2: 2
I turned and looked at the four of them, standing there like one happy family.
"On what grounds?"
My father spoke as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Malcolm's about to start at a private preschool. We're a little short."
My mother chimed in. "And after that there's the private school. There'll be no end of expenses."
The sheer absurdity of it swallowed me whole.
"That's Vanessa's child. Why would he need my money?"
But my best friend stepped forward, her voice low and drawn out. "Because he has something to do with you."
"Jemima, do you remember your miscarriage?"
My heart clenched hard.
It was a year into my marriage to Godfrey.
When the tests came back positive, he was overjoyed.
He booked me into the best maternity hospital, reserved a spot at a postpartum care center far in advance.
Drove me everywhere himself, cooked my prenatal meals with his own hands.
I remember being amazed at how fast he'd learned, his technique as practiced as a professional postpartum nurse.
Now I understand. That wasn't learning.
It was review.
He'd already done it all once, for someone else.
And even that hollow happiness didn't last long.
At eight months, someone pushed me down the stairs.
I hemorrhaged. I lost the baby.
My best friend sighed and went on.
"Jemima, the truth is, they found the person who pushed you a long time ago."
My hands clenched.
She looked me dead in the eye.
"It was me."
Something roared inside my skull, the room spun, and I nearly blacked out.
That fall left me hemorrhaging, unstoppable, three days in the ICU before they pulled me back.
Never once could I have imagined that the friend who'd once taken more than a dozen knife wounds from thugs to shield me,
was the one who killed my baby.
My father suddenly spoke, without a trace of guilt in his voice.
"She was doing it to save someone too."
"If it had been one of us blood relatives who did it, it would've tainted us with bad karma. That's the only reason we let her."
Then he said it.
"Malcolm had just been diagnosed with a rare disease back then. He needed cord blood from a direct blood relative."
"So we thought of the baby in your belly."
"Now your child's blood runs in Malcolm's veins. In a way, he's your child too."
"If you truly grieve for the child who never got to be born, you should be twice as good to Malcolm."
The faces in front of me were unnervingly calm.
As if they were only asking me what I wanted for dinner.
But when it happened to me, I fell apart. Every day I hurt myself.
It was my best friend who held me down, who wouldn't let go even as I bit her until she bled.
My parents took shifts, keeping watch at my bedside around the clock, terrified I'd do something to myself again.
My brother emptied his savings and put up a citywide reward, swearing he'd find whoever pushed me.
And Godfrey knelt at every temple and shrine in the city, praying our child would come back to us.
But it turned out every one of them was a killer.
Vanessa held the boy and spoke, soft and fragile.
"Sister, this is a debt I owe you."
"So I changed his name."
"Malcolm James. The name you'd picked for your own son."
"That way, no matter what he does from now on, he'll be living for your child, growing up for him, feeling all the beauty of this world for him."
The last thread in my mind snapped.
I lunged at her, wanting to tear that hypocrite's face apart.
But Godfrey seized me from behind and held on.
"Jemima, calm down!"
There was a thread of weariness in his voice.
"There was no other way back then. I couldn't just stand by and watch my child die."
I screamed at him in fury. "You could have had another! There was plenty of time!"
He was quiet for a moment, then said slowly, "I'd already wronged you once. I couldn't wrong you a second time."
What was this supposed to be?
Killing my baby made things right between us?
I clawed at him like a madwoman, sank my teeth into him.
Godfrey sighed, his voice full of helplessness.
"Jemima, you're too worked up. You're going to hurt yourself."
The words had barely left him when my brother handed over a wooden stick.
Godfrey took it.
And brought it down hard against the back of my neck.
