The winter frost covered the earth, which was hardened with the dark frost. The cold air made Neda shiver through each limb of her body. Her outward life was uneventful, mostly boring; but that was not the case of her inner life. She found herself standing on the pick of a vast rock, uncertain of her isolation from all human. The fact that she was pregnant was laughable to her. To her it symbolized the righteous stance she was dying to achieve. Sometimes she felt the baby; it was like something was tickling her from inside. She had no one to share this thrill with. It was a different kind of ecstasy she had not known before. Was she falling in love with her unborn baby? She was not sure of that! She never knew that sensation. No hypocritical meaning was attached to this new ardor. It was pure and simple. Her own soul nowadays was simple, which only led roaming by a passion that was foreign to her. Would she about to acquire the habit of giving her heart and soul to this baby that she did not ask for it, but she had paid a high price for it?
She recalled her father's talk with Mansour when she had seen him for the last time. She could not believe that her father had told this ordinary and practical man very unconventional and unpractical things. She had thought that her father was not distinctive after her marriage but not before; but he now again had become exceptional after she heard him say:
"Her love for you was so great that she could have done wonderful things; and even the things that were never dirtied her! You received this lovely gift, while you did not have the graciousness to sustain it. You're small and unimportant. From now on you can do not one good thing because you never looked at life the way you should. You crushed my daughter's loveliness with your stinking pride!"
Neda was bewildered by her new emotions. Her father had defended her in such a beautiful manner; and yet he did not talk to her or checked on her in her room ever since the divorce. What had she done that her father who defended her so wonderfully, did not want to talk to her? Was it her return? Was it her pregnancy? But on the final analysis, her father did not have even a good relation with his second wife, Sima these days! She knew it because Sima would spend a lot of time with her and would tell her secrets about her life with Jalal.
But the most puzzling thing to Neda these days was her emotion towards the baby she was carrying, whom at the beginning, she had despised. She had delightfully had signed the divorce paper and even waved her visitation right. She knew no matter what, according to the law, Mansour would have the baby unless he denied his right. But mothers had always visitation rights. She remembered that her father asked her:
"Are you sure you don't want to visit your child?" Her answer was a firm no. Why was it then that she dreaded the day that the baby would be born and she had to hand it to Mansour and his new wife? Would Mitra, Mansour's wife, would be a good mother to her baby? Would he be a good father to her baby?
To Be Continued
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