Finally, home! I looked blurrily at the time on my phone. It was 10:18am, and in the corner of the dim-lit screen, the latest message from Capitec Bank let me know I’d spent R 68 673.20. My heart palpitated as I swiftly entered the house, trembling.

Reality had caught up with my deceit. There stood my father in the kitchen, making green tea for himself and his wife, who sat in a shroud of anxiety on the sofa.

“The nerve of you to dare come back! You think because now you have money you can do as you please? In whose house, ye? Yewena, talk now before I bliksem your ungrateful behind!” my father fumed, holding me by the collar of my Bottega Venetta shirt, while I clumsily looked this way and that, enveloped in guilt.

“Papa, woah, woah! Don’t kill my only child, love, please, yoweh! My boy, you had us so worried, yoh, mara Thuso, thank the merciful God you’re safe. We even went to the police and opened a case, worried sick! I’m so glad you’re safe, baby.” 

“Explain yourself, boy. Seven days? And you just come back casually like we’d sent you to buy bread! Explain now, before I lose it!”

“Ahh, eish, I just lost time. I even went to a therapist, to consult on how to handle the pressure of being an overnight millionaire…”

The lie rubbed loosely against my tongue, and I resumed without flinching. “Ja, the therapist had suggested I spend some time alone, you see. Before I could spiral out of control. He warned me about past lottery winners, and so forth, who’d come to money for the first time and changed in ego. So, ja…I was just staying at a guest house, thinking and strategizing…”

“For example. I want to give you money to pay off all your debts. I’ve seen you guys stressed, and it’s never been a good sight to see. I will pay it off, all of it. And then I’ll take you out to Mauritius for a weekend vacation. I mean, you deserve it. All the hard work and toil of bringing me up properly…I know it’s been a while since you’ve let loose and got your groove back. And me? Don’t worry much. I’ll go back to school and try my hand at being a writer. I’ve always had a thing for the written word. And I’ll buy a house. You’ve always told me how much of an investment it is…”

They were staggered, like boxers who’d eaten a clean left hook while trying to sneak in the knockout punch, glancing at each other, looking for a decisive comeback to what they’d just heard.

“Wow! Dave, you see, you see. I told you our boy hadn’t changed. Still sweet and caring. Ncaaw, come here, my baby boy.” 

The gesture of being serenaded with warm hugs and kisses didn’t much move my brooding father, whose smile buried something grim. A further misstep and the pot would boil over…

“OK, son. I guess we’ll take your word for it. And who was the esteemed therapist who suggested you take a week off, if I may ask?” he asked, in an attempt to catch me off guard.

I looked around the kitchen and, with the aid of the household cleaning agent, I replied, “Dr. Handy Mendy,” to my father’s skepticism.

Tell us: Why do you think Thuso is lying to his parents like this?