Chapter 31 - Chapter 30

Half an hour of highway between Parkhurst and Orlando West, Sphe beside me and Mahlathini filling the whole back seat, and somewhere in the middle of it the thought rears up before I can whip it back. She made it seem like there was nothing serious between them. Are they more committed than she let on?

My imagination floods with pictures of the blond politician leaving our bedroom in nothing but pyjama bottoms, strolling down the stairs and making himself a cup of coffee in my kitchen with my kids after a night of fucking my wife.

She's not yours.

For one night she was. Yoh. I haven't talked to anybody the way we talked in Durban since Anti Nyoni and Themba died. Or ever. Maybe the therapy made it easier to get my stuff out when before it felt so damn hard. Holding Naledi like that, being inside her again, her heart going while she was pressed into me, breathing in vanilla and whatever it is underneath that is only her.

She was soft, her curves fitting like she was made for me. And me alone.

We've both stuck to our bargain. It's as if that night never happened. If anything, things are better between us since we cleared the air.

I just have to keep pretending I don't think about that night all the time, that my body isn't begging for another one, and another one.

"It's a good tree?" I ask.

"It's huge," Sphe gushes.

Of course it is.

"His father owns the nursery. The one that does the Christmas trees on the square. He asked Ma if we still needed one and brought it over."

My steering wheel won't survive any more talk about the wannabe councillor.