Trials

My soon-to-be mother-in-law took me into her arms. She was short, thick, and sturdy. She wrapped her arms around me tightly; my chin sat on the top of her head. She looked up at me with wet eyes and kissed my cheeks; hers were warm with tears. She spoke softly to me in Russian and Kazakh. I began to cry. I cried out of fright, though everyone thought I was crying out of happiness. I knew him and I had gone too far. We were betrothed. I was his and he was mine, but not in the same sense, as I was now his mother's.