Luthando

“I miss you every day. Those girls of yours are going out of their way to drive me crazy”, I tell him. 

“You are doing well though, baby. As their mother. You are doing great. You are holding down the fort for the both of us and I’m proud of you. Sydney tells me that you stepped up and you stepped in very well when they started mixing themselves up with the wrong crowd.” 

“They are my kids. I want what is best for them. But they do miss you – especially Buhle. She is just so – 

“I’m really sorry that it came to this, baby. I really am.” 

I nod my head. 

We are lying together, cuddled into each other, on his prison single bed. It is the direct opposite of what we are used to, but the most important thing is present – our love for each other. 

I went shopping for some lingerie and I’m glad I did. I suppose for someone who hasn’t had sex in a while, me coming here was quite a treat. 

“Babe, how long are you going to be in isolation?” I ask him. 

“I killed someone, babe. I don’t know. I have years added onto my sentence already. Luthando, I’m never coming out of here and I need you to move on with your life – without me.” 

What?!

I jump up from the bed and look at him. I don’t think I heard him correctly. 

“What did you just say to me?” 

“You have to move on with your life, Luthando. I’m never coming out. I don’t want you to keep coming here and having sex with me in a prison cell. Luthando, you are a queen. You don’t deserve any of this. You don’t deserve a husband like me. You deserve nothing but a happily ever after. I cannot give you that. Not anymore, baby.” 

“George, have you lost your mind? You want to divorce me three kids and twelve years of marriage and eighteen years of a relationship later? What am I supposed to move on to? What? Ungazong’hlanyela wena!” I’m yelling now. 

He sits up on the bed and hangs his head in his hands. He cannot even look at me. Im not losing my husband. I meant it when I said “till death do us part”. That is the only way that I am prepared to lose him. Prison will not keep up apart. 

“It’s not happening, George. I’m not done with you! Im not done with our marriage! Im not done with our family! Prison will not keep us apart. I said I’d be with you until death did us apart and that is the only way that I am prepared to lose you. How dare you even tell me that I need to move on. Move on to what? Are you smoking socks? It must be you being in here for too long.” 

He is still not looking at me. I start sobbing now. 

“George, what am I supposed to do without you?” 

“You are already living without me, Luthando. You have had to find a way to make it work. I just want you to know that if you meet someone, it’s okay. You have needs that I can no longer satisfy. Days like these are not going to happen everyday. At some point, they’ll stop happening all together. Baby, I love you. I love you so much that I cannot let you live the way I know you’ll be living if I don’t let you go. Lutha – 

“Angifuni! Angifuni, George! I’m your wife! That means something to me.” 

“It means everything to me.” 

“Then fight for us! What the fuck is wrong with you? Amadoda lana are threatening their girlfriends to not move on and wait for them. Wena you want your wife to move on from you? Don’t you love me anymore, George?” 

“Baby, I love you with everything that exists inside of me. That’s why I have to make sure that I do not deprive you of a life just because mine is over. I want you to be happy, Luthando. You romanticising the situation that we are in is not helping the situation at all. I hate that I just fucked you in a jail cell. I hate that I don’t know when else I’ll have an opportunity to make proper and genuine love to you outside of such a hostile place. Luthando, I’m not coming back. And for me to survive after I leave solitary confinement, I need to be an animal. I cannot be that while I know that you are waiting for me to come home to you and our kids. I want you to stop giving me something to look forward to coming home too. Allow me to accept that this is my final destination. Then I can be what I need to be to survive. I almost died when they told me that they are adding ten years to my sentence because the only person I thought about was you. I know what ten more years without me means for you. I cannot keep living like this, baby. You need to let me go. Or else I’m going to die in the next few months in here.” 

…

George

It is her cry that hurts me the most. It pierces my soul. This is why I did not want Luthando here. She makes me weak in here. I love my wife dearly and feeling like shit while seeing her this way is exactly what keeps me weak. 

