Page 49 of The Book of Heartbreak

‘When I came home from work they were nowhere to be found. I pushed the door open, and then I saw the wall. I knew it, then. I knew she’d confronted Iris, despite how much I’d begged her not to do it.’

She never listened.

Perhaps it’s Munu speaking in my head. You’re heading into darkness .

My teeth chatter. I’m already in darkness.

‘S-she was not in her room. T-then the earthquake started and I . . . I bolted outside to search for them. I cut through the crowds. Couldn’t find them anywhere.

I couldn’t find them.’ Muzaffer sways, elbowing the glass which tumbles from the desk and, without smashing, rolls across the hardwood until it reaches my feet.

I can’t tell if he speaks to me any more, or only to himself.

‘Sare. Canim.’ I hear Munu’s voice, though I cannot see her. ‘Leave him. Walk out. This is not your tragedy.’

Perhaps I’m going mad. Perhaps the curse plays tricks on me. Munu sounds so close, but I scan the library and there’s no one other than Muzaffer and me here.

‘I returned home—’ A vein throbs in Muzaffer’s neck.

He’s so pale, his skin almost transparent.

‘I climbed up to her room. She was there, alone. She wouldn’t speak.

I begged her but she wouldn’t speak. Catatonic.

What could I do? She was pregnant. I couldn’t shake her.

And then he came. He came. Ozan. Azlan—’

I move back and forth on my seat. Panic covers my mouth like a hand.

Words won’t come to my aid any more. The questions that burned me for months now lie dead at my feet, shot down by the answers.

I want to shout at Muzaffer, tell him to stop.

I want to walk out and leave him alone with his tragedy, but I can’t move.

‘He told me everything. He had been with them. Iris . . . Iris summoned your mother to the Maiden’s Tower.

They fought and he just watched without intervening.

He was . . . wrong in the head. As if he wished to be two different men with my girls.

I never understood what they saw in him.

But Iris . . . she was so in love, so reliant on him – she needed him more than her sister did.

Or so I thought. I didn’t know what would become of letting her marry him.

Didn’t know he continued to string your mother along.

He was always so . . . manipulative. He even fooled me.

I was the fool, Sare.’ Muzaffer sniffs, tears now flowing down his cheeks.

There’s something soul-destroying in his silent cry.

‘“Not my fault,” he said, the night Iris died. As if he hadn’t played with my girls like a cat plays with mice.

He didn’t even try to comfort your mother.

She was there, crumpled up, crying, while he just shrugged.

“This was her fate,” he said. “You can’t change fate. ”’

Everything Muzaffer explains seems to make the air thicker and unbreathable.

My mother was there when Iris died on the night of the earthquake. She was fighting with her for my father. Fate – how convenient for him to blame something so untouchable, so impossible to fight back against.

There must be a splinter in my throat because I still can’t find my voice.

‘Iris died that night. She died and I died, and your mother died. You know who walked away alive? Your father . . . He left. Never to be seen again.’ Muzaffer pauses to wipe his tears. ‘Had your mother only listened to me, and left for the UK without confronting her sister . . .’

‘You tried to send her away?’ I can barely believe it.

‘Before, yes. I wanted her out from under Ozan’s influence.

And away from Iris, at least until I could sort things out, remove that man from our lives.

I bought her the house in Cambridge, set up accounts for her in the UK.

’ His eyes sharpen but then quickly dull again.

‘But she thought I just wanted rid of her. She said she wouldn’t leave without him.

I tried to talk sense into her. But it enraged her.

Do you know what she said to me? “He loves me more than he loves Iris.” I couldn’t understand what had got into her.

How could a person do this to their own sister? ’

‘Liar,’ I lash out again. ‘Mum wouldn’t have done it! She wouldn’t sleep with her sister’s husband.’

But even in my denials, even though I cannot bear to admit it, I know he’s telling the truth.

Daphne’s restlessness. The way she wanted to hurt everyone around her.

How she punished herself. The life she lived in exile, alone, away from the home she missed so dearly.

It wasn’t only the curse. It was my mother’s atonement.

Iris, Iris, Iris, Daphne murmurs in my head. Why do you still haunt me?

The fluttering spreads through my ribs.

Rule number three, I recite. Death is not an option.

I will not die , I reassure myself. I will not die.

Iris died. Daphne died. I will not die.

‘You think she was a monster.’ My pulse pounds in my throat. ‘But she wasn’t. She was sad. She was so sad.’

‘I never said she was a monster.’ The chair squeals as Muzaffer swivels it round to see me.

‘I never thought she wished for any of that. There were days I wondered if she was hypnotised, possessed – she wouldn’t listen no matter how much I begged her.

Neither Iris nor your mother . . . They didn’t listen. ’

Channel sorrow into rage, I urge myself. But I find only despair in my heart. He’s a frail old man, and I’m a fool.

‘Sare,’ I hear Munu again. This time, she’s more determined. ‘Look at me, Sare. Look down. I’m here.’

