Fireside Letters

Chapter 21: Fireside Letters

The wind was beginning to shift in Gqeberha. The warmth of spring was giving way to summer's boldness. Katlego could feel it in the air, in the way the waves crashed louder against the rocks, as though the ocean, too, was clearing its throat.

It had been a week since he returned from Johannesburg. The city hadn't changed much, but he had. Something had realigned within him, a quiet assurance settling into his bones. He wasn't chasing healing anymore. He was living in it.

On a Thursday evening, Naledi suggested something different.

"We never burn things," she said. "We let memories stack up like boxes we'll never open again."

Katlego raised an eyebrow. "You want to burn memories?"

"No," she replied. "I want to burn the weight we no longer need to carry."

So they built a small fire in a safe patch on the beach just before sunset. She brought blank pages and pens. He brought tea and marshmallows.

Naledi was always this—unpredictable in ways that led to healing.

They sat in silence, the flames dancing, the sea rumbling like an old song behind them.

"What are we writing?" he asked.

"Letters," she said. "To versions of ourselves that need closure."

Katlego stared at the blank page for a long time.

Then he wrote:

Dear Younger Me,

I forgive you for not knowing. For thinking love was something you earned only when you were strong.

I forgive you for running when staying meant facing the mirrors you weren't ready to look into.

I forgive you for breaking your own heart in the name of pride.

You did the best you could with the pain you were carrying. And now, I am here—older, slower, and softer—because you dared to survive.

Rest now. I've got it from here.

Love,

Me.

He folded the letter gently, then fed it into the fire.

The flames curled it, darkened it, consumed it.

It didn't feel like destruction.

It felt like release.

Naledi wrote her letter quietly, her eyes shimmering in the firelight. She didn't read it aloud, and he didn't ask her to.

They didn't need to speak every wound.

Some things, they had learned, could be shared just by sitting close enough to hear each other breathe.

Afterward, they toasted marshmallows and leaned against each other, listening to the night deepen around them.

"I think I used to believe healing had a finish line," she whispered.

"And now?"

"Now I think it's a rhythm. Some days you're dancing. Some days you're limping. But you keep moving."

Katlego nodded. "That's the most beautiful way I've heard it said."

She smiled. "It's how you make me feel."

The next morning, he received a call from his publisher. The manuscript for The Silence Between Fathers had been accepted. They wanted to release it by Father's Day the following year.

"It's unlike anything we've published," the editor said. "Raw, communal, and honest. It's going to touch lives."

Katlego didn't know what to say. A year ago, he'd been unsure he would finish a single chapter. Now, he had two books under his belt and a name that was being passed around writing circles across the country.

When he told Naledi, she beamed with pride.

"You're building a legacy," she said.

"I'm building a bridge," he corrected. "Between the men we were, and the men we could become."

That weekend, he received a letter in the mail.

Real paper. Handwritten.

From Thabo.

Dear Pops,

I watched you speak at the summit on YouTube. Someone posted the video. I watched it twice.

I don't think I ever told you this, but there were nights—especially when I was thirteen or fourteen—when I would write letters to you. I never sent them. I didn't know where you were, or who you were.

But now I do.

You're the man who came back.

I don't need perfect. I need present. And you've been that.

I hope my film makes you proud. Because the strength I had to make it?

I found it in your footsteps.

Love you always,

Thabo

Katlego closed his eyes and held the letter against his chest.

It was strange how life circled back.

How the words we once feared would never be spoken came to us exactly when we were ready to receive them.

On Monday, he began preparing his students for the final writing exhibition of the year. It would be hosted at the local gallery, where students would read their pieces surrounded by paintings from youth in the community.

He let them design the theme.

They called it:

"We Were Always Worth Writing About."

On opening night, the gallery was packed. Parents. Teachers. Strangers. Artists. A hum of anticipation filled the space like incense.

Sipho read a poem about leaving behind the boy who waited for his father at the school gates.

Dineo read a letter to her future self, filled with promises she was finally ready to keep.

Musa shared a short story about a boy who learned how to cry in a room full of men.

Katlego didn't perform that night.

He didn't need to.

He had become part of the background—the soil that nurtured, the wind that encouraged.

And he was okay with that.

When they got home that night, Naledi turned to him and said:

"I want us to plant something."

"Like a tree?" he asked.

"No. A garden. Something wild but intentional."

"Why now?"

She smiled. "Because I want to grow in a place where things bloom without needing permission."

Katlego nodded.

They didn't need metaphors anymore.

They were the metaphor.

So they spent Sunday mapping out patches of land behind their flat. Herbs here. Wildflowers there. Tomatoes near the corner. Lemons near the window.

It wasn't just planting.

It was building a future.

One seed at a time.