Thandeka, a young Black journalist, lives in fear of Johannesburg's past. She's so troubled that she can't work, and her relationship with her 13-year-old deaf daughter Mangi goes from bad to worse. One day Me'Tau, an elderly woman, arrives at the newspaper's office. Ten years earlier, Thandeka witnessed the murder of the woman's daughter Dinéo by the secret police. Me'Tau wants Thandeka to find the murderers and Dinéo's body so that the girl can be buried in accordance with tradition. What Me'Tau couldn't know is that Thandeka has already paid for her knowledge, for having dared stand up to the apartheid system run by the whites. Meanwhile, Mangi secretly prepares a Zulu love letter: four embroidered images representing solitude, loss, hope, and love, as a final gesture towards her mother so that she won't give up the fight.