Kaboentle.
"Do you want us to order white roses for the service ? And the people from catering want us to get back to them on the menu."
I tell Anele as I place my hands back on my clip board and she stops adjusting a vase of flowers in the middle of the room and she looks at me again.
"Aren't you supposed to be resting ?"
"I am but it's only my second day here and the funeral is the day after tomorrow and I just thought that you and mah could use a little help."
"What you need is to stay In bed, what happened to you Kabo was really scary."
"I know... I am just here to support you all."
I say and she looks at me and she folds her arms.
"You know that women... that woman was the most horrible person that ever lived in this planet, she was so vile, i am kind of relieved that she's gone, I feel like I can finally enjoy my marriage now."
"You and Mandla have been apart for almost two years now or more."
"Yeah we have but doesn't mean that I don't love him anymore... he and I have been through a lot and I've sacrificed a lot for me to give up on us like this, yes I left him but I still love him, and I want us to start to fix things again, that means letting him in again... you know."
She says as she pulls at her cardigan and I nod my head at her in understanding because what am I going to do besides to, understand.
So I understand.
"I think it's good that your considering this..."
"Yeah I think it's about time, plus we have still have children that we need to raise you know and maybe with his mother not being in our lives anymore our marriage might get better."
"But Anele..."
I pause as I get closer to get close to her again and I stare into her hazel eyes.
"As much as your determined to make things work with him again, don't forget the reasons you left him for in the first place."
"I know and in as much as he's done me bad, there's a lot of good that can come out of our marriage."
She says and I nod my head at her and I look away from her and I hold the Clip board to my chest.
I know the ties that Mandlas mother made to the success of our marriages but I just hope that we might start to find happiness from here on, I want to tell Anele to still continue to stay away, I could have told Khwezi that but these are all grown woman capable of making their own choices, sometimes I need to accept that I cant save everyone, myself included but my biggest fear is that things would go back to the way they used to be.
When we're done we leave the guest house that Anele has turned into her little office for the rest of the planning of the funeral and we head back out into the yard where the memorial service is about to begin.
All the children shuffle under the tent in support of their Gogo and Mkhulu and we all sit behind them beside our husband's even Khwezi who left her primie baby at the hospital just to be here, who sits besides Sanele and the rest of the Gumede royal members as we all fill the tent, I don't even know most of these people but I know that their all Gumedes, some are friends of the king and some friends of Mandlas mother. Some people seem genuinely hurt by her death but they don't know what exactly she's put this family through.
When I sit beside Siya he grabs at my hand and he places it at his laps and he looks ahead keeping a stoic face.
Some of us give speeches about how warm of a woman she was and how she didn't deserve to die the way she did and how tragic her death was but I told everybody that I won't say anything about that woman, I have nothing good to say and so did Stacy and Khwezi, somebody had to do it so Anele did they even roped Owethu into but that child of Amadlozi took the mic and just stood on stage and said nothing, she stared back at the crowd and confidently said nothing and in that moment I had never been prouder than anybody, she stood up for us all.
