My mother always said, "Anna, never burn a bridge because you never know when you may need to use it to cross somewhere again."

She was right.

I always thought myself no more than a nobody but the friends you make can surprise you. When I first started teaching at the school it was nothing more than a few village children who needed basic mathematics and reading. I gave them what I could, trying my best to stay ahead of the brighter ones, but eventually I realized I needed more help.

We took on another teacher, a man. It was unusual since most men worked in the fields but he came highly recommended and Lord Grantham thought he was the best choice to fill the needed positions. We struck up a kind of friendship. It was congenial and necessary since we worked in such close quarters with one another. But, at the end of the day, I only saw him as my friend.

He saw me as something more.

I try to forget the details of what happened that night. He was drunk, I remember that, and sometimes I can still smell it in my shadowy nightmares when I am not careful. I still remember the feeling of powerlessness at it all. And I feel conflicted when I remember the joy I felt hearing he had stumbled on the train platform and been crushed under its wheels.

I thought it was over. Thought maybe there was nothing more to it than a bad memory. But when my stomach grew, when my monthlies stopped, when I could feel the change in my body growing another inside me I knew it was not over.

Lord Grantham, feeling some kind of horrible guilt for what was not his fault, took it upon himself to help me. He had a friend, living in India, who needed an instructor for his children. I had the proper qualifications and I needed a place far away from where I was. We agreed, I needed to be somewhere no one would know my story. Where no one would judge me for what happened. Where no one would look twice at my son.

That is why I boarded a boat. I took my son, still learning to speak English, across the world. I risked death, disease, and destitution… while still on a boat, to find a better life for us. To give him a better life.

Some might ask why I kept him, Why James is still in my life… the only answer I can give is that what happened was not his fault. And, in my more selfish moments as I comb back his darker hair when his eyes that mirror mine are shut in sleep, I realize that I kept him because without him I would always be alone.

No one wants a woman who brings another man's son with her.

So there we were, my son holding tightly to my hand while the porter loaded our meager belongings into a rickshaw, looking on a world so far from our own. A world where no one looks twice at us except for our skin. A world where we could start anew and pretend who we were before is no longer who we will ever be again.

A place far away from everything I ever knew… but I like it better that way.