“You promised—you’d make it up to me for losing my baby. I want this one. I don’t want nightmares anymore.”
“The doctor said my injuries were too severe, that it might be impossible to conceive again. Only this Rosary Bead can help me. Ethan, I want our love to have a child.”
Tears welled in Grace’s eyes.
And once she cried, Ethan was always on her side.
He turned to me coldly.
“The child has been dead so long. Having those Beads won’t change anything. Better Grace keep them than let them rot underground.”
“Ethan, don’t forget—that was your child too. All these years I’ve searched, desperate to lay him to rest. You know what I’ve sacrificed!”
His enemy had died with the secret, never telling me who had bought them.
Rubbing his temples in frustration, Ethan’s voice grew impatient.
“It’s just a dead thing. Why cling so tightly? If you want a child, wait until Grace conceives. I’ll even have it call you godmother.”
“As the father, I have the right to decide. And since Grace’s nightmares and miscarriages were caused by you, if your child’s bones can atone for you—then so be it.”
Grace covered her mouth and laughed.
“Exactly, sis. Your child can atone for your sins. That’s you earning some virtue.”
“Honestly, thank goodness it died early. With a mother as vile as you, even if it hadn’t been made into Rosary Beads, you would’ve dragged it to an ugly end sooner or later.”
“Now I’m giving it a chance—to bring me peace and help me conceive. That’s its blessing. Who knows, maybe the Grim Reaper will be pleased and bump it up in the line for reincarnation—let it come back as a dog…”
Her words detonated inside me, blowing my heart and soul to pieces.
I kicked her over, grabbed the red-hot fire tongs, and pressed them to her belly.
“If I scorch your uterus right now, you won’t need help conceiving, will you?”
“Oh wait—maybe I should just stab through your skull. Then you’ll never have nightmares again.”
“If you want to live, hand over the Rosary Beads!”
“Anna Moore, will you ever stop?!”
Ethan clamped down on my wrist hard enough to crush bone.
“Grace is doing this for your own good. If you hadn’t sinned so much, maybe the kid wouldn’t have died so horribly. Stand down!”
I stared at him, incredulous.
In this life, I’ve only wronged two people—
my mother, and my child.
Countless nights, the guilt strangled me until I could barely breathe.