He stole a glance at his fiancée. A woman of her education and talents could expect a fairly good dowry—perhaps nine cattle—even if her background would not normally justify more than seven or eight. But would this uncle, if he existed, try to raise the price once he found out about the Double Comfort Furniture Store and all those Radiphuti cattle out at the cattle post? In Phuti Radiphuti’s experience, uncles did their homework in these situations.

“Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. “I have an uncle. He is my senior uncle, and I think that he will want to talk about these things.”

It was delicately put, and it made it possible for Phuti Radiphuti to move on from this potentially awkward topic to the safer ground of food. “I know somebody who is a very good caterer,” he said. “She has a truck with a fridge in it. She is very good at this sort of thing.”

“She sounds just right,” said Mma Makutsi.

“And I can get hold of chairs for the guests to sit on,” went on Phuti Radiphuti.

Of course, thought Mma Makutsi; the Double Comfort Furniture Store would come in useful for that. There was nothing worse than a wedding where there were not enough chairs for people to sit on and they ended up eating with their plates balanced on all sorts of things, ant heaps even, and getting food on their smart clothes. She vowed to herself, That will not happen at my wedding, and the thought filled her with pride. My wedding. My wedding guests. Chairs. It was a long way from those days of penury as a student at the Botswana Secretarial College, of rationing herself in what she ate; of making do with just one of anything, if that. Well, those days were over now.

And Phuti Radiphuti, for his part, thought, My days of loneliness are finished. My days of being laughed at because of the way I speak and because no woman would look at me—those are over now. Those are over.

He reached out and took Mma Makutsi’s hand. She smiled at him. “I am very lucky to have found you,” he said.

“No, I am the lucky one. I am the one.”

He thought that unlikely, but he was moved very deeply that somebody should consider herself lucky to have him, of all people. The previously unloved may find it hard to believe that they are now loved; that is such a miracle, they feel; such a miracle.