Page 19 - TEARS OF SUFFERING

TEARS OF SUFFERING

rush him to the hospital. Fortunately, the boy walked out
in a while with a minor injury.

Soon, Uncle stopped sending him to school. He kept the
boy at home to do the chores. He chastised the boy over
small matters. Wangmo could do nothing in fear of her
pugnacious husband. She bore the pain of seeing her
nephew suffer at her husband’s hand. She treated her
nephew as her son and it hurt her a lot to see him suffer.

When he couldn’t endure his uncle’s oppression
anymore, the boy devised a plan to abscond. One day,
Uncle was out-of-town. So, he grasped the opportunity
and approached Wangmo. “Aunty.”

Wangmo broke in. “Speak up, what’s the matter?” She
stroked his head in sympathy. “Tell me.”

“Please give me ten ngultrums.”

She gasped. “Why do you want money today?” She saw
the pain in his eyes as he blinked with tears. She
recollected the emotional turmoil her nephew had gone
through. Tears welled in her eyes. She brought out a fifty-
ngultrum note from the shelf and gave it to her nephew.
As a contrite apology for her husband’s aberrant
treatment, she gave him forty ngultrums more. “Here,
you are. Take anything you want.”

The boy frolicked. The highest amount he had ever
possessed was a twenty-ngultrum note. He thanked his

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