Chapter 17: The Call That Changed the Air
The Gqeberha sun had softened its grip. Early spring was arriving—timid but promising. Katlego sat at the community center's garden table, surrounded by voices of all ages scribbling stories, flipping pages, and laughing over shared metaphors. The air smelled of pencil shavings, wet earth, and possibility.
A teenage girl named Zintle was reading aloud a poem about her grandmother's sugarless tea when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it at first, not wanting to interrupt her cadence.
But then it buzzed again. Then a third time. He excused himself gently and stepped aside.
Thabo.
He picked up immediately. "Son?"
"Hey," came Thabo's voice, breathless and urgent. "Are you busy?"
"No. Are you okay?"
There was a pause. "Can you come to Johannesburg? Today if possible."
Katlego's chest tightened. "What's wrong?"
Another pause. "It's… Mama. She collapsed at work. They think it's her heart."
Zanele.
"I'm on my way," Katlego said without hesitation.
He took the next available flight. The airport buzzed with casual urgency, but inside him, time folded in strange ways. The same Johannesburg skyline that once felt like a prison now loomed like a storm cloud. When the plane touched down, he realized he hadn't returned since he'd left for good.
The past had summoned him.
Thabo was waiting outside the hospital. No words, just a tight hug that lasted longer than usual. Then: "She's in ICU. Stable, but sedated. The doctor says it was stress and exhaustion. She's been doing too much—volunteering, teaching full-time, helping her brother with his kids."
"She's always been like that," Katlego said softly. "Carrying everyone else before herself."
"I didn't know how much until now," Thabo said, eyes fixed ahead. "I've been so caught up in my stuff… film, varsity, our story. I forgot hers."
Katlego put a hand on his son's back. "You didn't forget. You just didn't see how deeply she was bleeding beneath her strength."
They went in together. Zanele lay in the sterile calm of ICU, hooked up to machines but peaceful. Her face, usually firm with purpose, looked delicate now—almost young.
"I used to think she'd live forever," Thabo whispered.
"We all do," Katlego replied. "Until they remind us they're human."
He stayed by her side through the night. Naledi, understanding as always, sent him a voice note instead of a text:
"Don't worry about here. Be there. Be present. That's what love looks like too."
He replayed it twice.
The next morning, Zanele woke with groggy eyes and a dry throat. When she saw both men beside her bed, she tried to smirk.
"Well, isn't this the strangest family reunion?" she rasped.
Katlego chuckled despite the lump in his throat. "You always needed drama to make us sit in the same room."
"Nearly dying was overkill, though," Thabo added with a gentle smile.
She closed her eyes, then opened them again. "You're both too stubborn for each other, you know that?"
They didn't argue.
They stayed the whole morning.
By evening, Zanele was stronger. She even made a joke about how the hospital food could make a person actually die. Katlego helped feed her soup and arranged a nurse to take over once he and Thabo stepped out.
Outside, under the hospital's fading lights, Thabo lit a cigarette and handed one silently to his father. Katlego declined.
"You never smoked," Thabo said.
"Too many fires in my chest already," he replied.
Thabo looked at him. "I want to make a new film. About her. About Black women who carry too much. About how we forget to ask them if they're tired."
Katlego nodded. "That's the one the world needs."
"She says you were her soft place once," Thabo said suddenly. "Before the anger. Before the distance."
Katlego blinked slowly. "She was mine, too. And I ruined it. But she never stopped showing up."
"Maybe that's her strength and weakness," Thabo murmured.
They sat quietly for a while, the city noise muted by grief and resolve.
"I'm proud of you, Thabo," Katlego said softly.
"I know," Thabo replied. "I'm getting there."
Over the next few days, Katlego helped manage Zanele's recovery plan. He cooked meals, organized volunteers from her church, and even fixed the broken curtain rod in her lounge.
He and Zanele talked late one night while sipping lukewarm rooibos.
"I never thought I'd see this version of you," she said, leaning back in her chair.
"Which version?"
"The one who shows up and doesn't run."
"I ran because I didn't know how to hold space for pain without letting it drown me."
She nodded slowly. "And now?"
"Now, I know how to breathe inside it."
She placed a hand over his. "Then I forgive you, Katlego. Not for me—I've done that already. But for you. You need to stop carrying your own corpse."
He swallowed hard. "Thank you."
When he finally returned to Gqeberha a week later, Naledi met him at the door with open arms and silent understanding.
"I left a version of myself behind," he said as he unpacked.
"You brought back something new," she replied.
That night, as they sat on the balcony listening to the ocean, he wrote a new line in his notebook:
Sometimes the story pulls you backward not to haunt you—but to heal what you left unfinished.