“The child is Mariam’s relative. His parents passed away, and he’s staying with us for now. He’s still young, Arizona. He doesn’t understand what happened, so don’t get the wrong idea and say anything that might upset him.”
As if nothing had happened, he even handed me clean clothes with feigned tenderness.
“You must be tired after coming back alone. Do you want to rest first? Have you eaten?”
His fake concern made my skin crawl.
I cut him off, my voice sharp.
“Then what about Mariam? Why is she here? Don’t you have a single explanation for what happened five years ago? And why… all these years…”
I wanted to ask him, ‘Why didn’t you come see me even once?’
He looked at me as though I were an unreasonable madwoman, and his voice was cold.
“Arizona, the past is past. No matter how much you dwell on it, nothing will change. Why keep tormenting yourself? As for children, if you want one, we can always have another.”
We can always have another?
A crushing tightness seized my chest, and blackness closed in at the edges of my sight.
He and Mariam killed my child. They destroyed my career. They ruined my name!
And now, all of it was brushed aside with “We can always have another.”