“How awful,” someone else said. “And the old woman isn’t doing well either. They locked her up and made her sew three thousand blessing charms. Her eyes are bleeding.”
I looked up, shocked and desperately pulled my grandmother and my son’s bodies from the mud. I wiped the dirt from their faces. There was a wound on my son’s chest and my grandmother’s eyes were swollen and red.
They had hidden everything from me. They suffered in silence while I knew nothing.
I was so angry I couldn’t hold it in anymore. My head spun, I coughed up blood and everything went black.
When I opened my eyes again, I heard the doctor speaking nearby.
“The two people who were brought in... they’re already dead. They were tortured before they died. There’s no chance of saving them.”
“And also,” he continued, “it’s a miracle that Mrs. Lombardi is pregnant at all. Her emotions must be kept calm. She’s had more than ten miscarriages in the past few years. Her uterus is so thin now, it’s like paper.”
Mrs. Lombardi looked shocked when she heard this. Then, as she understood, her face filled with anger.
But I didn’t care. With great difficulty, I said, “Abort the baby.”