Mma Ramotswe stood quite still. From within one of the rooms a man coughed. She had suspected, all those years ago, that Note was seeing other women, but she had never thought that he had been married. Did this change anything, she wondered? What should I feel about this? It was another of his lies, of his concealments, but she should not feel any surprise about that. Everything he had said to her was a lie, it seemed; there was simply no truth in him.

“Do you know who this other girl was?” she asked. She did not think about the question, nor whether she really wanted to know the answer. But she felt that she had to say something.

Mma Mokoti turned back to face her. “I think that she is late, now,” she said. “And I never saw that baby. He is my grandchild, but I have never seen him. I feel very sad about that.”

Mma Ramotswe took a step forward and put her arm gently about the old woman. The shoulder was hard and bony. “You must not feel too sad, Mma,” she said. “You have worked hard. You have made this home for your husband. You must not feel sad about any of that. The other things are not so important, are they?”

The old woman said nothing for a moment, and Mma Ramotswe kept her arm about her shoulder. It was a strange feeling, she had always thought; feeling the breathing of another, a reminder of how we all share the same air, and of how fragile we are. At least there was enough air in the world for everybody to breathe; at least people did not fight with one another over that. And it would be difficult, would it not, for the rich people to take all the air away from the poor people, even if they could take so many other things? Black people, white people: same air.

The old woman looked up at her quite suddenly. “Your father,” she said. “I remember him from the wedding. He was a good man, wasn’t he?”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “He was a very good man. He is late now, as perhaps you know. But I still go to his grave, out there at Mochudi. And I think of him every day.”

The old woman nodded. “That is good.”

Mma Ramotswe took her arm away, gently. “I must go now,” she said. “I must get back to my place.”