A Second Chance With Him

Synopsis

In December 1983, my own father traded me to an aging, unmarried man from the next village for thirty pounds of grain, forcing me to become his wife. Back then, I risked everything to run away, but my father dragged me back, broke my leg, and sent me right back to him. I endured twenty long years trapped with that man and gave birth to a daughter. He saw the child as a useless burden and never even let her eat her fill. When I was forty-one, that winter, I collapsed by the pig pen with a bucket of slop and never got up again. I died all alone, with no one by my side. My daughter was just twelve, with no one left to care for her. I only learned what happened next after I passed away. Yonathan Horatio, a disabled ex-soldier with a permanent limp whom no local family would ever let their daughters marry, paid for my funeral arrangements. He took in my unwanted little girl and supported her through middle school until she graduated. He never married for the rest of his life and passed away alone in an empty house at sixty-one. This time around, on this exact day, I made no attempt to jump off the cart, tried no escape, and did not shed a single tear. When the cart reached the junction on the edge of town, I stepped down. I walked straight to the armed forces department to find Yonathan. I would ask him to marry me, and in return, I would heal his injured leg.