I felt like everything was over for me because everything just happened so fast. In this one moment I had shot my brother for sleeping with my wife. And on the other hand I was unconscious. Then again, I woke up to find that I was a suspect in a crime and Anna was just the victim in all of this. I felt a wave of wind passing heavily in my ears and I told myself that this is the last time for me feeling this fresh air. Every tear that came out from my eyes had a reason, a perfect reasonable one. They prompted questions like what were my parents going to say to me? Where they going to find my explanation logical or were they going to abandon me? Would they still accept me as a member of the family still? So I cried again.

I decided to think positively. I remembered that I had worked hard my whole entire life for my family. I was the one who sweated for every fortune my family had and I was the one who faced more trials of difficulty for them. I was the one who had brought hope to my family. When my brother, who was the eldest, had failed his matric, I was my mother’s last hope. My brother ran after girls from a young age, so when he had to face up with adult life and tough decisions he had already lost his focus.

I had to get my family a better life. I had to bring the hope that was lost. So this encouraged me to work even harder, and by God’s grace I passed well and went to study at a tertiary institution. After a few years I found myself a job which was paying a better salary. I still had to work hard to feed my family and after a few years I bought my mother a beautiful house.

Now here I was. I was the one who had made the mistake, would my parents forgive me? I thought I had the answers for those questions because of the reasons that followed them, but I was wrong. Killing your own blood, isn’t something which you can easily forget or forgive and for someone like me, it gets deeper if you shared memories with that person.

I remembered the time when my brother and I were younger. We shared all the fun together, we shared bicycles and we also had a strong vision of the life we wanted to live. I now asked myself a question: “What must’ve gone wrong?”

That question caused me to cry, but like a man I cried inside. I decided then that I should focus on building my family’s life because they always came first to me, even if things went wrong. As time went by Sipho and I separated. He went back to live with the family because of the crimes he had done in the city so the police were after him.

Our mother, Susan, had told me that Sipho had stabbed an old man who was 50 years of age to death because he refused to pay Sipho’s money back to him. But it is also believed that that man didn’t owe him a cent, my brother was just robbing him. But my brother lied for the sake of the shame that would’ve fallen upon him for killing a weak, innocent soul that couldn’t even defend himself.

Sometimes I just convinced myself to believe that Sipho’s life must’ve been cursed because of the wrongs and pain he caused to people. He had changed and turned out to be a thug. After a year our mother sent me a text message telling me that Sipho had been arrested. She begged me to bail him out from jail and then again decide where he was going to stay. Because he was my brother, I had to make a decision fast and the decision was that Sipho was going to stay with us for only three years, just until his life was in order.

Anyway, our house was big enough for five people. I didn’t consult my wife about this decision because I knew she would totally disagree and fight me about it. When Sipho had been released from prison the first thing Anna and I heard was a knock on the door.
“Who is this?” Anna asked. I knew who it was, and the guilt was eating me inside but I decided to act dumb.

Anna almost moved out of the house, blaming me for bringing a criminal in our house but because she loved me, she stayed. Life was getting better for Sipho. I thought because I could see his behaviour was not the same, he now had manners and he knew that I only did him a favour. For two years there was no trouble from him, so I began to feel relieved and trusted leaving him with my wife. I did not call her anymore to ask her how she was doing because I felt like everything was alright and there would be no harm upon her. Or so I thought.

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Tell us what you think: Do you think criminals can be rehabilitated? Why or why not?