“Nandi! Nandi!” I go straight to her room.

“Hey kwedini! You don’t barge into my house and do as you wish,” Mr Maxeke lashes out.

“Where did you take her?” I shove him.

“I’m about to throw her into the bin!” He pushes me back.

“You know, Mr Maxeke, I’ve always looked up to you and my father, but today you’ve let me down. You ruined Nandi’s life and now you sending her away? You are cruel, Mr Maxeke, just like your friend Jongile Diko! You’ve forced her into a marriage that drove her to depression and you look like you don’t care!”

“I can see that you care about her! Take her and get the hell out my house!” He pushes us out.

“We don’t even love each other, Mandla, where are you taking me?” asks Nandi.

“We will make this work together,” I assure her, holding her hand.

As we get to our house we realise that Doris has already called her traditional healer. The whole place smells of imphepho.

“You are not sick, you need to go fetch the spirit of your baby. You must also apologise to your ancestors by slaughtering a white billy goat. What you did was horrible,” the traditional healer says, staring at Nandi

“What is this man talking about?” I ask.

“I didn’t know what to do, Mandla. I was about to get married to you and Rajesh was in India to bury his Nana.” She starts sobbing.

“You’re not making any sense.” I look at her more closely.

“I had a baby girl named Emily. She was two weeks old and no one knew about her except Rajesh and me. I was told that I was getting married to you in a week and I didn’t know what to do. I wrapped her in a pink blanket and threw her in the river, hoping that her body would never be found,” she says, between sobs.

“You killed an innocent child, Nandipha? Does Rajesh know about this?”

“I told him that the baby died a natural death, that’s why I left Kimberley and came back to Alicedale,” she says, crying even more.

“I don’t believe you, Nandi! I can’t sleep here with you.” I walk out.

It’s two weeks later. We fetched the baby’s spirit and did everything we had to do. Nandi has refused to see a psychologist because she fears more secrets might be revealed. We’ve decided to give our marriage a chance and she is doing well now.

***

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