Playing Solitaire
Copyright© 2026 by Jody Daniel
Chapter 18
Wonderboom Airport, Pretoria.
By mid-morning, Wonderboom had already begun to shrug off the coolness of the early hours.
The sun was climbing steadily, and with it came the familiar heat of a Pretoria spring day. By the time we were approaching the airport, the temperature was already pushing towards 29 degrees Celsius, and there was no mistaking that we were going to have a warm day.
The sky over Wonderboom was a pale, almost washed-out blue, the sort of blue that seemed to fade towards the horizon under the growing heat. There wasn’t much cloud overhead, just a few scattered patches hanging low on the southern horizon. They were still little more than cotton-wool smudges against the blue, but they had the slightly darker bases that made me wonder whether the afternoon might have something in store for us.
Pretoria weather had a habit of looking innocent right up until it wasn’t.
If those clouds developed during the afternoon, we could have a late shower or perhaps one of those short, sharp Highveld thunderstorms that seemed to arrive with very little warning. For now, though, the atmosphere was calm and visibility was good.
The airport never really went quiet, but mid-morning had its own rhythm. Aircraft moved in and out of the circuit, ground vehicles went about their business, and the occasional engine note carried across the apron before fading into the background noise. There was the smell of hot tarmac, aviation fuel and warm dust, all familiar scents that somehow belonged together.
I had always liked coming back to Wonderboom.
There was something reassuring about seeing the familiar hangars and the long stretches of concrete and asphalt. After the mountains and cooler air of Dragon Peaks, Pretoria felt almost aggressively warm. The Drakensberg had given us cold mornings, mountain mist and biting wind. Wonderboom was giving us sunshine, heat and the promise of a sweaty shirt before lunchtime.
I glanced towards the southern sky again. The little bank of clouds was still there. Nothing to worry about yet. But I made a mental note of it anyway.
In aviation, ignoring something simply because it wasn’t a problem yet was usually how small things eventually became problems.
As we approached the airport, the familiar outline of Wonderboom came into view, shimmering slightly in the increasing heat. The apron looked almost white under the hardening sunlight, and even from a distance I could see the little movements of people and vehicles around the parked aircraft.
Home. At least for the moment. I settled back and looked ahead, already thinking about the landing.
I did not need to look at the weather forecast or listen to the Airport Terminal Information transmission to know that it will be a hot and high landing in thin air. I could feel the air in the handling of Misty.
The tower gave me a straight in approach on runway 6. Land on the numbers and then take the taxiway to hover taxi to my apron just to the southwest of the SAPS hangar.
Megan was handling the communications and soon we were settled on to the apron. The shutdown of Misty was straightforward and soon the rotors spun to a stop.
As we got out, I noticed a tall gentleman standing in the shade of the hangar with Lillian, the tour operator I shared the hangar with, standing next to him.
“James,” Megan said and her eyes lit up.
“I thought you called him to cancel the pick-up?” I asked.
“I told him to bring me some supplies I need,” She replied.
“Oh. So he’s not picking you up?”
“Nope, I go with you, remember?”
“I was worried that you changed your mind...”
“What’s the use of having a mind if you can’t change it? But no, we go as planned.”
Megan and I walked over to where James and Lillian were waiting.
“How did it go, Sweetie?” James asked and wrapped Megan up in a hug.
“I’ll tell you all about it later, but like Tim said; it was not pilot error...”
James looked over at me and still with his arm around Megan’s shoulders, spoke.
“I like the way you handled that paraffin budgie. Light and a little assertive. She responded well,” he said and then stuck out his right hand. “The name’s James McAllister.”
I shook his hand and Megan introduced me as Lt-Col Timothy Duncan. James raised an eyebrow.
“Scottish?” He asked.
“Very far off in distant roots of the family, Sir,” I replied.
“Just call me James, Timothy.”
“Thank you, James.”
“So, you are abducting my daughter to some farm up north?” He asked but I could see the little devils playing in his eyes and smile.
“She wanted to come horse riding and play with the chickens,” I chuckled.
“Just be careful that she doesn’t start naming the chickens! She is bound to do that!” He chuckled back. “And it is no fun to see a roasted chicken on the Sunday lunch table that once was ‘Antje’ the red-brown hen. Now, you must excuse me. It is still a drive back to Centurion.”
I left Megan and James in the shade of the open hangar, went over to the SAPS hangar to report back in and “inform” the CO that I am taking a few days leave.
Forty minutes later, Misty was secured inside the hangar, luggage all packed into the back of my SUV, and we took off for Settlers and Boschendal.
Boschendal.
The arrival at Boschendal about fifty minutes later was marked by old Alphonse driving the red 7720 Massey Ferguson tractor into the yard and waving enthusiastically out the open side window of the tractor. The planter riding high on the back of the tractor. Naomi was sitting on one of the wicker chairs and got up as we got to the top.
