But one night, during a storm, he came to me. Alba was asleep, snuggled under her favourite blanket and her Winnie the Pooh pillow. He kissed me on the neck and led me to our bedroom, and then he took off my pyjama shorts and T-shirt, lifting it over my ripe, milk-laden breasts. Kissing and sucking my nipples gently, then forcefully. I threw my head back and let him take me. I had missed him and I showed him how much. In the height of the storm, the curtains lashing against the open window, he pounded into me again and again. My hands grasped the window railings and I was reminded again that he loved me, I love you, I love you—our passionate cries drowned in the spattering rain.

Moments like that didn’t come very often. I was still adamant about not wanting a maid, so I cooked, cleaned, fed, nursed and tried to run the household as best I could. Omar and Fairman were getting larger contracts and their office of five staff had to double. He never told me much about the work they did, just that it involved the construction of expressways in and around the Klang Valley. He seemed happier, finally working with people in his area of expertise. Fairman took on the legal aspects of their contracts and Omar designed the structural aspects of the work, often coming home with rolls of blueprints. TMF Sdn Bhd was working out and the partnership flourished.

On some days, I struggled. I often wondered about the work and life I once had. The tear gas, the writing, the brittle anger we all shared: I missed it. Motherhood had robbed me of a life that I could never have again. My options were forever limited. There were times when I looked in the mirror and I did not like what I saw. My body had changed, my face weary and lined, my eyes sometimes sad. I did not know why. I was a wife and mother, and I was in a good place. I felt grateful, but there were times when I felt that cold, familiar emptiness. The world was a far more dangerous place. A child had transformed my existence, and I was afraid. Fear had crept in like an unwanted ghost, haunting the shell of tired existence, taunting me.