After love

The sun had barely risen over the quiet village,it’s soft light brushing the tops of the trees like a mother’s gentle hand.Far from the silence of this rural place,a scandal was brewing in one of the wealthiest homes in town-an elegant mansion hidden behind tall iron gates and trimmed hedges. Inside that mansion,lived a girl named Mariam.she was only eighteen, hired as a housemaid by a powerful family whose name commanded respect and silence.Mariam moved quietly through her duties, hoping each day would pass without incident,But hope, as she would soon learn,is a fragile thing . One night,everything changed. It wasn’t love.It wasn’t even lust.It was power-violent,cruel and unforgivable.Her employe, a man twice her age and admired by the entire town,forced himself on her in the darkness of his study.No one heard her cries.And no one cared. When the truth revealed itself in the swell of her belly,there was no justice -only shame .Her employer’s wife threw her out without a second thought, her belongings tossed into the street like trash. The neighbours watched but said nothing.Like always. Shivering,ashamed,and pregnant,Mariam made the long journey back to her childhood village.Her feet were blistered,her heart heavier than her steps.Waiting at the end of the dusty road was her grandmother -an old woman with hands weathered by time and heart worn thin by life. Mariam said little.Her grandmother asked less. And there, beneath the cracked ceiling of a wooden house ,Mariam gave birth to a baby girl .she named her Jolyne-a name that sounds like light,even if her word felt darker. But village life was cruel.poverty strangled every dream Mariam tried to imagine.The cries of her baby reminded her that she had no milk,no blankets, no hope to offer. That night, the rain poured hard against the rooftop of the small countryside home . The old wooden house creaked under the pressure of the storm,its thin walls doing little to keep out the cold wind.Inside,a dim oil lamp flickered weakly,casting shadows that danced across the peeling walls. Mariam sat on silence on the worn-out floor,knees drawn tightly to her chest.Her eyes stayed on the two sleeping figures nearby.Her baby- Jolyne-lay wrapped in a thin blanket, her tiny hands curled near her face.Next to her,Mariam’s grandmother slept on a straw mat, her frail body shivering slightly under a patched quilt. Tears spilled quietly down her cheeks. Her grandmother’s hands,aged and worn,rested over her stomach.Even now despite her age,she still walked the streets everyday collecting cardboard boxes and empty bottles to sell-anything to earn a few coins just to keep them alive. Mariam couldn’t bear it. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Her grandmother had already given everything raising her. Mariam should’ve been the one providing for her now. She should’ve been bringing home food, medicine, warmth—not more struggle. “I’m sorry,” she whispered in the dark, barely able to speak through her tears. “You were never supposed to suffer like this again.” Her heart ached with guilt. Every part of her was breaking. She looked back at her daughter. Jolyne’s face was peaceful in sleep, delicate and still. So beautiful. Too beautiful for a world this cruel. But the moment Mariam saw her, that same familiar wave of hatred rushed through her chest. She didn’t ask for this. But Mariam couldn’t stop how she felt. Jolyne was a reminder of everything taken from her. A reminder of the night that shattered her life, the night when Mr. Davis—the man she once called “sir”—forced himself on her like she was nothing. Mariam had worked so hard to escape this kind of pain. At just sixteen, she had packed her few belongings and left her grandmother’s house, determined to find work in the city. Her dream was simple—earn money, send it back home, then return one day to start a small business and build a proper house for her grandmother. That dream had kept her going. She didn’t ask for much. Just a little shop, maybe a corner market or a tailoring stall. Enough income to give her grandmother a life without hard labor, enough peace to finally let her rest. But all of it was ruined—crushed under the weight of one man’s cruelty. After the assault, she had no one to turn to. His wife called her a liar. The neighbors whispered. And when her stomach began to grow, she was thrown out into the street like trash. She returned home in silence. No pride. No plan. No hope. Now, here she was, in the same house where she had grown up, with a baby in her arms and shame too heavy to carry. She looked at her daughter again. The baby stirred in her sleep, a soft little sound escaping her lips. Mariam swallowed hard. She didn’t want to hate her. Deep down, she knew it wasn’t the child’s fault. But the truth was sharp and painful—she couldn’t love her. Not now. Maybe not ever. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again, her voice cracking. “You didn’t choose this. But neither did I.” She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater and turned her gaze back to her grandmother. The woman who had already carried too much. And now, Mariam was asking her to carry more. She couldn’t keep doing this. Something inside her broke that night. A quiet, dangerous thought entered her mind—one she had pushed away before, but now it settled in like a whisper she could no longer ignore. Maybe… maybe they would both be better off without me. ⸻ What Mariam didn’t know, as she cried silently in the dark that night, was that her grandmother had spent the day on her knees—literally. Earlier that afternoon, the old woman had walked to the edge of the village, past the fields and muddy lanes, to the place she never thought she’d return: Mr. Davis’s house. The same house where her granddaughter had lost everything. She stood outside the gate for over an hour before being allowed in. And when she was, she went straight to her knees on the polished stone floor. “Please,” she had whispered to Mrs. Davis, her voice shaking. “Please… even if she must work like a maid for the rest of her life, keep her. Keep the child. She has nowhere else to go.” Mrs. Davis stood tall in her expensive dress, her arms crossed, her face hard. “That girl ruined my family.” The grandmother’s voice cracked. “She didn’t choose this. You have children… you know what it means to protect them. I beg you.” Mrs. Davis didn’t answer. Instead, she threw a handful of salt at the old woman and shouted for the guards to remove her from the property. Mr. Davis stood in the corner, silent. Cowardly. Watching it all. Now, as the rain tapped softly on the roof, the grandmother lay awake. She hadn’t told Mariam what happened. She simply listened to her great-granddaughter’s soft cries through the night and let the pain press into her chest like a stone. The next morning, Mariam rose early. She told her grandmother to stay inside and take care of Jolyne. She claimed Mr. Davis had called her for work. But it was a lie. She had no appointment. She wasn’t needed. She simply wanted to try one more time—just once. Not for herself, but for her child. She had made a decision in the night. If Mrs. Davis would accept Jolyne—if there was even the smallest chance—she was ready to give her away. To sign the birth certificate, hand her over completely. Let her grow up in a warm house, even if it meant never seeing her again. Maybe this way, Jolyne would have a better life. A safer one. A roof, food, school. Things Mariam couldn’t give her. Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t hate her anymore if she knew her daughter was living comfortably. She wasn’t doing it for love. She was doing it for guilt. She was doing it because it hurt too much to look into her daughter’s eyes and see all the things she had lost. And because sometimes… giving up is the only thing that feels like giving anything at all.