1: 1

The day I found out my husband had a secret child, my own brother threw me out of the house.

My parents came rushing over, but only to sign the papers that sent me out of the marriage with nothing.

My best friend of fifteen years stood there rocking the child in her arms, cooing at him.

Watching them all line up behind my husband, my eyes went hot and red.

"You knew? All along?"

They nodded, every one of them.

"We won't stop you from divorcing. But we're all siding with Godfrey James."

"From now on, our lives are with him."

...

When I didn't leave, they started shooing me out.

"Everything was fine. Why did you have to go digging into all this?"

"Now look. You've blown the whole thing apart, and you're the only one who loses."

There was something like a branding iron lodged in my throat, so hot I could barely open my mouth.

"I'm your real daughter. Your real sister!"

"Godfrey and I are getting divorced. What does he have to do with any of you anymore?"

Instead of answering, my parents reached over and pulled forward a timid-looking woman.

Vanessa Perez.

The poor student I'd once sponsored. Even the job that kept her in New York, I'd arranged that too.

"Vanessa is the daughter we lost."

There wasn't a trace of warmth in my mother's voice.

"Vanessa is more thoughtful than you. More sensible."

"She and Godfrey have a child together, so Godfrey will always be our son-in-law, and your brother's brother-in-law."

I turned to Vanessa, unable to believe it.

"I put you through school so you could learn how to be the other woman?"

She stood there, meek and fragile, twisting the hem of her shirt.

"Sis, back then, you and Godfrey were fighting. You'd even said you were breaking up."

"So I'm not the other woman."

The twisted logic turned my stomach.

I turned my head and looked at my best friend of fifteen years.

"And you?"

She hooked her arm cozily through Vanessa's.

"Vanessa and I just click better. You've got so many friends anyway. You won't miss one."

The shock nearly stopped my breath. I stood frozen where I was.

"Enough. Today is the boy's fourth birthday party. Don't stand there being an eyesore."

My brother waved his hand, impatient, like he was shooing away something dirty.

Four years old.

Godfrey and I had only been married for three.

The child in my friend's arms turned to my parents and called out, "Grandpa, Grandma, my first three birthdays."

"You gave me lots and lots of presents. What are you getting me this year?"

My parents' faces softened at once, and they crowded over, laughing, to fuss over him.

The child turned again, this time to my brother and my friend.

"Uncle, Auntie, your fourth present has to be really good too, or I'll be mad!"

So they hadn't just known.

They'd known from the very beginning.

Watching every one of them cluster tight around Godfrey and Vanessa, I couldn't hold the tears back anymore.

Before the wedding, Godfrey and I had come close to breaking up more than once, and every time, it was they who'd talked us back together.

The first time, Godfrey went a whole month without answering my messages, and it was my brother who stepped in to explain, said he'd dragged Godfrey off to some closed retreat in the mountains to study.

The second time, Godfrey took the down payment for our marital home and put it into an investment without asking me, and lost every cent. That time it was my parents who stood up and said they were the ones who'd pushed him into it, that the fault was theirs.

The third time, Godfrey swapped out my favorite wedding dress without telling me, and it was my best friend who came running in tears, saying she'd dirtied the dress by accident and Godfrey was only taking the blame for her.

I couldn't hold it in any longer, and the question broke out of me.

"If you knew about Vanessa and him from the very start!"

"Why did you go to such lengths to push me into marrying him?"

Godfrey came to stand in front of me, his expression gentle.

"Jemima Fox, don't blame them. I'm the one who insisted on marrying you."

"Ten years together, and you're the only wife I'll ever claim."

"Everything I neglected back then was because of Vanessa's pregnancy, so your dad and the others helped me—"

"Vanessa and the child were both an accident."

My hand flew up to slap him.

But my brother caught it midair.

His brows drew tight.

"You've got a problem, then solve the problem. Don't put on this fishwife act—"

He shoved me, and I stumbled back a step.

