Ndalwenhle
I'm sitting in my hospital bed when she walks into the room. I know her—but for now, I have to pretend I don't. She really is my brother's type.
"Hi," she says.
"Hey. It's good that you already arrived. Thanks for coming," I answer.
"I couldn't resist," she replies, settling into the chair beside my bed. "After all, you've been making appointments for weeks. I thought today, let me hear you out."
"Thanks for giving me a chance to speak."
"Before we start," she adds, "I'm Nomonde Ngubane."
I smile politely. "I'm Ndalwenhle Star Khumalo."
"I assume your clan name is Mntungwa?"
"It is," I nod.
"So, how much time do we have?" she asks.
"About two hours today."
"Alright. I'll clear my schedule for the next few days. I want to hear everything," she says with a small smile.
"Can I start?" I ask.
"Just a minute." She reaches into her backpack, pulling out a recorder and setting it on the bedside table. The red light blinks to life. "Whenever you're ready."
I take a shaky breath. "It all started before I was even born. My mother was nineteen then. Her father had just died the man who provided for the family. Everything fell apart after that. Around the same time, she met a new boy in the area. He called himself Nhlalo. No surname. Nobody knew much about him."
Nomonde tilts her head. "Mysterious type?"
"Exactly. Charming too. But then tragedy struck. My grandfather's closest friend, Mr. Zungu, was poisoned in his car. My grandfather was the last person seen with him, so the police took him in as the main suspect."
Nomonde frowns. "Did they charge him?"
"No. He told them they'd shared pap and wors by the rank around two, then went their separate ways. His phone pinged at home at 2:45, and my grandmother swore he was there. They had to let him go."
"So why did suspicion stick?" she presses.
"Because whispers don't need proof. At the funeral, people said my grandfather killed his friend out of greed. Even Zungu's wife believed it. He was just a painter he had nothing to gain but gossip made him guilty."
Nomonde scribbles something in her notebook. "And your family?"
"My mother and her sister were mocked at school. Called murderer's children. That broke him. He decided to clear his name. He started investigating himself."
Her pen stills. "What did he find?"
"That the food was poisoned. The woman who sold it disappeared the very next day. Suspicious, right? He reported it to the police, but one officer was corrupt. Instead of protecting him, he warned the Zungu brothers the same men my grandfather suspected. They had been fighting over inheritance. They already saw their brother as an enemy."
Nomonde leans closer, her recorder blinking red. "So… what happened to your grandfather?"
"They killed him," I say flatly. "Two bullets in his chest. In his own home."
The silence in the room is heavy. Even the machines seem louder.
"That's… brutal," she whispers.
I nod. "After that, the rumours got worse. People said he was gunned down by loan sharks. A lie. But then they found the missing woman. She confessed that my grandfather forced her to poison Mr. Zungu. And a recording surfaced ...an argument between the two men, twisted to sound like proof. They even claimed to find poison in his house. It was planted, but my grandmother couldn't prove it. She was just a poor widow. Nobody listened."
Nomonde exhales slowly, shaking her head. "So the case was closed. He died branded as a murderer."
"Yes. And life… pretended to move on. But the wound never healed. Because one day, a broken son came back to town. And he wasn't looking for peace. He came for revenge."