A few days passed after that event, then Grandma Sefakoana died. Seithati was very sad. After the night of the hiding, she had stopped greeting her grandmother in the morning and after school she would go straight to her room without even eating.

Seithati’s mother, Ausi Dikeledi, attended Grandma Sefakoana’s funeral. After the funeral, Ausi Dikeledi asked to talk to Seithati in private, but Seithati kept avoiding her, making sure to always be around other people so that she wouldn’t find herself in the same room as her mother. However, because funeral guests do not stay forever, days after the funeral, Dikeledi sat Seithati down.

“Seithati, I know that we are not well acquainted, and I know that I have wronged you big time. However, just look at you, baby, my parents raised you and took care of you. Look how beautiful you are and how strong you look,” said Dikeledi.

“So, what does that mean?” Seithati answered without looking her in the eye.

“Hey, that means you have to be thankful that I didn’t just throw you in the trash, I left you under the warmth of people I know.”

“But…but that doesn’t mean I don’t need the warmth of my birth mother. Now I don’t even know who my father is. When my friends ask me about my parents, I get embarrassed…because of you,” Seithati said angrily, and cried.

“I am not denying that, my baby.”

“Your baby? How? Don’t call me your child when you did not even raise me.”

Dikeledi was very sad at this point, not knowing what to do. She couldn’t even hug Seithati.

“OK. God knows my heart…please forgive me, Seithati, for what I did, it was childish of me.”

During this conversation, Grandfather Tseko was sitting in the living room listening to the exchange. As a parent and father of a family, he felt guilty because, he thought, he could have followed and searched for his daughter Dikeledi after she left them with the child. Perhaps he and Grandmother Sefakoana should have looked for Dikeledi until they found her and brought her home to raise her child. Those thoughts depressed him, and he fell asleep. When Ausi Dikeledi came out of Seithati’s room, she saw her father sitting on the sofa asleep.

Little did she know that would be his last sleep.

She noticed later that night that the old man was not moving or snoring as usual. And just like that, he was gone. The family was truly devastated. Dikeledi decided not to return to where she had been all these years. As the only child, her parents’ inheritance was all hers, including the house, and there was no way she was going to leave Seithati alone.

The two of them had to get used to living together. Seithati’s behaviour did not change at all. That year of loss passed, and by the end of the year, Dikeledi had found a boyfriend, a minister of a salvation church, Brother Kutlwano.

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