Women would stop Mamarato on the street and in malls for small talk and would find themselves gushing about how beautiful she was the moment she went her way. Though Mamarato seemed important and walked with grace, most people found her easy to approach. Others wished she were their aunt, or sister; any reason to see her often. At fifty-nine her appearance attracted men and women alike. And to those keen to take beauty tips from her, she happily repeated the same words: “I’ve never smoked, I don’t know the taste of alcohol and I’ve only been with one man in my life.”

The last part usually got ladies giggling silly. But her lastborn, Nono, was not impressed by her mother’s, “only been with one man” sentiment. She and her older sister Lerato were always working secretly to find their mother a good man, whatever that meant. They believed their mother was the most compassionate soul. They also thought she was too perfect, because since widowed at forty-nine they had never arrived home to find a strange man drinking tea in their lounge. And now Lerato was married, and Nono was working in a Durban law firm, and hardly visited Johannesburg, which meant their mother was often lonely.

“I’m not lonely,” Mamarato objected strongly. She was dining with her daughters, who had taken her out to a restaurant.

She lifted her shoulders and said, “ReHlapi is there during the day. It’s not that bad.”

She then dipped her eyes to the bowl of dessert in front of her.

As if Nono and Lerato didn’t know who ReHlapi was; they both looked hopelessly at each other. ReHlapi was their family gardener, and he was like a second father to Nono and Lerato. The daughters had come to suspect that either ReHlapi lacked people skills or long conversations bored him. He seemed happier talking to the flowers in their back garden than doing so with real people.

Their mother took a spoonful into her mouth and spoke carefully, “There are women who have lost their husbands and remain single, and nothing eats them.” She then chewed determinedly, avoiding their eyes.

Nono raised a ‘why do we even bother’ eyebrow at her sister Lerato, who from her end, twisted her lips in agreement.

Mamarato protected her children like a lioness, and because of that she couldn’t bring herself to be with another man since that would mean she might have to eventually bring this stranger home. ReHlapi, their gardener of many years was the only other man Nono and Lerato knew closely. But he shared a special bond with Nono. ReHlapi first came into their lives when Nono was just two, before her father was killed in a suspected hit, during the political violence of the ‘90s.

On two occasions ReHlapi travelled with Nono to his childhood home, a dry village in the North West province where his family liked her instantly. “She played with the other kids and did not even give them any problem.” The message the family asked ReHlapi to pass to Mamarato. Mamarato laughed at the time, looking at Nono’s skin, burned from the village sun.

However, allowing ReHlapi to take Nono with him, an act Mamarato saw as harmless, became town talk when news started doing arounds that she and ReHlapi were dating secretly. Some of her in-laws poured paraffin over the remarks by claiming that the affair started long before Lerato’s father died. As if those damaging allegations were not enough, soon after she heard that together with her gardener-lover, they had orchestrated her husband’s murder. This fuelled by ReHlapi’s shaded history.

Tell us: What do you think happened in ReHlapi’s past?