Secrets- Chapter Three

How could Diana stop the shame that had filled her for over twenty years of being spilled out now? What would be her next step? A step that one would think it over, debate it in her mind, and come up when the exact right words; and was definitely the kind that would not be contemplated, yet simply would be taken, like a casual thing. As she deliberated in her mind for a solution, her senses, which had gone frantic up to that moment, gradually returned. She looked around to all those people, whom their curiosity had made them all to look like hungry wolves. However their hunger was with their own kind of pride and vanity. It was not that they were identified by any specific ambition or aptitude to break away from the baffled path in a calculated attempt toward individuality which would be entirely awkward.

Somehow, Diana looked at these people as though she was seeing beneath their skin their wicked souls. She thought: "Why should they know of something that I am not proud of and in fact very ashamed of? Why must this senseless mistake of so many years passed, which I had no control over it, now had to come to haunt me?

In this crowd, she detested three people positively, Ed, for his vanity and love for money and power, Thui for her stupidity in general, yet smartness to cling to a powerful lawyer, older than her father for her personal gain, and all the rumors around that she had done something terrible in her home country, and Tim for his cruel honesty and his love for ruining other people's lives. If someone told her then that Tim had planned all these, she had the suspicious that it was true. However, she loved Rosa, who had arrived her house as a guest and she had never met her before, and now turned out to be her stepdaughter. She also loved Jacob, her husband, in spite of the great secret he had hidden from her for so long.

But now, right now, her integrity, her life, her name, her marriage, and everything that people thought of her and she thought of herself were on display. her reputation was challenged. She was not even a devote Christian to pray for a miracle. Besides, the essence of religion belief did not depend on reason; and her reason had not anything to do with wrong doing or immorality. It had been only a mistake, being in a wrong place at a wrong time.

Inevitably, since then, she had never forgiven herself for it. How could she? Even though she had had no control over it. She had thought that this disgrace would never be discovered by others. Now she was entirely the victim of this man's boundless inhumanity. What she needed was some kind of generosity of the human heart. She began to feel a bitter distaste for this man, Tim; but her disgust was mostly out of self- ridicule and fault.

After the dreadful stillness, now everyone seemed exasperated, every one was standing up. But there was one among all, whose questioning eyes Diana wanted to avoid. That person was Jacob. She began, trembling, wanting some fresh air. Her voice, she realized was dead.

To Be continued