There was this young mad girl who stopped me on the road and handed me a key, saying, “This is the key to the room where your husband locked up all your unborn children—that’s why you’re barren!”

That night, Christopher slept like a baby, but I stayed awake. His refusal to help me felt like a confession. My mind went back to that hotel, back to that little girl with the tattered hair.

The next morning, as soon as Christopher left for the office, I entered my car. I didn’t go to work. I drove for hours, back to that far distance where the seminar was held.

Everything was getting clearer now. My husband was hiding something, and that mad girl held the only light to my darkness.

I reached the hotel area and started asking people on the street. “Please, have you seen a young girl? She wears rags, her hair is dirty. She stays around here.”

A man pointing toward a bushy path behind a local market said, “Oh, the lunatic girl? She stays in that uncompleted building. But be careful, madam, she talks to spirits.”

I didn’t care about spirits. I ran to the building. I saw her sitting on the dusty floor, playing with stones. She looked up and smiled, as if she knew I was coming.

I didn’t act firm this time. I didn’t shout. I fell to my knees in the dirt, the tears flowing freely down my face.

“Please,” I sobbed, reaching out my hands. “I was wrong. I was blind. Please, little girl, I need your key. Give me the key to my children!”