There was this young mad girl who stopped me on the road and handed me a key, saying, “This is the key to the room where your husband locked up all your unborn children—that’s why you’re barren!”

“I’m home!” he shouted from downstairs.
I ran down the stairs, my breath coming in short gasps. “Christopher? I thought you said it’s a three-day conference. Why are you back all of a sudden? It’s only been one day.”

He looked tired, his tie was loose, and he didn’t give me his usual warm hug. He just threw his briefcase on the floor. “The meeting was canceled, Gracie. Why are you looking at me like you’ve seen a ghost? Aren’t you happy I’m back?”

“I am happy,” I said quickly. “It’s just… I was cleaning the guest room upstairs. Chris, do you have the key to that large wardrobe? I wanted to clean the inside, but it’s locked.”

Christopher stopped moving. He didn’t look at me. “Why do you want to clean it?” he asked, his voice cold and flat. “That wardrobe is old. I don’t have the key.”

I stepped closer to him. “But I thought you’re the owner of this house? You’re expected to have every key here. How can a whole wardrobe be locked in our home and you don’t know where the key is?”

He turned and looked at me with eyes I didn’t recognize. There was no love in them, only a strange, sharp anger. “Gracie, stop this. I can’t be searching for a key right now. That is the least of my worries. Go and fix dinner.”

That night, Christopher slept like a baby, but I stayed awake. His refusal to help me felt like a confession. My mind went back to that hotel, back to that little girl with the tattered hair.

The next morning, as soon as Christopher left for the office, I entered my car. I didn’t go to work. I drove for hours, back to that far distance where the seminar was held.

Everything was getting clearer now. My husband was hiding something, and that mad girl held the only light to my darkness.

I reached the hotel area and started asking people on the street. “Please, have you seen a young girl? She wears rags, her hair is dirty. She stays around here.”

A man pointing toward a bushy path behind a local market said, “Oh, the lunatic girl? She stays in that uncompleted building. But be careful, madam, she talks to spirits.”

I didn’t care about spirits. I ran to the building. I saw her sitting on the dusty floor, playing with stones. She looked up and smiled, as if she knew I was coming.

I didn’t act firm this time. I didn’t shout. I fell to my knees in the dirt, the tears flowing freely down my face.

“Please,” I sobbed, reaching out my hands. “I was wrong. I was blind. Please, little girl, I need your key. Give me the key to my children!”