But you are troubled. Come.”
They entered the huge kitchen, where her mother had tea brewing.
“Papa o kae?”
“He went to the farm. He’ll be back sometime tomorrow. Which means you’ll miss him, because I can see you just came for the day; no bags, no nothing. Pour us some tea.”
MmaMotsumi sat down in the breakfast nook and watched her daughter potter around the kitchen. Masedi looked up and smiled happily, glad to be performing this little daughterly ritual and to get back a semblance of normality after the past two days.
“What is normal anyway, my girl?” MmaMotsumi asked.
Startled but resigned about her mom reading her mind, Masedi answered, “Well, I don’t know. Getting up, going to work, seeing my friends, making my jewellery . . .”
Masedi placed her mother’s cup of tea in front of her and took a seat opposite her so they could look at each other.
“Heartbreak, darkness, loneliness?” her mom asked, looking deep into her soul.
Masedi had no response to that as she sat drinking her tea. Her mother hiccupped, burped and then made a deep humming noise in her throat. Masedi knew those were the signs of the spirit moving through her.
“To answer your question – it’s up to you, my girl. Whether he’s right for you or not, whether he’s the one or not, whether this is real love or not, it’s all up to you. That’s what people have forgotten, that you create what you most want or fear.”
“Eish, Mama . . .” Masedi felt tears well up and tried to swallow them as fear of being hurt filled her. She didn’t know whether she could go through that pain again.
“All the ingredients are there – the attraction, the emotional, spiritual and physical compatibility,” MmaMotsumi said. “But you have to choose to make it right for you.”
Masedi nodded, not sure if this was what she wanted to hear, or whether she had hoped her mother would warn her off.
“Show me your feet,” her mom said.
Masedi slipped off her flops and placed her feet in her mother’s lap. MmaMotsumi started to massage them, feeling for knots.
“You see these?” she asked while rubbing her fingers across the calluses on the bottom of Masedi’s feet. “This is all the anger and hurt that you carry. It’s the heartbreak that you harbour and use as a shield not to let love into your heart. These are the scars of your heartbreak. You have to let that boy go. He did his job, he fulfilled his role in your life, and then he left. He is no longer yours to keep and yearn after. Let him go, so that you can find true love.”
“I just don’t want to be stupid,” Masedi blurted out to her mother.
“There’s a song that says love makes fools of all of us,” MmaMotsumi answered.
Masedi looked off into the distance, thinking deeply. “But what about the lessons that we learn? Are we to discard them?”
“That’s just fear talking. No one has ever died of a broken heart, my girl. You didn’t die before, did you? And you won’t again – if it happens. But you will be richer for having allowed love into your life and