I look down and see her on the floor, a reflection inside the glass Muzaffer dropped.

‘Distract yourself,’ Munu says. ‘Walk out.’

I shake my head. ‘Leave me alone.’

‘You don’t like hearing the truth, do you?

’ Muzaffer, oblivious to Munu’s presence, tries to rise, perhaps to challenge me, but his hands slide off the table’s edge.

‘But it is the truth. She pressed Iris to divorce. She drove her sister to a breakdown. She had no shame in demanding him for herself.’

He wavers, seeking support. I don’t rush to his aid. His eyes are wild as he watches me, but, drunk as he is, he still recognises me. The name ‘Iris’ doesn’t slip between us.

‘It’s he who is shameless. He’s the one who favoured one woman over the other.’ Munu’s voice rises in vain to enrage me. ‘Your mother was only twenty-one years old. Who doesn’t make mistakes at that age? Be angry, Sare. Do it for your mother.’

‘S-shut up!’ I lash out at her.

‘I told you, didn’t I?’ Muzaffer laughs, or cries, I can’t tell any more. ‘You should’ve left it alone. We all made mistakes and we paid the price.’

‘What about Iris?’ My voice is low. ‘Did she have any shame when she stole Daphne’s boyfriend? Did you have any when you let them marry?’

‘I didn’t know. Do you think I’d have let it happen if I did?

Your mother didn’t say a thing until I figured it out.

Still she wouldn’t stop seeing him. He was a disease for her.

I told her it wouldn’t end well. But she wouldn’t listen.

She wouldn’t listen.’ Muzaffer’s eyes are red-rimmed from crying and still the tears slip down his pale cheeks.

‘She has a name,’ I say. ‘But you don’t have the guts to say it, do you?’

I brace myself for his wrath but he must have none left. He blinks, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

‘Say her name!’ I can’t contain my scream. ‘Say it!’

‘Defne,’ he groans in the end, as if he’s just remembered her name. ‘Defne.’

He says it again, and again, bolder, louder, agonising, inhuman.

My mother’s name elongates as he wails. Time stretches between us.

I’m stunned, recognising something I know so well. Too well.

A heartbreak.

It comes down on us both, pouring through his tears, punching my chest. How did I fail to see how much sorrow he contained?

The mask he wears wasn’t anger, it wasn’t a grudge, it wasn’t that he resented Defne.

It was his broken heart and, of all the people in this world, it should have been me who recognised his burden, when I’ve lived all my life under the shadow of the very same thing.

Muzaffer, like me, tried to toughen himself with anger. But what use is there in being angry all the time?

The fluttering hits me like a current now.

Rule number three, I command myself as Muzaffer is lost to his own agony. Death is not an option.

I lean over his desk and pull the box towards me.

‘Sare!’ Munu’s reflection hisses again. ‘Walk out of this room now!’

‘Don’t you dare talk to me,’ I whisper at Munu. ‘You’ve cursed us all with your bitterness, you blamed Mum for your own mistakes!’

Breathe, Sare, Munu says, or perhaps the voice is in my head. I cover my ears with my hands. Calm down.

‘Calm down,’ Muzaffer repeats, caught off guard by my outburst, staggering as he steps forward.

‘Stop!’ Munu calls out, but Muzaffer unknowingly kicks the glass away in trying to reach me. Munu shrieks as it rolls across the floor. I ignore the rest of her pleas and focus on the box.

Muzaffer halts abruptly as I turn the key and lift open the lid.

Letters. The familiar return address scribbled in Mum’s handwriting.

I count five, transfixed. Unopened, unreturned, unforgotten.

I don’t have the guts to tear them open to see what words Mum poured into her seventeen years of silence.

I can’t bear shouldering the weight Muzaffer avoided carrying.

Yet, abandoning them feels unfair. She had something to say. I need to know what.

‘Please,’ Muzaffer begs again. ‘Don’t.’

I stare at him, unmoving. I want to open them.

I want to dismiss him and do what I need to do.

But the sting of ignoring his first warning presses down on me, making me falter.

It’s unstoppable. It’s relentless. It’s cowardice – what I know the best. Slowly, I take a step back.

Then another. And another. Until I’m running – from the old man, from the room, from the house and everything that binds me to the haunting past.

Subject: Bestest News!

Date: 7 August 2025

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

My dear and most hardworking partner Leon,

No matter how this message finds you, I guarantee it will leave you better!

M1274856567048112 – the poor, plagued soul – finally agreed to meet me, and once I tell her the truth about my discoveries, she will surely agree to cooperate against he whose name I cannot type in an unencrypted email.

Unfortunately, I can’t share the explicit details with you, not yet, as it is against the Fate Adjustment Bureau policies. The last thing I need is the Compliance Office on my back!

More information to follow.

Your passionate partner in crime (this is what you mortals say, isn’t it? Not that we’re committing any crimes, of course!),

Grey