“Listen, I don’t want you to regret anything,” she said softly to him. “I was at first reluctant to do this but I am glad that it happened.”

Noko gazed hard in her eyes and the light that he used to see there in her eyes was present. Mixed with little sadness but there was also pleasure and happiness there, that even as wrong as it looked what they did, it didn’t at all feel wrong. He had always felt like hitting something or hitting Nare himself every time he saw him mistreating Boledi, which is why he rarely came home.

It also annoyed him seeing them together, especially how Boledi acted when she was around Nare and how he treated her when she complained. He always walked away instead of defending her because she had made her bed.

Nare didn’t came home for the next couple of days that he was expected. Days turned into weeks that his family started panicking at home and contacted Noko.

“What do you mean he never came home?” he asked his father on the phone, “He is probably touring about, he will come back.”

“I am telling you Noko, your brother has always come home when he is supposed to, he goes town every three months or so and he had never stayed more than a couple of days,” his father expressed in a worried voice. If my brother wasn’t always kept on a short leash at all times, at the age of thirty-four like a little boy, he wouldn’t feel the need to disappear at all, Noko thought to himself.

“You need to help us find him, Noko!”

Noko shook himself then nodded and said, “Alright father, I will look for him and let you know when I find him.”

He didn’t know where to start but the farm market in Polokwane was the first stop. The search took much longer than anyone could have anticipated; Nare had disappeared without a trace. There was no sign of him in Polokwane, even the people he knew hadn’t seen him

A couple of months later Noko was on social media when a friend told him that he saw someone who looked like Nare. He had reported him missing and posted his pictures.

“What, where?” Noko asked relieved. He hadn’t gone home to comfort them because after being intimate with Boledi, he struggled getting her out of his mind. He was informed a month after their coupling that she was pregnant. The news made him angry. He didn’t want to know that cuckolding his brother worked to the family’s benefit.

By tradition, he was the heir. The youngest son took over the family home and was required to look after the family’s wealth. But Noko had never shown any interest in farming nor staying in the village. Someone had to keep the family legacy going but he didn’t feel compelled.

However, since Nare disappeared he had been anxious and strongly bound by roots. He had this deep need to go home and help his father because he was no longer a young man to do things alone, but it seemed that even his father had changed a bit.

“Boledi had asked to help with the books and do purchases of farm equipment and stock needed. Perhaps, as worrying as Nare’s disappearance is, it is also necessary for us to stretch ourselves. We need to stand together and work by modern rules not the old ones, although change isn’t comfortable for everyone,” he said.

Tell us: What do you think happened to Nare?