I'd been naive enough to believe him. It never crossed my mind that he'd been deliberately sterilizing me just to make room for his illegitimate son.
He knew full well that his mother valued lineage and fertility above all else.
If she ever found out I couldn't have children, she'd tear me apart.
He swore up and down that he had no feelings for Janet, yet everything he did was for her. For their child.
He told me I was the only one he loved, then built me a marriage lined with thorns.
The pain in my chest was so sharp I thought it might crack me open. I fled the school like a woman possessed, desperate to escape the suffocating weight of it all.
A message from Herman glowed on my phone screen: Why aren't you in the classroom?
My hands trembled. But the warmth I used to feel when he checked on me—that sweetness—was gone.
I turned off my phone, hailed a cab without hesitation, and went straight to the hospital.
The doctor told me that the herbal tonic I'd been taking to regulate my cycle contained a cold-natured ingredient that, with prolonged use, caused infertility.
That tonic. The one Herman brewed for me every month like clockwork, spooning it into my mouth himself.