“You don’t get to interfere with purity. You don’t get to corrupt this family!”
Her eyes were wild, unfocused, sliding past me as if I were already irrelevant. My sister-in-law Claire followed, crying into her sleeve, repeating that it was all a misunderstanding, that her mother was confused, that no one meant any harm.
Her words dissolved into noise. My husband, Daniel, stood frozen near the empty bassinet. His hands shook so badly he had to brace himself against the counter.
He kept saying my name under his breath, over and over, like he was trying to remember who I was. I watched from the hospital bed, numb spreading outward from my chest. My heart hammered painfully, but my mind floated somewhere far above the room, detached and distant.
They took the bottle. They took the cart. They took my statement.
Continue reading…
