Chapter 1 - One Mutual Friend

CHAPTER 1: ONE MUTUAL FRIEND

Maseru. June.

"4 years today. Robala ka khotso, Papa."

Palesa typed it, deleted it, typed it again. The first version had been a whole paragraph — the smell of pipe tobacco and Vicks, engine grease on his hands, the way he could fix anything except being home. Too much. The second was just a candle emoji. Too little. The third she posted before she could think, then turned the phone face-down on the duvet like it might say something back.

Winter pressed at the window. Through the wall, Mme's radio murmured to itself. Four years. Long enough that the smell of Vicks in aisle three no longer undid her. Short enough that every June, her thumb still found the first three digits of his number.

Morning came anyway, the way mornings do. The pharmacy opened at eight; grief doesn't get a sick note. She was three prescriptions deep when a customer leaned over her counter, waving his phone like a court summons.

"It says here amoxicillin, mme. For flu."

"Ntate, flu is a virus. Antibiotics won't—"

"It. Says. Here..."

Loud voices, proud ignorance and one small scene later, she lost gracefully. At lunch, she won on Facebook, with her first post of the day:

"If you've already diagnosed yourself, ntate, what exactly is my role in this relationship? Moral support?"

Forty-three laughing reactions by closing time. She pocketed the phone and forgot about it.

The message came in at 21:06.

KHOTSO MAKARA: Facebook says we have one mutual friend. I don't trust this app — it once suggested my dentist. But I read your post, and you should know I spend my days underground telling grown men to wear the equipment that keeps them alive. They also argue. We are colleagues in a war we cannot win. 😂😂

No "hey beautiful." No "you look like wife material." Not even a hello.

Palesa sat up.

She did what any sensible daughter of this internet does: she left him on delivered and acted unbothered. She was extremely bothered. The good kind.

Then, the background check.

Profile photos going back actual years — men with only three photos are married. Hands fixing a geyser. One picture at a shaft entrance, hard hat under his arm, a Sesotho caption that didn't try too hard. Comments from aunties, answered. Every single auntie, answered.

No gym mirrors. No Bible verse posted at 9am above a club photo from 2am.

"1 mutual friend," said Facebook.

Her thumb hovered over it — and the phone rang. Mme, about Sunday lunch, about whether to fetch atchar from Sis Lerato or make her own — which was not a real question. Mme's atchar was famous. A man in Ha Thetsane had once tasted it at a funeral and gone home to say things to his wife he could not take back.

By the time the call ended, the thought was gone.

She opened his message again and typed:

"Colleagues? No. You only qualify once a customer has bitten you. Yes. Bitten."

The typing bubble appeared before she'd even put the phone down.

He'd been waiting...