When I was six months pregnant, Hazel Simmons rammed her car into me and drove me into a wall. I lost the baby on the spot, and I nearly died with it.
Vincent Henson went half out of his mind. He tore Hazel's company apart and put her behind bars with his own hands.
Vincent had always been a workaholic and a nonbeliever, but for the five years after that he began keeping a vegetarian fast and reciting scripture, and no matter how busy he was, every single month he took me up the mountain to stay a few days at the chapel.
He even endowed a charity elementary school at the foot of that mountain.
All of it, he said, was to pray for the child of ours who never got to be born.
Until this trip, when I felt suddenly sick while I was praying and had to fight down the nausea. The old monk took my pulse and congratulated me. I was pregnant.
My heart was full. I went to find Vincent, who was working in the back courtyard.
And the moment I stepped through the gate, I heard it. A low, tangled sound.
"Vincent, does she ever give you a time like this? I heard you keep her wrapped up like some porcelain doll."
"What do you think happens if I tell her? That every time you come here to pray with her, it's really so you can come do this with me. Think she'd fall apart?"
"Hazel, don't you dare. If you say one word to her, I promise you won't like what comes next."
Then the sounds from the room grew rougher.
I stood frozen at the doorway. After a long time, I opened the app and pulled up the screen to book an abortion.
...
I looked at the words confirming the appointment on my phone, and a dull ache spread through my chest.
Just then the door creaked open.
Vincent came out, still doing up his shirt.
The second he saw me, panic flickered across his face.
"Faith Sullivan..."
He said my name and started toward me to hold me, his buttons still half undone.
The smell of what he'd just done was all over him. I stepped back on instinct and gagged.
"Vincent, you're filthy..."
His expression froze on his face.
Hazel walked out of the room behind him and gave a cold little laugh. "So now you think he's filthy? But back when you married him, he and I were already—"
"Hazel, shut up!"
Vincent cut her off just in time, and looked at me carefully.
That look on his face was exactly like the one he'd worn back when Hazel's car left me unable to move, lying in that bed after I lost the baby.
He'd looked at me the same way then, holding my hand, telling me he would never let me be hurt again.
"How many times has it been?" I heard my own voice shaking.
"Just this once..."
His eyes slid away, and I knew he was lying.
"As many times as you two have come up this mountain, that's how long we've been together."
Hazel looked at me, her whole face full of contempt.
Vincent turned on her, furious. "Hazel, no one thinks you're mute just because you keep quiet! Get out, now!"
Hazel didn't say anything. She just kept watching me, like she was enjoying it.
After the car hit me, I'd lain in bed for nearly two months, and Vincent had handled everything.
Only now did I understand. Hazel had never gone to prison after she ran me down.
She'd been in contact with Vincent this whole time.
Even while I was here praying for the child Vincent and I had lost, she'd been hiding in this chapel's back courtyard, doing what they did, on holy ground.
Seeing there was no hiding it, Vincent gripped my shoulders.
"Faith, listen to me. It's true I didn't let Hazel go to prison, but Faith, her company really did go bankrupt. That was years of her life's work."
"You lost the baby, but she lost everything too. Isn't that enough? We'll have more children later, but right now Hazel has nothing. The baby was never even born, it was only an embryo. It's been so long. Can't you get past it yet?"
Vincent's words drove into my chest like needles, one after another.
I couldn't take any more. I turned to leave on instinct, but Vincent seized my arm.
"You're not well. Be good and come home with me."