Sindi is different in that she knows that I owe her nothing. I don’t give her any emotional dependence to rely on and she knows her place. Luthando does not have a place. She is my wife. She runs this place. She runs my heart. That’s why I need her to let me go. She needs to let me go so that I can survive again. 

I wrap my arms around her and let her cry in my arms. 

I met this woman when she was eighteen years old. Her family lived in Daveyton and her parents were professionals. Her mother was a primary school teacher and her father was a high school principal. Their house was small, but big enough for her parents and the two daughters that they had: Luthando and Loluhle. Loluhle was the social butterfly. She greeted everyone and was one with the people. She never let the status of her family determine who she would treat as human and who she would regard as trash. Luthando was different. She was quiet. At first, we all thought that she was stuck up. But really, she was just a girl who kept to herself and did what she had to do to see the end of each day. She would go to school and come home, do her homework, do her chores and go to sleep. I was probably the most exciting thing that ever happened to her. I was the only uneducated criminal in Daveyton who had the balls to approach her and take my shot at making her smile. Her smile has been my weakness ever since. 

I look at her now. Things fell apart and she gladly accepted a job that would put food on the table. That’s Luthando. She is not afraid of hard work. I know that when I say don’t leave me to her, she won’t. She will work hard and set up a nice retirement plan for me for when I get out of here. Lutha is the type of woman who will fetch me from here and lead me to everything that would show me once again, that had I not married Luthando, I would have never got married. 

I want to protect her from things that I have no problem exposing Sindi to. Sindi just wants money, nothing more. Luthando wants the priceless things that keep her happily ever after together – things like love, trust, loyalty, belief and passion. Finding out about Siyabonga would end her. As tempted as I am to tell her about my other child just so that she can be angry enough at me to truly move on without me, I cannot do that to her. Something like that would break her. 

“Ma’am, you have to go now.” Magwaza’s girlfriend says as she knocks on my door. 

Luthando dresses up while still sobbing. My wife is so hot. She wears that lingerie so well. Once she is dressed up, I stand up and hug her. I’m still in my underwear. We hold onto each other. I know that this is goodbye. She believes that there will still be more of this.

“I love you.” I tell her.

“I’m not letting you go. I’ll be here again next week. I’ll ask Sydney to make a plan for us to meet again in here.” She says.

“What if I’m out of solitary?” 

“We will make a plan. We are not done. If this is the rest of your life, then this is the rest of my life too.” She says. 

She knocks on the door for Magwaza’s girlfriend to open the door for her. She walks out as soon as the door opens. 

Now, I am the one left here by myself, crying myself to sleep. 

I wake up on time for breakfast the morning after my night of passion with my wife. I haven’t spoken to Sindi in quite a while because, well, I’ve had nothing to say to her for the past few weeks. She will know when I am ready to talk to her again. I’ve seen her text messages and all, but she must stop behaving like a jealous girlfriend. She’s an appetite pleaser and the mother of my son. 

What I do after breakfast and cell inspection though, is force the hand of fate so that my wife can move on. 

I dial Sydney’s number. He still hates me because he thinks that I ghosted my wife.

“What do you want?” That’s how he answers my phone. 

“I want Luthando to move on from me. She loves me and I love her. But she deserves better than this situation.” I say. 

He is silent for a while. 

“Is this because of Sindi?” He asks after a pause. 

“No. It’s because I love her. I hate doing this to her. I’m not getting out of here. But I still need her to live. To be happy. She deserves a second chance.” 

“So what do you want me to do?” 

“I want you to set her up with someone. But, he has to be a decent man who makes an honest living – an honest rich living. It has to be someone who will remind her everyday how beautiful and special she is. It has to be someone who will love my kids. It has to be someone who will rub her feet at the end of everyday and at some point, give her the life that I gave her.” 

“Would you like to buy her books and shit? Because I don’t know where I’m going to find that man. I’m not in the business of pimping people out.” He says. 

“Please Ramagoshi. Please.” 

