Chapters (22)
She straightened up and looked at Mma Makutsi, who was still gazing raptly at the minor miracle before them. She noticed that her assistant’s large round glasses had misted up. She reached and put an arm about Mma Makutsi’s shoulders. It was a long road they had travelled together over the last few years; a long road that led from that very first day when the newly minted secretary had talked herself into the job, with Bobonong behind her but poverty still snapping at her heels. A road that then led to the meeting with Phuti Radiphuti and now to this – to motherhood and all the happiness it brought.
Mma Makutsi took off her glasses and dabbed at the lenses with a handkerchief. ‘My heart is full,’ she said.
‘That is why we are crying,’ said Mma Ramotswe.
Mma Makutsi replaced her glasses, but still there were tears in her eyes. ‘That is my baby, Mma,’ she whispered. ‘That is my own baby.’
It is your own baby, thought Mma Ramotswe. It is yours, as these other things you have are yours. And none of this came to you at the start of your life, because then you had nothing, or next to nothing, and you have earned all of it, Mma, every single bit of all this by your hard work and your sacrifice and by being kind to Phuti Radiphuti and loving him for what he is rather than because he has many of the things of this world. This is all yours, Mma Makutsi – your ninety-seven per cent share of everything.
They left the baby, returning to the kitchen where, for a few minutes, they sat together in complete silence, each with the thoughts that such a moment will always bring. There was no need for words, for there are times when words can only hint at what the heart would wish to say.