After love

WHEN THE RAIN STOPPED

By the time Mariam reached Mr. Davis’s home, the rain had returned—not pouring, but enough to soak through her sweater and drip from her eyelashes. She stood outside the large metal gate, her soaked shoes sinking into the muddy ground. She waited.

An hour passed. Then another.

Still, no one came to the gate.

Behind her, the neighbors began to gather. First in glances. Then in whispers. Then in voices that weren’t meant to be quiet.

“She has no shame…”

“After everything Mrs. Davis did for her?”

“She seduced her boss and came back pregnant. Bad omen, that one.”

“No wonder her own mother left her.”

“If I were her, I’d hang myself. But she’s a witch—shameless.”

Each word struck Mariam like a stone to the chest. Her knees felt weak. Her tears mixed with the rain, and still, she stood. She wanted to scream the truth—but what would that change? No one cared about truth when it came from a girl like her. An orphan. A servant. A body, not a voice.

Finally, the gate creaked open.

She entered slowly, shivering, clutching her hands together to keep from shaking. Mrs. Davis was lounging on the couch inside, warm and dry. When she saw Mariam, her smile vanished. She rose to her feet, heels clicking across the marble floor.

Without a word, she slapped Mariam so hard she dropped to her knees.

But Mariam didn’t cry. She had expected this. She’d lived with it before—slaps when no one was looking, harsh words when guests were gone. To the world, Mrs. Davis was a kind, generous woman who had taken in an orphan. Behind closed doors, the mask slipped.

Mariam looked up from the floor, her face stinging, and reminded herself—This isn’t about me. This is for Jolyne.

She stood slowly. Mrs. Davis raised her hand to strike again—but this time, Mariam caught her wrist in midair.

“Don’t,” she said, her voice calm but steady. “Not today.”

Mrs. Davis stared at her, stunned.

“I know how you want the world to see you. But if you hit me again, I will ruin that image. Every secret this house holds—every illegal deal you and your husband whispered behind those walls—I have proof. I will take it to the police, to the press, to whoever will listen.”

Mariam’s voice didn’t shake.

“Adopt Jolyne. Raise her as your own. I’ll leave with my grandmother, far from here. No one will know. You’ll go back to playing the good woman. And I’ll disappear.”

Mrs. Davis’s eyes narrowed. But in them, Mariam saw fear—and understanding.

A pause. Then a nod. “Bring the child tomorrow. Early. And take this—start a new life with your grandmother.” She handed Mariam an envelope of cash, her lips curled into something almost kind.

But her thoughts were already elsewhere.

Mariam must die.

She would never risk her perfect life—not for a girl like her.

Mariam left the house that day with shaking legs and a strange flicker of hope. She had done it. Jolyne would have a warm home. A future. Maybe even love.

But fate wasn’t done with her.

Just around the corner, as she stepped out of the estate’s gates and onto the wet street, a black car sped around the bend—too fast. Too close.

The last thing Mariam saw was a blur of headlights and the sound of tires skidding on soaked pavement.

Then—nothing.

Just like that… Mariam was gone.

One moment she was walking through the rain, soaked but still breathing. Still hoping. The next, her body was lying still on the side of the road, surrounded by shattered glass and silence.

She didn’t scream. She didn’t have time.

Her last thoughts were quiet ones—of her daughter, of her grandmother, of the choices she would never undo.

What if I hadn’t come?

What if I just lived with the shame and held on to them instead?

She never got her answer.

She died in regret.

⸻

Back at the Davis house, Margaret Davis closed the curtain and turned away from the window without a flicker of emotion. She didn’t need to look again. She already knew what had happened.

Her husband stepped inside minutes later, face pale, his collar still wet from the rain.

“It’s done,” he whispered.

Margaret nodded slowly and poured herself a glass of wine. She didn’t thank him. She didn’t even look at him.

“You brought this on us,” she said coldly. “You couldn’t keep yourself in control, and now we almost had a scandal. Do you realize what it would do to your company if people knew you fathered a child with the housemaid?”

Mr. Davis sat down, silent, soaked in guilt.

Margaret’s eyes sharpened. “I’m going to raise that girl. She’ll be my daughter now. Jolyne Davis. But I want no trace of Mariam. No funeral. No mourning. And that old woman—her grandmother—will disappear quietly.”

Her husband swallowed hard. “And if she doesn’t?”

Margaret sipped her wine. “Then she’ll follow Mariam.”

Outside, the rain had stopped.

But something colder had just begun.

The knock came just after noon.

Mariam’s grandmother was rocking Jolyne in her arms, humming a soft tune with no words, when she heard it. Something in the rhythm felt wrong—too urgent. Too final.

When she opened the door and saw the village officer standing there, hat in hand and eyes downcast, her breath caught in her throat.

“Mariam,” he said quietly. “There’s been an accident.”

⸻

She didn’t remember how she got to the hospital. She just remembered the feeling—her heart pounding louder than the wheels of the bus, the weight of Jolyne pressed tightly against her chest, and the icy silence of strangers who watched her cry but said nothing.

When she arrived, they led her into a small, cold room.

And there—beneath a thin white sheet—was Mariam.

Her baby. Her pride. Her pain. Her granddaughter.

Lifeless.

The scream that escaped her body was not loud—but it was deep. Ancient. Like something had been torn from the earth.

“No… no, no, no…”

She clutched Jolyne tighter. The baby, as if sensing everything, began to wail with a voice far too loud for her tiny lungs.

The grandmother begged the police to check the traffic cameras, to find the car that hit her. “She didn’t die by chance,” she pleaded. “They killed her. They made her disappear.”

But no one listened.

No footage was found. No driver came forward. No apology was offered.

She didn’t want revenge. She just wanted someone to kneel beside her granddaughter’s grave and say, I’m sorry.

But the world gave her nothing.

A small burial was arranged three days later. Quiet. Unnoticed. No flowers. No priest. Just the sound of dirt hitting wood, and the endless cries of a child too young to understand what had been lost.

Just like that…

Mariam never woke up again.