On the ride back to the compound, I couldn't stop seeing it. Katarina's hand resting on her belly, that soft, glowing smile.

And then I thought of the fertility-suppressing poison Ermanno had been slipping me for three full years, disguised as protective medicine, and the grief was so thick I couldn't breathe.

Before today I had still been lying to myself. Even if Ermanno had deceived me about the medicine, it didn't mean he felt nothing for me. Maybe he simply didn't want children.

But just now, the way he'd looked at Katarina's belly. The way his voice had changed. He cared about that child.

I remembered something he'd said before our wedding. "Only two people who truly love each other should bring a life into this world together."

He had never loved me. Not from the very beginning. That was why he'd done everything in his power to keep me from carrying his child.

But if he felt nothing for me, why bother with the lie? Why keep it going for so many years?

I drifted back to our rooms like a ghost and threw every last thing connected to him into the fireplace.

The lovebird folding screen he'd given me. The rare books he'd hunted down from every corner of the city, first editions tracked through dealers and old debts called in. The countless letters we had written together, line by line, in the early years when I still believed.

I watched them curl and blacken, inch by inch, until there was nothing left. Only then did the pressure in my chest ease, just slightly.

No. Not enough. How could I have forgotten?

I stormed into Ermanno's study like a woman possessed and found it on his desk, right where it always sat. The journal.

He had started it the day we met. Every little thing I liked, every habit, every preference, collected drop by drop over the years. By now it was thick as a fist.

I opened the yellowed pages, and every word made my eyes swell with pressure.

Gioia has a sweet tooth and hates sour flavors. The kitchen must prepare a sweet dish with every meal.

Gioia gets cold easily. Have the fireplaces lit in her rooms by September.

Gioia is afraid of the dark at night. She likes to fall asleep in my arms.

I love Gioia so much, so much, so much. Remember: never let her cry.

They say the written word never lies. So how could all this love, overflowing from every page, be nothing but a lie?

I tore through the pages one by one, ripping without mercy.