part 2 The man who spent eleven years blaming me for our childlessness threw me out of our home9-008v

strangely in my vision. Gabriel reached out but stopped before touching me, as though afraid I would recoil.

“Mariana?”

I closed my eyes and took a breath.

One breath.

Then another.

Our daughter.

The words moved through me like a key turning in a locked room.

I thought of my childhood. Of Helen sometimes watching me with a sadness I could never understand.continue reading …