Chapter 67

• [ZARINA]
• It’s surprising how rarely I think of my mother these days. Back in the orphanage, it used to be a constant voice in my head, an alarm to wake up every morning, and a lullaby that compelled me to sleep.
• That woman abandoned me when I was just weeks old. A person has to have a heart of stone to do something so cruel, right? All those years, from one custodial to another, I imagined every circumstance, reason, and excuse for her to not want me. And each of them hurts just the same. The most sensible reason of all, and which also seemed to be the most common for most of the kids in the orphanage like me, is that I might have been a child conceived before the marriage. It makes a bit of sense than any of my other imaginations. It makes me want to hate her less.