Chapter 1/ Part 4 Joyce Reveals Shana's Backstory
Joyce don’t say anything to them please. Promise me you’ll behave there.” Joyce’s mother insisted.
“How can you ask me to keep quiet, how can you Mom? You did nothing to help Shana. You knew what they did to her was wrong, but you did nothing. You are her Aunt for God’s sake! Don’t you have any duty towards your niece?
“She is their child, I had no right to interfere. Since they forbid you to meet Shana, you know very well that even we were no more welcome in their home. My own sister treated me like a pariah.”
“Shana and I were only ten Mom! We just had a few drags of cigarette. We were kids. They overreacted and separated us. Didn’t you realize then they were not normal parents.”
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“I will be leaving the job. I am taking a break.”
“My husband was gay. This is not a secret but that you were the lover is still not known. What are your intentions? Shana continued.
“I want to go away, just go away.” The secretary blurted. “I want nothing from anyone.”
Shana thought. It had been a week since her husband’s death. She had spent the week in silence reflecting on her husband, who had never been her husband. She hated him for making her life miserable, hated him for being dishonest, and hated him for his cruelty. He had made her pay for his unhappiness. Hatred was terrible.
Outside the room, her late husband’s family were baying for her blood. They wanted the fortune. She told the secretary to request her father in law and father to come inside. She wanted to speak to them privately. Both men came in, old and decrepit. Her father in law was in tears. He was shaking. Her father was consoling him, two old men who had once thought that the joining of their two families had been a grand idea. Shana waited for them to sit down then mercilessly attacked him.
“When did you know that your son was gay?”
Her father in law gasped. Her father looked