Chapter 7 - The Mirror

CHAPTER 7: THE MIRROR

She ranked him number one. It should have felt like love. It felt like looking in a mirror.

THE WRONG ONE: HIS SIDE — Part 5 of 5: THE MIRROR

Three months of married life and the house was everything he'd planned. Furnished. Painted. The kitchen cupboards organised alphabetically — Lindiwe's doing, her neat handwriting on small labels, everything in its place. His clothes pressed. Her shoes by the door in a row. The bed made every morning with hospital corners because that's how her mother taught her.

It worked. The house worked. The marriage worked. Sunday lunches happened. His father called and sounded satisfied — "You did well, ndodana. She's a good woman." And she was. Good and correct and present and everything the framework promised.

The word that kept surfacing wasn't happy. It was correct.

Sometimes at night he reached for her and she responded. Her body knew the steps. So did his. They moved together the way they did everything — competently, considerately, without surprise. Afterwards she'd kiss his shoulder and turn to her side and he'd stare at the ceiling fan turning slow circles in the dark and wonder if this was what marriage was. If the feeling came later, or if it was already here and he just couldn't recognise it.

He didn't think about Esther. Not often. Only when amapiano came on the radio. Only when he drove past the salon. Only when he lay in the dark and remembered someone laughing during sex — not performing, just laughing because something felt good and she couldn't hold it in.

He didn't think about her often. Just every day.