She sat there, legs crossed, hands neatly folded in her lap, and talked to the groom and the bride. “Congratulations,” she said, with a sweet smile. The groom and bride grinned so widely that the edges of their lips may have hit the tips of their eyes. The groom and the bride would start creating their life together. They would buy a comfortable apartment. The groom would start his own financial business while the bride would launch her own clothing line. After a year or so, their son would be born. A happy family is in their future. And this bothered her.
She works at the same place I do; we take care of children at the Tristitia DayCare Center. I don’t know her very well; she seems to like to keep to herself. She doesn’t smile much and likes to sit at the window when the children are sleeping. We seldom speak to each other. Its okay though because the silence is a comfortable one.
After work one day, while we were cleaning up the center, she excused herself to use the bathroom. After twenty minutes, I went to check on her to see if she was okay. I heard soft crying noises. “Are you okay?” I asked. She just started to cry louder. Great.
I stooped down in front of the door, waiting for her to calm down. We sat there, on opposite sides of the door, only with the sound of her crying and blurred sound of cars zooming past the daycare. I think we were like that for about fifteen minutes until she stopped crying and sighed.
She opened the door and came out of the bathroom, her nose and eyes red. She sat down next to me.
“Hi,” I said, smiling at her. She tried to smile back, but I only got a slight lift of the lips.

“Have all the kids gone home?” she asked. I nodded, and we continued to sit in silence. After a while, I decided to take a chance to ask her what was wrong.
After a moment, she opened her mouth and slowly began to speak:
“There’s a reason why closets are dark; why doors can be locked; why pillows muffle your words; why blankets can cover you from being seen. And there’s also reason why tissues are endless; why pills can be swallowed; why blades can cut.”
“It takes all the pain away from something that you feel guilty about even when you actually didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t mean for it to happen. I feel so stupid. I told him I forgive him, but how could he forgive himself so quickly? How can he pick up the pieces of his life again while I can’t?”
She stopped talking after that, with a grim look on her face. I then sat there with her for a while, allowing her time to calm down. It shocked me that all of a sudden, she broke down. And to my surprise, she spoke again: “The new boy who came today is their son.” After that, she stood up and walked away, cleaning up the room. I left the room, without asking any questions. It seemed like she would rather be left alone that afternoon.
After, everything was fine. We took care of the children, only saying things like: “When do you think the children should take a nap?” “Oh, probably around twelve-ish.”

The week passed, and I was waiting with the children outside for their parents. She was back inside with the baby, since it was too cold for it to be outside. When all the children had left, I made my way back into the building.

I was about to walk into the room, but I stopped at the doorway. She was standing in the middle of the room, holding the baby. She looked at it grimly, caressing it with her thumb. Her movements got stronger and stronger as the baby’s wails became louder and louder. A purple bruise began to take shape on the baby’s skin.

I let her keep going until the point of the skin getting bruised. I didn’t say anything because I understood that what she told me is something you may hear everyday, but sometimes it comes to the point where you feel like giving up.

You must understand too, right? You must understand it when someone dear to you cuts the red string holding you both together. It feels like you're truly lost, swimming in a murky lake, and trying to find something to hold on to before you lose yourself and tumble.
When she set the baby down back in the crib, I cleared my throat and walked into the room. I started putting the toys back into the bins, while she started to shelve the picture books. We didn’t say anything to each other. Silence was enough.