“Hello, Tim! Welcome back home,” She greeted and turned her head slightly to my left. “and you must be Megan. Welcome to Boschendal.”
Then she stepped forward and hugged Megan. “What a surprise to us when Tim told us he is bringing a guest home.”
“I don’t want to intrude...” Megan shyly replied but Naomi put her at ease.
“Not at all, Megan! I appreciate the company of someone else besides these three always talking farming, tractors and cattle.”
“Well, I’m an engineer and I doubt that I can be any good company...”
“No problem, we’ll get something to talk about. But come, let’s get you guys something to drink and eat. You must be dying by now,” Naomi replied, turned and touched the front door frame with her left hand and stepped through.
“I’ll go fetch the bags,” I said and turned to go back to the SUV.
“I’ll keep Megan entertained, Tim. Put her stuff in the east guest room. The one with the en-suite bathroom.”
And without thinking I left Megan and Naomi.”
Megan and Naomi in the kitchen.
I followed Naomi through a luxurious, comfortably furnished lounge and into a passage that led towards the kitchen.
The lounge had the sort of understated elegance that suggested money without feeling as though someone had tried too hard to prove it. Comfortable sofas, polished wood, carefully chosen ornaments and family photographs filled the room. Nothing looked as though it had simply been bought because it was expensive. It felt lived in.
The passage was equally neat.
Photographs and paintings decorated the walls, some in formal frames and others looking as though they had been collected over many years. A long runner rug stretched almost the entire length of the passage beneath our feet. Along one wall, a handrail followed the passage almost to the kitchen.
I noticed it. I simply didn’t think anything of it.
Perhaps because the rest of the house was so beautifully maintained, the handrail seemed like just another architectural detail. There were no chairs or tables along the passage, nothing that appeared out of place.
I followed Naomi into the kitchen. It was beautiful. Large windows allowed the morning sunlight to spill across the counters, and the polished surfaces caught the light in soft reflections. The kitchen had all the modern conveniences one could want, but there was something homely about it too. A large island occupied the centre of the room, and on it sat a bowl of fresh fruit.
Naomi turned towards me. “Megan, do you drink Rooibos tea?”
I almost choked. Rooibos. Of all things. For the past two weeks, Rooibos tea had become part of my evenings with Tim. Hot mugs, quiet conversations, teasing, laughter, and that strange new feeling of belonging somewhere beside him.
“Yes, I do.”
“We make ours with fresh lemon,” Naomi replied.
She stretched out her hand towards the bowl on the kitchen island and picked up a lemon.
“And we sweeten it with honey from our own bee hives. It has a little faint eucalyptus flavour, as the hives are in the eucalyptus forest out to the north of the farm.”
“Oh, it won’t be a problem. To me, honey is honey...” I chuckled.
“Good!”
Naomi smiled and turned towards the stove.
She moved around the kitchen with an easy familiarity, opening a cupboard and taking out a stainless-steel teapot. She slid her hand along the surface of the counter-top near the stove, took a tin that looked like it was generations old and opened the tin, scooped a measured amount of loose Rooibos leaves into the pot and filled it with water.
There was something almost comforting about watching her. It reminded me of Tim describing how his sister made Rooibos at Boschendal.
Naomi placed the teapot on one of the burners of the gas stove. Her hand moved confidently across the controls, selecting the correct one before she turned it on. The burner clicked. A blue flame sprang to life.
“Let’s sit a while.”
I pulled a chair out from beneath the breakfast nook and sat down. Naomi took the seat opposite me.
For the first time since arriving, I realised just how nervous I actually was.
Meeting Tim’s family had seemed like such a simple thing when he suggested it. It wasn’t.
These were the people who had known him long before I had. They knew the boy he had been, the young man he had become, and probably all the embarrassing stories that went with both. And I was the woman he had brought home.
Naomi seemed to notice my discomfort.
“Don’t be so nervous, Megan. We are just people, and if Tim likes you as much as to bring you over, then the rest of us will just abide by it.”
She slid her right hand across the table and placed her hand over mine.
The gesture caught me off guard. There was nothing formal about it. No polite social convention. Just warmth. I could feel the friendliness in her touch.
“I ... I am a little nervous,” I admitted. “It’s the first time in seven years that I worked up the courage to actually go with a friend to meet his family.”
The words were out before I could stop them. I wasn’t even sure why I had told her.
Perhaps it was the way Naomi spoke to me. Perhaps it was because there was something immediately reassuring about her. She was a few years younger than Tim, around my age, but there was a warmth about her that made it easy to forget that I had only met her a short while ago.
I looked down at our hands.
Seven years. I hadn’t let someone get this close in seven years.
