In the Name of Love

"Young lady, whose bastard is that inside you?" "Don't you know any shame? Is this how I raised you?" The living room was warm, yet a cold sweat broke out across my back. I stroked my swollen belly, looked at their outraged faces, and suddenly let out a low chuckle. "You really don't know?" Father crushed his cigarette butt savagely into the ashtray, sparks flying up before dying. "How would we know what shameful things you've been up to out there?" "The kidnappers," I said softly, my voice like a snowflake landing on a hot iron plate. "Don't you remember? That year the kidnappers took both me and Liza. They wanted a 500,000 ransom. You only scraped together half, saying 'save the real child first.'" My parents' faces instantly froze, like the surface of a frozen lake. They even seemed to forget to breathe. "Later, you took Liza back. The kidnappers kept me for three more months." I touched my belly, fingertips registering a faint flutter of movement inside. "Did you really think I escaped on my own?" But none of that mattered anymore. Because I was going to die.