Chapter 43

Rosen didn’t fight Emily anymore. She just continued to hide the money she had saved in a space under the floorboards. 

‘Yeah, let’s think about it again after the baby is born. Let’s delay our escape a little and convince Emily. What’s the big deal?’

Maybe a son would come out this time, because Emily said it felt like a boy. After Emily gave birth to the son Hindley had longed for, no matter how much of a dog he was, it would be quiet for a few months. 

Then in the meantime, Rosen would talk Emily out of staying. 

‘Are you going to raise a precious baby under Hindley? Escape will be much easier if Hindley becomes a little more demure.’ 

To be honest, she wanted to leave the child behind, but she would never be able to convince Emily if she did.

They could take turns holding the child. Couldn’t they transport a baby the size of a cat to Malona? If they held a child, people would pity them and help them more.

***

Spring passed, summer passed, and autumn had come. Emily’s stomach grew steadily. Emily breathed and walked carefully.

By then, her convictions grew stronger. As Emily had long wished, this time, it seemed that a living baby would be born. According to Hindley, Emily usually had a miscarriage within five months, but this time the baby survived seven months.

Seven months was almost the same as raising it, the neighbors said. Also, the attitude of Hindley, who snorted at her, saying she would have to carry another dead baby, changed. He cut down on alcohol and even picked flowers from the mountains for Emily.

“Rosen, don’t be jealous. She’s pregnant, right? I have to be nice to her.”

“Oh, yes.”

In the early stages of Emily’s difficult pregnancy, the man who used to drink excessively was showing off.

But Emily seemed content. She shyly told Rosen that Hindley seemed to have changed. Rosen could have told her his attitude would not last, but she just nodded. Emily was pregnant. She didn’t want to ruin her excitement.

Babies grow well when the mother is happy.

If the sky and the earth were turned upside down and Hindley really changed… Then she’d just have to leave this house. If that really happened, Emily and Hindley could live happily together for a long time. Of course, that wouldn’t be the case.

All day long, Rosen tended to the fireplace in Emily’s room so that she wouldn’t be cold, and secretly caught a chicken in the yard – no longer a cute chick – and made a stew. When Emily asked about the source of the meat, she said she bought it from the market.

When Hindley asked where the chicken had gone, Rosen shrugged and replied that the cat had killed it. Hindley hit her, but she accepted it. She wasn’t about to let the ignorant man know that the mother needed protein rather than an ugly wildflower.

“Rosen, do you want to touch my belly? The baby is moving.”

Rosen put her hand on Emily’s round stomach. She felt its movement. It felt strange to see the creature called a baby wriggle under her fingertips. 

That she’d have something to take care of soon.

“The baby will like you, too.”

Rosen became more and more attached to Emily. Emily’s affection was like a deep color of paint, and whoever she touched was dyed as well. Rosen was now more inclined to take the baby than to leave it alone. It would be annoying, but it would be impossible to keep the child away from Emily.

She thought it would be a little annoying if there were a kid who looked like Hindley, but she also thought it wouldn’t matter if Emily was happy. She was not going to beat up Emily’s baby. What else could she do?

Even the child of Hindley Haworth needed Emily. She didn’t really want to judge whether it was Emily’s real wish or the result of years of brainwashing to have a baby. The baby was already forming, and it was innocent.

“What should we name it?”

“…Not yet. I’ll decide when it’s born.”

“Are you still anxious? Seeing the momentum of the baby kicking, it will cry loudly even if you take it out of your stomach right now.”

Rosen laughed as she sewed the baby’s clothes. 

Emily smiled faintly.

“It’s the first time I’ve carried a baby safely for so long. I don’t think I should get excited… It’s not easy to be as happy as others. Everything is going well, so I’m rather anxious. Do you know what it feels like to be insecure because you’re so happy? Hindley has been nice to me lately.”

Emily grabbed Rosen’s free hand and spoke again. Emily rolled up her sleeve and gently stroked her arm, which was covered in bruises from beatings. It wasn’t made by Emily, but she cried as if she had done it herself. After she got pregnant, Emily rode the ups and downs of her emotions.

“Rosen. I’m sorry I hit you when I first met you. I was so angry at that moment that I was out of my mind. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I know.”

“It’s funny. Now I can’t imagine what I would have done without you.”

Rosen laughed. She hated Hindley, but she didn’t regret marrying him. Because she met Emily. 

Emily was the only one she could call a friend, and the only one who truly loved her throughout her life.

Thinking of how she met Emily through Hindley, she could always tell the disgusting lie of ‘I love you, Hindley’ without blinking.

“Me, too.”

“…”

“Me, too, Emily.”

Rosen loved Emily. Looking back, it was the first and last pure love she had for someone. It was a clear and transparent affection with no point of selfishness.

That was why she just couldn’t leave Emily next to Hindley. Even if Emily loved Hindley more than she did, even if she said she didn’t want to leave his side, Hindley would definitely beat Emily to death one day.

Someone said that true love makes the other person live the way they want, but…

At least her love wasn’t that kind of thing. Emily looked calmer than ever, but she didn’t intend to leave her alone. Rosen didn’t want to wait for the day she gave up and died.

She always thought when she looked at Emily’s belly. She wanted the baby to come out soon. If possible, a quiet baby that resembled Emily a lot.

***

Rosen started her first period that fall. She wiped the evidence away with a cloth, alone. She didn’t want to upset Emily, who was about to give birth. Emily was the first wife, and she was the second, though it was nominal.

Moreover, after she started her period, she had only had s*x with Hindley once.

She didn’t know if it was difficult for a pregnant first wife to stay in the same house and eat with the second wife or if it was just because of her age and her lack of energy. She thought the latter was likely. Anyway, Hindley hardly touched Rosen after Emily was pregnant.

Rosen never used contraception. She didn’t even know how to. Emily didn’t teach her either. Maybe it was because she didn’t bleed when she was supposed to and her body looked so immature.

Rosen also knew that if she had s*x after she started her first period, she could have a child. But it was really just once. A very brief relationship that didn’t last more than three minutes, in which Hindley penetrated her while she was sleeping, pressed it in with force, and then withdrew.

Ignorance sometimes brings tragedy. One might call ignorance a sin, too. But she didn’t want to. It could be frustrating and suffocating, but it couldn’t be a sin.

There were unavoidable things in the world. Rosen didn’t even want to think that it was her fault. Even if the whole world criticized her… she didn’t want to do that. She did nothing wrong.

Because no one taught her. Because she didn’t know what she needed to.

***

In the winter, when she was sixteen, Emily gave birth after sixteen hours of labor. The child was a boy, as Hindley had hoped, but his heart had stopped by the time he came out. Hindley couldn’t change his nature, so he had gone to the racetrack that day, drank alcohol, and stayed out. He must have been the last in the neighborhood to know that the child had died.

Emily cried for a very long time, and didn’t let Rosen into her room, so she sat in front of her door and wept together.

Hindley returned late at night and swung his belt. He smashed furniture, shouted, and cursed them as ‘useless b*tches’. Rosen was hit terribly that day. It was to stop Hindley, who tried to break Emily’s closed door with a hammer.

She couldn’t help it. She couldn’t let a mother who had lost her baby less than a day ago be beaten mercilessly. 

Rosen grabbed Hindley’s leg and screamed.

“Are you human? Are you still a human being, you son of a b*tch? Even a beast knows that a female who gave birth is precious!”

“So she had the baby?”

“D*mn, then you give birth! You give birth to the son you want so much!”

“This b*tch pretends to be meek and finally reveals her true nature? I’ll kill you! Open the door, and I’ll kill you!”