And now I was sitting in a stranger’s kitchen, drinking Rooibos with the sister of the man who had somehow managed to get past every wall I had built around myself.
A small electronic chime interrupted my thoughts. Naomi immediately got up. I watched her walk towards the stove.
She reached out, turned off the gas burner and lifted the stainless-steel teapot from the heat.
“Now we wait a few minutes,” she said.
She set the pot down and then added almost as an afterthought, “Oh, by the way, we use mugs and not teacups.”
She chuckled. “I hope it is in order?”
“Fire away! Tim used to make me Rooibos in a mug.”
“Yeah, that would be Tim. No finesse on that man.”
I laughed. That sounded exactly like the Tim I knew.
Naomi opened a cupboard and took out two mugs. Then she reached into a drawer and removed two little gadgets I had never seen before.
She hooked one inside each mug. I watched with interest as she began pouring the Rooibos.
The tea flowed into the first mug. She kept pouring.
Then there was a little electronic beep.
Naomi stopped.
She repeated the process with the second mug.
Beep.
Stop.
I looked at the gadget.
“I like your gadget. It tells you when the tea level is just right,” I said.
The moment the words left my mouth, something about Naomi’s expression made me pause.
She smiled. “Yes, that is true, but I can’t see what I am doing or when to stop pouring.”
For a second, I didn’t understand.
Then the words registered.
I stared at her. “You can’t see when to stop pouring?”
Naomi’s smile disappeared. Her face changed almost imperceptibly.
“Oh shit!” She put the teapot down. “Tim did not tell you?”
“Tell me what, Naomi?”
There was a pause. A tiny pause. But in that moment it seemed to stretch across the entire kitchen.
Naomi gave a little sigh, almost as though she had just realised she had accidentally walked into a conversation that Tim had deliberately avoided.
“I am blind, Megan.” She gave a small, almost embarrassed laugh. “As blind as a bat...”
I froze. The kitchen seemed suddenly very quiet.
The gas burner was off. The kettle wasn’t boiling. Somewhere outside I could hear a bird calling, but inside that beautiful kitchen I could hear nothing except the blood rushing in my ears.
Blind.
Those beautiful big grey-blue eyes.
The handrail in the passage.
The absence of furniture.
The gadget in the mug.
The way Naomi had moved around the kitchen, as if she was counting her steps.
The way that she felt the switches on the stove.
The way that she slid her hands to the cupboard handles.
The way she slid her hand across the table to take mine.
The way she touched the door frames before stepping through.
The way she turned her head at the slightest sound.
It all came together at once. This beautiful woman with the flowing long blond hair falling like a flaxen waterfall over her shoulders – BLIND!
Oh God. I wished the earth would open up beneath my chair and swallow me whole.
“I am going to kill Tim. I am going to kill Tim – DEAD!” I muttered under my breath.
Then Naomi smiled, again sliding her hand to touch mine and placed a mug of Rooibos within reach of me. “Drink your tea, Megan. It’s not that big a deal. We made peace with it long ago. Besides if you kill Tim, you got to stay here and help raise the cattle or use the Massey Ferguson to plant the crops.” Giggle.
I walked into the kitchen a few minutes later, still thinking about the practicalities of getting everything settled into the rooms, and stopped just inside the doorway.
Megan and Naomi were sitting opposite each other at the breakfast nook.
Something was wrong. Megan looked as though she had just seen a ghost.
Her cheeks were flushed a deep pink, her eyes were wide, and there was enough fire in them to make me instinctively wonder what crime I had committed without knowing about it. She was staring in my direction with an expression that suggested I had somehow become the most wanted man in South Africa.
Naomi, on the other hand, looked perfectly relaxed. In fact, she had a smirk on her face. That should have warned me.
“Well, the luggage is in the rooms,” I said, looking from one woman to the other. “Now, how about some of that world famous Rooibos of yours, Nomie?”
Naomi’s smirk widened. “You big doofus!” she replied. “No tea or coffee for you. You better start running for the hills!”
I frowned. “What did I do?”
“This poor child, Megan, shame on you...” Naomi said.
I looked at Megan. She looked back at me.
Megan was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. I had seen her dismantle technical problems that had left experienced engineers scratching their heads.
“What poor child? Megan is good.”
“But you neglected a small little detail about me...”
I stared at Naomi. “What small detail?”
She tilted her head towards Megan. “You did not warn her that I’m blind. She’s devastated! You should make it up to her real good!”
I felt my stomach drop. Ah. That. I looked at Megan.
“Sorry, Megs, it just slipped my mind...”
The response was immediate.
“Slipped your mind!” Megan retorted. She had gone from embarrassed to indignant in less than a second. “Just like that?” And she snapped her fingers. “It slipped your mind?”
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