Page 93 of Glitterati Omega

“But Mama,” Winston protested from inside, “we asked. The imaging shows just one.”

“It’s two,” she said firmly.

Rupert swallowed nervously. “But it’s like Winnie said, the ultrasound showed just one.”

“Twins,” she insisted, then looked him up and down. “Were you very sick at first?”

“Well,” Rupert said.

“So sick, he had to go to the hospital, Mama.”

“And you have been sick a long time? No relief, even this far along?”

“Well, I guess—”

She waved a hand. “Twice as much of everything—hormones and stuff. Because there’s twice as much baby.”

“But therecan’tbe,” Rupert protested. “We saw it on the screen, there’s only one …”

Mama Thandiwe gave him a cool look, her hands on her hips. “You feel the baby moving yet?”

He shook his head, then perched on the rough-hewn bench at the table across from Winston.

She pursed her lips. “You tell me when you do—you count kicks, and you tell me, is this a very busy baby, or is it two babies? Because you … you are going to feel lots of little kicks.”

Rupert put a hand over his belly. “You think?” he asked, feeling a little lost and helpless.

She just nodded again, then stepped away, leaving him to face Ndileka, who had her arms folded. “This is not why we invited you,” the alpha said, a frown on her face. She turned to glare at Winston. “You should have waited until you had our blessing.”

Winston gave her a dull look. “I am not so traditional.”

She shook her head. “Clearly. I do not know why you are like this.” She looked at Rupert again. “Mm, no, I still do not like it.”

“Like what?” Rupert asked.

“You,” Ndileka said, and Rupert reared back.

“Excuse me?”

She tilted her head. “You know what you are.”

Rupert flushed. “Well, I—”

“She means the money, Rupert.”

Ndileka waved a hand. “Maybe it is the money, maybe it is not. It is history, at any rate. You, Mbulelo, you are descended from warriors, a proud people who were made to suffer. And this one descends from the cowards who did it—lied and cheated and stole and murdered.”

“That’s a little—”

“It’s history,” Ndileka said sharply. “And you would do well to learn some. But you don’t, because you don’t like it. Because it is awful.”

“Well, do you like learning awful things? Thinking about them?”

“We cannot escape them,” she said, “because we live with them every day. You, you think it is all in the past, that it happened so long ago, that everything is different now. Nothing has changed. Year after year, it is just the same, and you ignore it, because you can. We cannot and that is the difference.”

Rupert shrank back a bit. “Mother,” Thandiwe said.

“He needs to hear it,” Ndileka grumbled. “He should have heard it before he even thought about having my son’s child.” She glared daggers at Rupert.