The vitamins.
The miscarriages.
The weakness.
The stomach pain.
Even the leukemia.
At sunrise, I walked out of the hospital and drove straight to my mother’s house.
I don’t remember speeding through the streets of Chicago.
I barely remember parking.
I only remember rage.
Pure rage.
My mother opened the door in a silk robe, looking mildly surprised.
“Nathan? It’s early—”
I shoved the medical documents toward her.
“What did you give Emma?”
For the first time in my life, my mother looked frightened.
Only for a second.
Then her face hardened.
“I don’t know what nonsense she’s filling your head with now.”
“Don’t lie to me!”
My voice exploded through the house.
She stared at me coldly.
“You divorced her already. Why are you still obsessed with that woman?”
That woman.
Not Emma.
Not your wife.
Not the mother of your grandchildren.
Just that woman.
Something inside me snapped.
“She lost our babies.”
“And whose fault was that?” my mother said sharply.
The silence that followed felt monstrous.
I stared at her, slowly, disbelievingly.
Then she said the sentence that destroyed whatever bond remained between us.
“She was weak, Nathan.”
I froze.
My mother crossed her arms.
“That girl brought sadness into this family from the beginning.”
My blood ran cold.
“You hated her.”
“She trapped you in misery,” my mother snapped. “You stopped smiling after marrying her.”
“She was suffering.”
“And she made you suffer too.”
I stepped backward.
For the first time, I saw my mother clearly.
