“Answer me.”
She said nothing.
My heart pounded.
Then finally, she whispered, “I only wanted to help you.”
The world seemed to stop.
“What did you do?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“You don’t understand.”
“No. Explain it to me.”
“She was taking you away from me,” Vivian said. “You stopped visiting. You stopped listening to your family. Everything became about her.”
“She was my wife.”
“And she failed you!” Vivian shouted. “She couldn’t give you children.”
The words exploded through the room.
I stared at my mother in horror.
Vivian’s breathing turned uneven.
“I found an herbal mixture online. It was only supposed to make her infertile temporarily.”
My blood turned cold.
“What?”
“I didn’t mean for her to get sick.”
“You poisoned her.”
“No.”
“You killed our babies.”
Vivian covered her mouth.
“I never wanted this.”
I looked at the woman who had raised me, and for the first time in my life, I felt absolute horror.
Without another word, I walked out into the rain.
Behind me, she collapsed to the floor sobbing.
But I couldn’t stop shaking.
Because the damage was already done.
And Emma still didn’t know the full truth.
The next morning, I returned to the hospital looking like a man who hadn’t slept in years.
Emma was sitting near the window, staring at the gray Chicago sky.
When she saw me, she smiled softly.
“You came back.”
The simple sentence destroyed me.
Because after everything, she still sounded surprised that I would choose her.
I sat beside her bed.
For several moments, I couldn’t speak.
Then finally, I said, “I know what happened.”
Emma frowned. “What do you mean?”
“My mother.”
The room went silent.
“She poisoned you.”
Emma froze.
Her lips parted.
“No…”
“She admitted it.”
Emma stared ahead blankly, as if her mind could not process the cruelty.
Then suddenly she began shaking.
“Those drinks,” she whispered. “She always watched me until I finished them.”
I held her trembling hands.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Emma.”
She looked at me with shattered eyes.
“You didn’t know.”
“But I failed you anyway,” I said. “You were suffering beside me for years and I didn’t even notice.”Then Emma broke.
Not softly.
Not quietly.
For the first time since I had known her, she fell apart completely.
All the grief.
All the fear.
All the loneliness she had carried exploded out of her at once.
I held her while she cried against my chest.
“I was so scared,” she kept whispering.
“I know.”
“I didn’t want to die alone.”
Those words almost destroyed me.