The pain in my chest was almost enough to stop it beating.

I looked at the faces in front of me, all so familiar and so foreign.

"Fine. Since you've all chosen Vanessa, chosen him."

"Then from now on, none of you come looking for me again."

I turned to go, and behind me my parents' voices rose.

"Wait!"

"Hand over the money you saved before the marriage before you leave."

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.

3: 3

When I came to, the back of my neck was still throbbing.

Only Godfrey and Vanessa sat at the edge of the bed.

Seeing my eyes open, Godfrey tucked the blanket in around me.

"Jemima, I've thought it over. I'm not going to divorce you."

"Making Vanessa live her whole life with no name, no title beside me. That's the punishment I'm giving her."

Vanessa didn't refuse it.

"Jemima, don't pity me. I deserve all of this."

"It's my fault for hoping for what I couldn't have, for falling in love with another woman's man."

Hands joined, the two of them discussed how they would punish each other.

How funny.

I wanted to curse at them, but all that came out was a muffled whimper.

That was when I realized I was strapped down hard to the hospital bed, a bite guard forced into my mouth.

Godfrey stroked my forehead, his voice gentle.

"You've been too worked up lately."

"I have no choice but to send you here, to a psychiatric hospital, for treatment."

"Once your moods settle and you stop hurting the people who love you, I'll bring you home."

The people who love me?

The ones who tricked me into marriage, killed my baby, and then worked together to lock me up in here?

I closed my eyes, refusing to look at them any longer.

Godfrey spoke as if it pained him.

"Don't worry. I won't let everyone turn their backs on you."

Over the next few days, they brought Malcolm in every day.

Vanessa pushed the boy up to my bedside.

"Say hi to Mommy."

Malcolm called out the word, sullen and unwilling.

Godfrey looked at me tenderly.

"He has your baby's blood in his body."

"Just tell yourself your own child is still alive. Isn't that better?"

Malcolm started singing that there's no one in the world like Mommy.

I thrashed in a rage, the bed frame rattling and banging.

Godfrey pressed the call button.

"Doctor, she's having another episode."

"Increase the dosage a little more."

I tried to explain to the doctor that there was nothing wrong with me.

Instead, the doctor took out a stack of papers.

On top was the involuntary commitment consent form, signed by my parents and my brother.

Behind it was a video my best friend had recorded.

In the video she was crying so hard she could barely breathe.

"Jemima's gotten more and more violent since the shock she went through."

"She doesn't just hit me. She's tried to hurt the child too."

"Please, you have to cure her."

The dosage grew larger by the day.

My hands began to shake, and my mind grew slower and slower.

Even when Malcolm, while Godfrey was gone, ran up to my bed and spat at me.

Called me a "wicked old witch who deserved to have her kid die."

I couldn't stir up a single ripple in myself anymore.

Godfrey, though, decided I was better.

On my birthday, he took me out of the hospital.

My parents, my brother, and my best friend gathered around the dining table, gifts they'd carefully prepared laid out on top.

My mother held a dress up against me.

"This used to be your favorite brand."

My best friend set the newest handbag in my arms.

"I stood in line two days to get this. Surely you can forgive me now?"

My father frowned and pressed me.

"Everyone's trying to cheer you up. Don't ruin the mood."

They put a birthday hat on me and sang around me.

My brother cut the first slice of cake and brought it to my mouth with his own hand.

The cream went in, and I couldn't taste the sweetness.

Even swallowing had become hard.

"Good, isn't it?"

My mother asked, expectant.

I couldn't taste it.

Those drugs had long since taken my sense of taste.

Before I could even shake my head.

My brother slammed the rest of the cake into me, hard.

Cream and fruit smeared all over my face.

He jabbed a finger at me and roared.

"Jemima Fox, what in the world do you still have to complain about!"

"We didn't even claim Vanessa, all for your sake! Are you only happy once you've driven her to her death?"