On the way home, the image of Michael tenderly supporting Rachel never left my mind.
He treasured her. He treasured their child.
The thought dragged me back to the years of marriage when I never once missed the medicine laced with abortion drugs. A wave of grief swallowed me whole.
I stumbled back to the bedroom in a daze. I packed away everything connected to him and threw it all into the trash.
I threw away the necklace he had spent a fortune to win for me, the collection of handbags he had gathered, and the silly little trinkets he had hunted down just to make me laugh.
When the garbage truck carried everything away, my emotions finally eased up a little.
No.
There was still one thing.
The moment I thought of it, I rushed to the bedroom and pulled a diary from the nightstand.
It was a diary he had prepared for me after our marriage.
Every page recorded fragments of me.
The notebook was thick, and as soon as I opened it, the pages fanned open on their own.
[Evelyn talked in her sleep again today. It sounded like a nightmare.]
[Being able to marry Evelyn is a blessing I earned over many lifetimes. We must be together forever and ever!]
Those entries were his expressions of love for me.
But even the deepest form of love turned out to be finite.
I picked up a lighter and set the diary ablaze.
Through the leaping flames, my eyes caught on a picture frame lying face down.
It had been there for years, left by Michael, and I had never touched it.
Without thinking, I turned it over.
In the photo, Rachel was smiling radiantly.
My chest clenched tight, and my eyes burned hot.
When I opened the frame, I saw small words written on the back of the photo.
[I love Michael the most. April 18, 2015]
My fingers suddenly lost their grip, and the frame slipped to the floor with a crash. My tears poured unchecked.
That had been the third day after our wedding.
So even back then, Michael was already with her.
For all those years, I had remained in the dark.
Sharp pain suddenly twisted in my lower abdomen. Wet warmth spread beneath me.
I stopped crying and reached down in confusion.
When I lifted my hand, I only saw red.
“Blood… it’s blood…”
It was not my cycle. Where had the blood come from?
In a panic, I called the butler and was rushed to the hospital.
On the way, the cramps worsened. Beads of cold sweat broke out on my forehead.
At the hospital, I forced myself to stay up through the examination.
While waiting, an inexplicable dread filled my chest.
After a while, the doctor emerged with a report.
“Ms. Jones, you have had a miscarriage.”
I felt as though I had plunged into an ice cave. My lips parted, but no sound came out. That sentence echoed endlessly in my head.
I had miscarried.
Did that mean I was actually pregnant?
But…
I grabbed the pregnancy report like a madwoman, flipping it over and over.
The doctor sighed.
“Ms. Jones, it was already very difficult for you to conceive. After this miscarriage, I fear you may never be able to conceive again.”
My hands turned ice-cold. My ears no longer heard anything. My vision dissolved into pure white.
