But I was wrong.
The hardest part began after the hospital, when people looked at me with pity and whispered the same question everywhere I went:
—How will he live now?
My husband was arrested. The court punished him. People said that justice had been served.
Calculators and reference tools.
But justice didn’t help me get dressed.
He didn’t help me eat.
It didn’t stop me from waking up at night trying to reach for hands that were no longer there.
Many people thought my life was over. They expected me to sit in a corner, depend on others, and become a sad story the town would whisper about.
But he had already lost too much.
I refused to lose myself too.
So I started again.
Slowly.
Painfully.
I learned to use my arms and elbows. I learned to dress myself, cook, clean, wash, and carry objects in ways that people didn’t think were possible.
At first they looked at me with sadness.
Then, to my surprise.
And finally, with respect.
Linguistic resources
I didn’t want to beg. I didn’t want people to feed me because they felt sorry for me.
So he walked up to the mountains.
