My breasts leaked milk for days; I refused to pump them because I wanted to feel some measure of pain, until I woke one day and could not move my arm. My right breast had swollen to the size of a small melon, it was taut and hard and my nipple looked a giant prune, ready to explode. I latched on the pump and winced in pain as the milk spurted out into a milk bottle, which I then put in the freezer, next to the other frozen bottles of milk.

My days were empty. Omar was kind, he tried to be, but I was silent from shame, remorse. I waited for those words—Why did you leave her? But they were never said. The papers dug into us. The fact that we were activists once, that we campaigned for Anwar and Keadilan, the fact that I was a journalist for The Review and Saksi, had all come under scrutiny. I knew Omar was on the verge of bigger government contracts. So, he threw himself into work, as men do in time of crisis.

One day we sat and listened to each other, and I told him over and over again what happened, I told him of my exhaustion, the fact that I went to get “those biscuits”, the fact that I was planning dinner in my head, the fact that that goddamned supermarket was the safest in town! The fact that I had left her for less than a minute, and that she was there, right there, how could she have disappeared?

He sat head in his hand, then stumbled into her room and started hurling things around. Her pillows, her toys, clothes. Why? Why? Why? The whys weren’t a concern. Was she still alive? Who had her? Was she hungry? Was she safe? Was she afraid?

Those were the questions that drove me to the verge of a cliff so high, with winds so bitter and strong, and the abyss that loomed below got deeper and more sinister by the day. I was sinking into a place that was inhabited by creatures of the id, so dark and impermeable that my waking hours were trolled by images of the most gory of demons to inhabit the human mind. I spoke to no one for days. Unanswered calls from Sumi, Marina, my father, all went to voice mail, my handphone beeping endlessly with its flashing eye and then going silent.

Until one day, the doorbell rang, and rang, and then came a series of furious knocks.

Hello! Puan Delonix, tolong jawab pintu. Ini Polis Diraja Malaysia! Tolong bukak pintu!