Chapter 2

Three hours.

Enough time for me to figure out what had happened during the sixteen minutes I was gone.

The disgust hadn’t yet faded from Ethan’s face when I voiced the question burning in my mind.

“I was only gone for sixteen minutes. How could you have a new family?”

“Sixteen minutes?”

Ethan grabbed my arm and threw me in front of the calendar.

“Look carefully. It’s 2032 now. You weren’t gone for sixteen minutes—you were gone for six years.”

My head buzzed. Only now did I understand what the aliens meant when they said everything would change.

But Ethan didn’t give me a chance to explain.

He pushed me down at Melissa’s feet.

“This is my wife now, Melissa.”

He pointed at the child in her arms.

“My son is already seven years old.”

“During the six years you were gone, I married the woman I truly love and had an adorable son. This is the life I wanted.”

His cold gaze twisted my heart into knots.

This man who had once sworn to the heavens he’d never leave me didn’t have a single word of concern. Instead, he told me that in the short six years I’d been gone, he’d married the woman he truly loved.

What was even more absurd was that the child was almost seven years old.

I took a deep breath, swallowing the bitterness in my chest, and said, “Since you already have a new family, then give me back mine.”

Ethan froze for a moment, then laughed mockingly. “Family? What family do you have?”

His contemptuous gaze infuriated me.

“I gave birth to our daughter. My father bought this house for me. How do I not have a family?”

Ethan pulled a death certificate from the drawer and threw it in my face.

“Look clearly, Clara. You died six years ago. These past six years, Melissa has been taking care of the child every day. In our daughter’s heart, Melissa is the only mother...”

“Impossible!”

I angrily cut him off.

“Our daughter was already eight when I left. I read her bedtime stories for eight years, fed her with my own hands for eight years, and when she had pneumonia, I stayed sleepless in the hospital room for three days taking care of her. I’m her mother.”

“I don’t have a promiscuous mother like you!”

A small figure rushed over and shoved me hard to the ground.

“You abandoned me for some man and made Grandpa so angry he died. You should’ve stayed dead out there. How dare you come back?”

Looking at the girl before me who resembled me by at least seventy percent, I trembled as I reached for her hand.

“Sweetheart, I didn’t abandon you. I was taken by aliens.”

My daughter, Lily, viciously shook off my hand.

“Aliens? Do you think I’m three years old?”

She affectionately took Melissa’s arm.

“Melissa already told me the whole truth.”

“You’re nothing but a serial cheater. The house is full of photos of you with different men. Someone like you thinks she deserves to be my mother?”

“Photos? What photos?”