Free My Enemy's Cradle by Sara Young

alone, she had not wanted me here. But something didn't make sense: I had seen the way she had stroked her belly.
    I saw the answer first, and my hands flew to my mouth as if I were afraid it would spill from me. I would have given anything in the world to be able to shield my aunt and uncle from it. My uncle saw it next, gasped, and collapsed over the bureau under the weight of his guilt: She hadn't stabbed her womb to rid herself of her child, but to avoid going to that place. She had taken her baby herself rather than give him away.
    My aunt rose from the bed and began to beat on my uncle's back, her small fists smashing down as if this would spend her grief. I jumped up, knocking over the pail of suds, and pulled her off him. I held her tight, but she was strong in her fury. She struggled toward him. Her body shook and she swallowed her sobs to pull a voice from them.
    "You and your rules!"
    "Mies—" His voice bled and he lifted his doomed hands to her. One of the lenses in his glasses was shattered.
    "Are you satisfied now? Is there enough honor here now?"
    "Tante Mies, please," I begged. There was already so much damage in this room.
    But she wasn't finished. "She shamed us?
She
shamed us? Get out of here." Her voice was so low and cold that I didn't recognize it. "
Leave this house.
"
    My uncle caught the accusation in her eyes and absorbed it. He seemed almost relieved to reach the bottom of his fall; anything was better than to keep falling. And perhaps relieved to accept blame, to be given a measure of punishment. Mercy would have been unbearable. He crashed out of the room, still clutching Anneke's sweater along with a lifetime of guilt. On the floor, An-neke's blood drifted through the soapy water in slow curls, tingeing the bubbles pink.

TWELVE
    The sky was gray now, not black. Or maybe I was getting used to the dark. I wanted daylight, as though daylight would bring back normalcy. I wanted daylight because I wanted more people in this house; neighbors, friends, Isaak. Isaak, mostly. He would make sense of this, know what to do. But my aunt wouldn't let me phone anyone.
    She had bathed Anneke herself. After my uncle left, she hadn't let me back into the bedroom. I was grateful. I would never go back there. But I could hear her washing the floor, and the slow, steady sloshing of the water made my throat hurt. I curled up on the floor of the hall, lost in sorrow and shock.
    Then she remembered me. She came out and knelt down. "You should get some sleep,
kleintje,
" she said, stroking my hair, which had come undone. "There's nothing for you to do now. Go into my bed." She helped me peel off my clothes, sticky with drying blood, and then she washed the blood off my skin. I felt ashamed of my body's warmth, knowing she had just washed this same blood off her child's cold skin.
    Then she gave me a sleeping draught and one of her nightgowns. I didn't argue. I wanted to be unconscious.
     
    I awoke to a different world. The late-afternoon sunlight was bright and brittle, and it hurt my sore eyes. Instead of clearing away all that had happened in the dark, it seemed an assault. What right did sunshine have here? I found my aunt in the kitchen, washing a window. Her fingers were white and swollen, and there were moons of perspiration under her arms. The harsh scent of vinegar hung in the air; without looking, I knew she had washed all the windows downstairs. We had cleaned them only three days before. A lifetime ago.
    My aunt sensed my presence and turned. Her face was drawn impossibly tight, the color of ashes. A blood vessel in one of her eyes had broken, the bright red shocking against her gray face. She looked as if she had been crying blood.
    She put down her rag and I wrapped my arms around her. "Anneke—" I began.
    Her head jerked and she took a step away from me.
    "Tante Mies—"
    She opened her mouth, then bit the side of her lip. She took a card from her pocket and handed it to me. A notice. I recognized it at