His Mistress's Puppy Over Our Dying Son

"Ms. Abbott, your son's having a heart attack. He won't make it. Please come to the hospital right away!"

For one second, the whole world went silent. I fell as if into a pit of ice, every drop of blood in me running backward.

My mother came running through the rain, only to be thrown fifty meters by a truck that had lost control. She died on the spot.

I knelt for a long time in the corpse-pale light of the hospital corridor, my son's cold little body in my arms, my mother lying broken in front of me. My heart felt like it was being torn in two while I was still alive.