They said he wiped their savings out.
At first, the complicated birth.
Then weeks in natal ICU.
Then months of costly jabs and drugs.
And years of weekly check-up fees.
And finally, at eight years old,
The surgeon’s words were hard to miss:
“I’m sorry. Too much blood was lost.”

It wasn’t his “defective genes”.
It wasn’t his “retardedness”.
It wasn’t anything they feared.
He simply fell into a well.