When I walk through the marketplace, silence follows me. Not the kind of silence born of peace—but the sort that hums beneath whispers and stares. The air tastes of smoke and gossip.
“Have you heard?” one woman murmurs as I pass the fruit stall. “Tailor Durden’s daughter is with child. No husband, no wedding, not even a promise ring.”
Her friend’s voice snickers behind her palm. “Truly? I always thought her too proud. Perhaps pride isn’t all she’s good at.”
They think I do not hear. But I do. Every word cuts like a needle through thin cloth.
I keep my chin high, my basket steady on my hip. The market is crowded, the sun fierce, and still the chill of humiliation clings to me.
I walk past them as if they are ghosts, though I feel their eyes burning holes in my back. I tell myself that their words cannot harm me—but they do. Each whisper is a stitch tightening around my heart.
At home, the world is gentler. Father never once raised his voice after learning the truth. When Ysabet told him, he sat very still, his weathered hands folded in his lap.
“She’s my daughter,” he said finally, quiet but sure. “Whatever she’s done, whatever she bears, she remains my blood.”
I wept that night, unable to understand how love could still exist after disappointment. But Father only brushed my tears away.
“We will manage,” he told me. “You and I, we always have.”
Weeks blur into months. My belly begins to swell, slow and secret at first, then visible for all the world to see. Father insists I rest more, though I still mend and sew beside him. I cannot stand idleness; it feels like guilt made flesh.
One evening, I sit sorting the pile of finished garments, folding sleeves that smell faintly of soap and lavender. Father speaks quietly with a man near the front counter—a merchant I recognize from the next town over.
“I heard things,” the man says, his tone slick with disdain. “About your daughter.”
Father looks up slowly. “And what of it?”
“She carries a bastard child,” the man sneers. “And you let her live under your roof? I’d have sent her off long ago. No good comes of women who lie with men they cannot name.”
I freeze behind the curtain, the linen slipping from my fingers.
Father straightens, his jaw set. “Careful, friend. My roof shelters my daughter because I love her, not because I judge her.”
The merchant scoffs. “Love blinds. It’ll ruin you.”
“Then let it,” Father says simply. “If ruin is the price of love, I will pay it.”
The words strike me harder than the insults ever could. I press a hand over my mouth, swallowing the sound that threatens to escape. When the door finally closes and the man leaves, I sink onto the stool, shaking.
Father finds me a moment later. “Lara,” he says gently, “do not listen to them.”
“I bring shame,” I whisper.
“You bring life,” he corrects softly, cupping my face in his calloused hands. “The two are not the same.”
***
Spring passes into summer. My father works harder than ever, refusing to let me lift anything heavier than a spool of thread. “You must let your body breathe,” he reminds me daily. “The world will give your child its strength if you stop trying to steal it away.”
I smile, but I still work. My hands have always found comfort in motion.
Yet I notice how his breath grows shorter with each week. His cough deepens, his shoulders slump. When I beg him to rest, he only smiles and says, “Old men cannot rest, my dear. We unravel if we stop.”
Then the fever comes.
At first, it’s a small thing—a sniffle, a tremor. But the village is already sick with it. By the week’s end, half the street is silent, shutters drawn, smoke from the burning herbs rising like mourning banners.
Ysabet visits daily, her eyes shadowed. “He is strong,” she says, though I see doubt flicker in her face.
Father tries to joke through his coughs. “Do not weep, Lara. The gods won’t take me before I see that child of yours.”
But the fever does not listen to him. One morning, I wake to find the fire cold and the air still. I call his name. No answer. When I touch his hand, it is cool against my palm.
Something inside me breaks—not with a sound, but with a silence so deep it feels like the whole world stops breathing.
I lay my head on his chest, hoping for a heartbeat that never comes. “Please,” I whisper, “don’t leave me.”
Ysabet arrives moments later. Her expression tells me everything. She closes his eyes and covers him with a clean sheet, murmuring words I cannot hear through the ringing in my ears.
The days that follow blur together: people come and go, murmuring condolences; someone lights candles; the sky never stops raining. I feel hollow, barely human. I work without seeing, eat without tasting, speak without hearing myself.
***
And then—pain. It starts in the middle of the night, sharp and deep, tearing through the fog of grief like lightning through storm clouds. I cry out before I can stop myself.
Ysabet rushes in, her dreads bound with twine, her eyes fierce and steady. “It’s time,” she says.
“I can’t,” I choke out, clutching my stomach. “He’s gone—Father’s gone—”
“And so he’ll live in her,” Ysabet says firmly. “Now breathe.”
Hours pass in fragments—sweat, pain, gasps, her calm voice anchoring me through every wave. I think I scream his name once, maybe twice.
When it’s over, there’s silence again, broken only by the smallest sound I’ve ever heard: a cry, soft but certain. Ysabet places the baby in my trembling arms. She is small, red-faced, alive. I stare at her, hardly believing she is real—her tiny hand curls around my finger as if she’s known me forever.
“She’s beautiful,” Ysabet murmurs, brushing my damp hair from my face.
I can barely form the words. “My father… always said if I ever had a daughter…”
“Yes?”
“…to name her Mira.” I smile weakly, tears spilling over. “Let her name be Mira.”
Ysabet nods and strokes my hair with a tenderness that aches. “Then Mira she shall be.”
I look down at the baby again. Her eyes flutter open for a heartbeat—greenish, bright, familiar. My breath catches, but before the thought can take shape, exhaustion pulls me under.
The last thing I hear before darkness takes me is Ysabet’s voice, low and certain. “Rest now, Lara. The world has taken much, but tonight, it gave something back.”