Your husband hasn't touched you in a long while. It is not from want of trying on your part. Several times, you have attempted to start afresh with him by just putting your hand in his. But he yanks aways so fast, as if withdrawing from a pile of dung.

The road to his heart has eroded away. You would teleport right into it if you could. You would fix him if he'd only let you. You would walk the length of earth for him. You would do whatever it takes.

Just as you have always done.

Your husband toys around with his dinner. You are not an exceptional chef but there once was a time when he ate your food with gusto. Now your food is a bitter taste in his mouth. You are a bitter thought in his mind. A bitter love in his heart.

Sighing, you call his name softly. He answers you with the most cliche look a husband can possibly give a wife. He answers like he doesn't know you anymore. He is staring at you as if at a stranger. As if he is committing your face to memory for the first time, then instantly forgetting it.

"I'm ovulating," your voice shakes as you announce your desire to take the massive leap. When the first miscarriage happened, you kept telling him that you could try again. You'd get pregnant a hundred times just to make him happy. He insisted he did not want to put you through the misery.

It is the most painful conundrum. Wanting to suffer for someone who doesn't want you to suffer and all there is, in between, is love.

You never told him about the abortion you had when you were young and foolish. You really thought you could hide it forever. Through the first miscarriage, while he smiled and put a ring on your finger. Through the second one, while he wept on your shoulder and praised you for being strong. Through the last one. With the liberal gynaecologist urging you to confess on the real reason why your uterine walls were irreparably weak and could not hold a foetus.

"It was just one abortion!" You tried to defend yourself when the truth was finally out.

“I don't care if it was one or hundred. You should have told me.”

“I didn't want you to look at me different!”

Your husband shrunk. Receding from your grasp like the waves from the sandy shore during low tides.

The gynaecologist proffered surrogacy.

"No," you said, your eyes shining with stubborn hope. "We will try again." Your husband was silent. He has not touched you since then.

He rises up to clear the table. He carries the dirty dishes to the kitchen sink. You walk up to him and hug him from behind. You press yourself so tightly to him that you can feel the thumping of his heart. The up and down heaving of his chest. You press your nose against his back and drag in a breath.

You know you will never let him go.

He knows that too.

He does not push you away this time. You are like a rope coiled around a statue. He just turns the faucet on, and begins washing the dishes.