She had stayed away from the house not wanting to cry all over again. The last time she walked in to get her scan copies off the shelf where he had left it, she had ended up weeping two weeks of withheld tears. She was not in a mood to weep, to feel suffocated, and then end up lying on their bed missing him. She was not going to go through it again.

Walking into the same house, yesterday she felt that she was a stronger being. His father’s speech of South Asian finger pointing to the woman when the man screws around had taught her that life had better things to worry about. He has told her that it was all her fault and that she should not have got pregnant. That good women did not fall into such situations and that what she was living was her fault. He had happily justified not having ever had her over, while his married son stayed at his house while his pregnant wife would be left home alone. The speech was enough to make her come to her senses, to make her see that she was living a life she had chosen out of righteous behaviour to do what is right by the world, and out of love for a man who has not thought twice before he left her when she needed him most by her side. Life was such and she had no more tears to shed for such.

She did not appreciate pity from anyone. She did not need it. She was just trying to make ends meet, to find enough cash to deliver the baby without begging from her in laws “rambutan” money which they seemed to count ten times before handing out. She did not want to curse her kid with the thoughts transferred to the cash when being handed over. One never knew what they muttered when they provided it, and she was not in a mood to go beg for any money from a man who called her a bad woman. Not for her, not for her son. Nor did she want anymore money from her parents, when they had done too much for her and had not being paid their debts. She knew she would earn it herself. Somehow, before the due date and before the baby would be willing to come out.

She could feel the baby move inside, kicking and churning, a happy little kid who would not know his dad. She felt sorry for him, when she thought of how he would wonder why his dad would not come to pick him, or drop him to school. She wondered what her son would say to his friends in school of his dad. She knew one day she would tell him the story of his dad, and why he was not there with them. She knew she would be his mum and dad both, and make sure he would not be sad. She knew it would be not an easy task, but she knew she would make it, on her own, and with her dignity intact.