…

Luthando

I don’t even feel like going to work today. I have a bad headache. I am in the kitchen drinking green tea. My girls have been upset since their break-ups with their men. I drove them to school with one of the cars that George had delivered for me. Now, I need to get ready for work and just think about something else outside of my husband trying to dump me with the whole “it’s me, not you”, tactic.

Ndazo and Lolu have gone to the mall with my mother. They used my smaller car. Mama is loving it. My uncle and his family that lives outside believe that I am on the come up again so now they have started asking me to start township businesses for them. I just want to lock myself up in my room and do nothing today. 

***knock on the door***

“Come in”, I say. 

Sydney walks into the kitchen.

I stand up immediately and look at him. Why is he here? And he has flowers with him. 

“Hi”. I greet him. 

“Hey. Are you alright? I spoke to George and he told me what happenedbetween you guys yesterday. I thought I’d come check on you and deliver these. They are from him.” He says. 

A tear suddenly runs down my cheek. 

He walks up to me and hugs me. Isn’t this man married? This hug mahn, it has something in it. It’s not a comforting hug. It’s the hug someone gives you just before they start undressing you. 

I pull away from the hug. I wipe my tears from my face. 

“Would you like some coffee?” I ask him. 

“Actually, I thought that maybe we could go out and have some lunch. You need the break. I’ve organised with my driver to pick up your kids from school. So we will need to use your car to get to where I’d like us to have the lunch.” He says. 

“You don’t have to do that.” I say. 

“I know. I just want to. Please let me.” He says. 

I smile at him.

“I’ll wait down here for you while you change.” He says. 

Oh ja, I’m wearing quite the short dress. 

I take a quick shower then dress up into blue denim jeans that are torn at the knee, a yellow v-neck t-shirt with a lining that runs just above my boob and some cool white sneakers. I chose a deep curl 32inch wig to wear and grab a handbag to leave. He looks at me and I know that I am amazing. 

I text Buhle that I am working through lunch today so my boss has organised his driver to pick them up from school. She must make sure that they are ready in time. 

“The Maybach?” Buhle texts back with a heart emoji.

“Just be ready on time.” I text her back. 

“I’ll make sure even my photographer is ready so they can take a video of me parading to the Maybach.” She texts me back. 

I don’t reply to this. 

Sydney is driving us to an unknown destination to me. 

“How’s Mrs Ramagoshi?” I ask him. Yes, that topic is not off the table. 

“Stha is in Portugal right now. She has some project that she is working on. She will be there for six months.” He says. 

“Princess must be really happy about that. She has you all to herself.” I say. Just reminding him that I have not forgot about her long-term mistress as well.

“Princess is not the needy type. She has options. I am one of many.” He says. 

I am slightly taken aback by how chilled he is about his girlfriend having options as he puts it. He sees it. 

“How are you holding up?” He asks me. 

I shrug my shoulders. 

“I’m not giving up on him.” I say. 

“I think he wants you too.” He says. 

“I think he thinks that’s what he wants. But no one wants to be given up on. No one.” 

“He’s never coming out, Lu.” 

“I know. And he’s going to stop being my husband.”

He is silent. 

We arrive at some setting in a garden. This looks very romantic. There is lush green grass with rose petals sprinkled around the table set up for two people to be eating. I look at him.

What is this? 

“Shall we?” Him. 

We walk to the table and as he opens the chair for me to sit, someone else occupies the chair opposite me. 

I’m so confused. 

“And then?” Sydney asks this woman. 

“I believe she and I have a lot to talk about.” The woman says.

“Do you mind? We are about to have a meal together?” Sydney. 

“I do mind, actually. I’m not going anywhere until Luthando and I have spoken. I am tired of being treated like I don’t matter in these conversations.” The woman. 

“Sydney, it’s okay. Let me hear her out.” I say. 

“She’s irrelevant. You don’t have to –

“It’s okay. I’m sure we won’t be long.”

Sydney walks away, giving this woman and I a minute for us to talk.

“I’m Sindiswa”, the lady says to me. 

I look at her. 

“I am here to give you this.” She hands me an envelope. I open the envelope and pull the papers out – the divorce papers. 

I don’t understand.