Page 94 of Glitterati Omega

“Mother.” Winston’s voice was a warning.

“Don’tMotherme, Mbulelo. You should have known better, you should have shown more restraint! I am disappointed in you.”

“Mother,” Mama Thandiwe said, voice low. “That is enough.”

“Do you think I did not think of this?” Winston asked, glowering at his mother. “Do you think I made this decision lightly? You know me these forty years, Mother, you know me better than I know myself. Do you think your son is one of those alphas who thinks he can correct the past by doing this?”

He waved at Rupert, who glanced between the three of them. He was about to speak, but Mama Thandiwe shook her head furiously at him.

Winston was on his feet. He slapped the table. “You insult me!” he cried. “My own mother insults her son and so insults herself! You raised me better than that, Mother!”

Ndileka simply lifted her head and peered down her nose. “Did I? You do not honor tradition, you do not hold it dear to your heart.”

“If you think I should offer him cows, I will!”

“Cows are not the issue!”

“Then what is the issue, Mother?”

She pursed her lips. “You know very well what the issue is, Mbulelo. We have suffered greatly. We still suffer.”

“We are all here, so we must find a way to coexist.”

“It was letting the colonizer in that put our people in this position in the first place!” Ndileka pounded the table for emphasis. “You call this coexistence?! You have learned nothing at all!”

“Excluding him makes you just as bad as they are!”

“It is self-preservation! You are a fool! How did I raise such a fool!”

“Perhaps because I have such a fool of a mother!”

Ndileka shook her head. Mama Thandiwe put her hands on the alpha’s shoulders. “There now,” she said. “You two are both fools for fighting like this.”

Rupert glanced hurriedly at Winston, then said, “If … I could say something?”

Ndileka glared at him. He shrank back a touch. “I … uh. We did talk about this. I … I didn’t fully understand, and Istilldon’t. Not because Winston didn’t explain it, but … well, I’m not terribly smart.”

Ndileka lifted a brow. “Get to the point.”

Rupert hunched his shoulders. “It was a condition of our … agreement.” He looked over at Winston. “Winston said I can’t leave the work to my child; I should do it myself.”

He looked at Winston, then huffed. “So I went through the portfolio, and yes, the Cullinan estate still has land holdings here. So I’m giving it back to the people.”

Ndileka stared at him. He shifted uncomfortably. “Whether … whether you like it or not, we’re family now, and Winston said I can’t expect to just treat my child well and let the rest of their family—their kinfolk—suffer.”

“Rupert,” Winston said after a moment. His voice was hushed.

He bowed his head. “I didn’t tell you about it. I wanted it to be a surprise. I … I wanted you to see that I’m starting to understand—I think. It felt … right.”

He pursed his lips. “I know that doesn’t … undo the past or change anything, not really. But … but maybe …”

It was Mama Thandiwe who spoke next. She laid a hand over his. “It is a start,” she said, then sat down beside him on the bench.

Ndileka grunted. She was apparently not going to be convinced. Mama Thandiwe ignored her wife, though. She reached over and put a hand on Rupert’s belly. “We should celebrate,” she said. “You have brought many gifts to this house today.”

Rupert sniffed, then covered his face with his hands as the tears started. “Please,” he whimpered, “please don’t turn them out, just because they’re mine. I don’t want them to feel lonely like that. Do whatever with me, I don’t care, but—”

“Oh,” Thandiwe said, rubbing his shoulders. “No one can be lonely when everyone is family.”