Warning: this story contains themes of abandonment, death, and sexual assault. Please advise before reading.

From behind me I could hear the sounds of the elderly woman cry out in shock. I could hear the sound of my child screaming from loneliness, or was it from the cold? I heard the sound of the elderly woman’s broom fall to the ground, followed by a loud gasp as she picked my baby up off the street. The elderly woman would take care of her. The sound of my child’s happy laughter confirmed that.

When I went back home the first thing I was asked was if I had “gotten rid of it.” When I told them I didn’t have “it” anymore my parents breathed sighs of relief. They didn’t throw me out, so I didn’t become like the young woman who called out to men.

But now I could never be like that young mother with her child; they had nothing, but they had each other. Strangely, for that reason alone there was a part of me that wished I'd become her. My child could also never become like those children, and now part of me wanted her to. If those had been our fates then at least we could be together. At least someone else would remember her.

Instead she became like the dead babies. Unknown. Forgotten.

I didn’t end up facing the hawker. No. From then on I avoided that street as much as possible. Yes, I was afraid of him, but I also couldn’t bear to see if my child was still there. I couldn’t bear to see the three children or smile to the young mother. I couldn’t even bear to scorn the young woman or pass by the abandoned infants.

Only now, years later, can I pass through the street. The echoes still surround me and for the most part I still can’t bear to stop. But now I don’t ignore the people there. I take in the scene of the crowds of people pushing each other to get to work. I see new children begging, new women sitting alone or with babies.

It’s been a while the hawker disappeared, taken to a place where he will never reach me again. He got taken away not for what he did to me, but for some other petty crime that will keep him away for a long time. Even if he were to come out, which my mother has predicted due to the lack of justice in this town, he would never dare catch me again.

Those three children aren’t there anymore either. Someone took them before I could stop and offer my hand to them. The young mother is also gone, vanished into the night with her child without a trace. The young woman’s body was found floating in the river last year. I regret to say that there was never much hope for her.

But the babies are still there. They keep coming every day. But now I don’t leave them. When I see them now I take them. The live ones I take to where they will be cared for. The dead ones I bury somewhere where they can sleep undisturbed.

I can never erase the pain in my heart, nor can I change the past. I can’t even get my child back. I can never see her again. I don’t even know if she is alive. That is the pain I will always live with. I will probably die before I find my daughter again.

The only other thing I can do is pray. I pray that the children will be safe. I can pray that the young mother has found someone to help her care for her child. I can pray that the young woman’s spirit will rest peacefully. I can pray that the babies will be safe in their new homes or be reborn from the ground where they were buried.

I can pray that my daughter will find the place where she was meant to be. She has a hopeful destiny, not a regretful fate like mine.

I know now that my fate is to do the things I didn’t do in the past. I’m never not afraid of fate, but now I can accept it.

That is my atonement to those whom I have left behind.