Chapter 2

On the way to the airport, my mom messaged me again.

"Your dad is going to pick you up. Oh, there's something I think you should know."

"What?"

She sent a photo—a hospital test report with Bernard's name on it. The examination date was three months ago.

The report showed: she had taken mifepristone and misoprostol within a month—the drug combination used to terminate pregnancy.

I gripped my phone tightly.

My mom sent another message: "She had an abortion three months ago. I don't know whose child it was. Did you ask her?"

I stared at the word "abortion" on the screen.

Three months ago was before our eighth divorce.

During that time, she treated me well. She came home on time every day and even cooked on weekends.

One night, she suddenly asked me: "Do you want children?"

I was stunned, thinking she was just asking casually.

Later I found an obstetrics appointment slip in her coat pocket.

That night I bought flowers and a cake and waited for her to come home.

When she saw the cake, her expression changed.

"You went through my things."

"I didn't mean to. I saw it when I was doing laundry."

She was silent for a long time, then said: "The baby is gone."

I wanted to hold her, to tell her it was okay, we could have another one.

But she pushed me away and said: "That child wasn't yours."

When she said this, she didn't look at my eyes. She stared at the cake on the table, her gaze empty.

"The child was Costa's—that intern whose eyes looked like yours."

"You know what disgusts me most about myself? Even when I betray you, I can only find someone who looks like you. Even when I make mistakes, I can't betray you completely."

That night she moved to the guest room. I sat in the living room all night without sleeping.

When morning came, I asked for a divorce.

She nodded. She didn't try to keep me. That was our eighth divorce.

Later she came back, said she'd fired that intern, said she'd never make the same mistake again.

I believed her. Then we remarried for the ninth time and divorced for the ninth time.

From beginning to end, she never told me whose child it really was.

Now, looking at the report my mom sent, I suddenly didn't want to know anymore.

Whoever it belonged to didn't matter anymore.

What mattered was that she never intended to tell me the truth.

I messaged my mom back: "Not going to ask her."

"Why not?"

"I'm tired."

After sending that message, I turned off my phone too.

We arrived at the airport. I dragged my suitcase into the terminal.

The electronic board displayed: To New York, 23:45.

Twenty minutes until the flight. I found a seat and sat down.

Next to me was a young couple. The girl leaned on the boy's shoulder. "When we get to New York, I want to eat roast chicken."

The boy said: "Okay, you can eat whatever you want."

The girl looked up at him. "What about you? What do you want to eat?"

The boy smiled and pinched her cheek. "I want to eat you."

The girl blushed and playfully hit him.

I watched them, remembering how many years ago, Bernard and I had similar conversations.

Back then we'd just graduated, broke as could be, renting a basement apartment for six hundred dollars a month.

She worked as a salesperson at a small company. I worked as a site supervisor at a construction site.

Life was hard, but every night when she came home, she'd bring me fried chicken from a street vendor, saying: "Eat up, I already ate."

I knew she was lying. She saved money to buy food for me while she became skin and bones.

Back then I held her and swore to myself that I'd give her a good life.

Later her company grew from a three-person workshop to an enterprise with hundreds of employees. She became a lady boss.

Everyone said she married down when she married me.

She never cared. Whenever someone said that, she'd hook her arm through mine and say: "Who says that? My husband is the most handsome."

When she said this, her eyes were bright. There was light in them, shining only on me.

Then came the car accident.

That afternoon she drove me to see the ocean. Her phone kept ringing in the car—calls from the company.

I told her to answer. She said she wouldn't.

She tilted her head and smiled at me. "Today I'm only with you."

Sunlight fell on her profile. I reached out to block it. "Don't look at me, watch the road."

Then that truck came at us.