332 Many Nights

Lina's ears began to ring. Her eyes filled with tears of betrayal, her heart beating fast like drums in her chest, and the rug yanked from beneath her feet. She looked her grandfather dead in the eyes and saw the ghost of a man she knew.

'Grandpa,' a little Lina asked on his lap, young as she could be. 'Why can't I learn the same things as Mila?'

'My dear chatterbox, you are destined for much greater things than Mila. Your fate will not be that of a housewife, you are to be as free as the wind.'

Shackled with chains of marriage, was that what he was referring to? She had visions of his tender stroke on her hair, his aging fingers shabbily tying ribbons in her pigtails, and his gentle laughter when she curiously tugged at his white beard. Now, she looked the man who set her fate dead in the eye and could do nothing, but choke.

"Lina…"