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?"

4: 4

I looked at my brother's furious face.

And what came to mind was the way he used to hold me like something precious.

Once, a boy at school snatched my apple.

He chased that kid down and made his life hell for a whole semester.

When did it start to change?

Was it when Vanessa moved in with us for her college applications, and the caring little messages he'd send me every day just stopped?

Or was it when I came home for the holidays and found my room had become Vanessa's room?

I couldn't untangle it, and I didn't want to anymore.

“The doctor said suppressing my emotions looks like this.”

I repeated it calmly.

My parents didn't believe me.

“Because of you, Vanessa has to be a single mother for the rest of her life!”

“She suffered so much as a child, and it took everything we had to get her back!”

“And now she has to walk on eggshells around you!”

Erica watched me too, her expression complicated.

“Jemima, you're not the same. You used to be such a kind person.”

Godfrey came over and put a protective arm around me.

“Don't push her. She's just sick.”

“Once she's better, everything will be like it was.”

Like it was?

Kept stupidly in the dark by every one of them.

Thinking my life was happy?

I turned my body aside, away from Godfrey's reaching hand.

He sighed and pushed me into the room off to the side.

“Get some rest.”

Not that resting was optional.

I was strapped tight to the wheelchair by the restraints.

There was nothing I could do but close my eyes.

Outside the door, the laughter started up again.

Vanessa and Malcolm had everyone smiling and delighted.

Malcolm told on me in his hurt little voice.

He said that back at the hospital, when the others weren't around, I'd spat at him.

My brother couldn't sit still. The next second, the door was flung open.

He carried in a bucket of ice water and dumped it over me, soaking me head to foot.

“Jemima, you really are getting worse by the day!”

Malcolm ran in and pretended to explain on my behalf.

“Don't be angry, Uncle. Jemima just misses her little baby so much that she can't accept me right now.”

“I believe if I just act a little more like that little baby, Jemima will like me.”

My parents came in behind him.

“You prepared so many things for that child back then.”

Godfrey opened the closet and pulled out a dust-covered box.

The safety lock charm I'd finished so early.

The little wooden horse I'd carved with my own hands.

After I lost the baby, I locked them all away.

If anyone so much as mentioned them, I'd fall apart.

But now, all I had left was calm.

Malcolm's eyes lit up as he dug through the box, turning each thing over in his hands to play with.

His hand slipped.

The jade charm dropped to the floor and shattered.

Everyone looked at me tensely.

I didn't even lift an eyelid.

But Godfrey watched me, his brow drawn tight.

“No scene? That's not your temperament, Jemima.”

“You're thinking about how to get back at us, aren't you?”

“I won't give you the chance.”

He took out his phone and, right in front of me, called a fully locked-down psychiatric hospital two thousand miles away.

He told them to send people immediately to take me.

When two big men lifted me onto the transport van, I didn't say a word.

Godfrey's eyes went red.

“Jemima, I don't have a choice here.”

“Whenever I have time, I promise I'll come see you.”

I didn't look at him. I just gave a light wink to the staff who'd come to collect me.

Godfrey still didn't know.

There was no future between us.

Among that stack of documents he'd just signed was a divorce agreement.

Godfrey took his people home.

And found several officers waiting at the front door.

A girl who looked faintly like me climbed out of the patrol car, crying.

She rushed straight to my parents.

Threw herself into their arms and sobbed until she couldn't breathe.

“Dad, Mom! I finally found you.”