I walked over and put the groceries down on
the table: “You’ve been taking care of him for
fifteen years; you should take care of him
until he’s eighteen.”
Jake was clutching onto the table, looking
helpless: “Then what about you? Aren’t you
going to care about him anymore?”
“He was willing to get rid of his life just so
that you could be with Sarah. And when we
came back, we said that we would stay out of
each other’s lives.”
Jake’s face turned pale: “Then stay for
く
dinner, and we can talk about the other things
later.”
He looked at me hopefully, and said it in a
ruthless manner.
I squeezed the phone in my hand and said:
“Okay.”
His tight face finally relaxed, and he turned
around to prepare dinner.
I turned on my phone and sent a message to
Chris.
A half an hour later, he put the courses on the
table.
He put on gloves and held out a crawfish in a
dish: “You used to peel these for me; I can
<
peel these for you from now on.”
But he didn’t know that I was allergic to
seafood.
As he peeled, he said, “The company is going
well, and Sarah isn’t going to be back. We
aren’t even thirty, and if you like kids, we can
have another one. You can bring him up if you
want, and if you’re tired, we can have
someone else help.”
Alex had been lowering his head, but tears
were streaming down his face, and he didn’t
dare make a noise.
I put the chopsticks down: “Jake, you should ask for Alex’s opinion. Does he want a little brother or sister? Next, I don’t want to get
back with you.”
く
The crawfish fell into the dish, and he tried to
win me over.
“Alex was adopted, so he doesn’t have the
right to tell me if I should have a kid. I was
tricked by Sarah, so you can’t hold that
against me. I’m doing well now, so stay with
me, and you can be the woman of the house.”
I looked at him; I couldn’t understand it.
Why was he so confident that I would stay
with him?
“You’re twenty–eight, not eight. You’re an
adult. Now that you’ve made a decision, you
have to pay the price. You told me not to
regret it, are you going to go back on your
word?”
His face got darker and darker. The air was
as cold as an ice cellar.
At that moment, the doorbell rang.
Alex got up: “I can go open it.”
I also got up and rushed over to the door.
Chris was at the door.
He grabbed me and stood in front of the two
of them.
“It’s getting late, and I’m here to take my
Karen home.”
Jake didn’t say anything; he just looked
seriously at a point.
He was looking at the wedding ring on the
fourth finger of my left hand.
Chris had a matching ring; when we got
married, he designed a lot of things, and I had
someone help make them.
The ring wasn’t a designer ring or a special
ring, but it was unique.
Six years had passed, and it had been worn
away.
Jake’s face darkened, and he looked closely
at me, saying one word at a time: “Where’s
our ring?”
“I threw it away.”
The first day that I came back, I threw it in
the trash.
The ring had lost its romantic label; it was
just a pretty rock.
Jake couldn’t help but get angrier, looking at
Chris.
“Do you know that the woman behind you
used to be my wife?”
Chris squeezed my hand and we smiled at
each other: “Really? I recommend you get a
CT scan, I think you’re sick.”
After we got home, my son hadn’t gone to
sleep.
When he saw me, he ran over to hug my
hand: “Mom, dad said that it wasn’t safe for
you to be out so late, so he wanted to go pick
you up. I wanted to go too, but dad didn’t let
me.”
I looked at Chris, and then rubbed my son’s
face: “Dad just wanted you to go to sleep so
that you could go to school.”
Parents shouldn’t put their issues on the kids,
even if they’re young.
After my son went to sleep, I asked Chris:
“Aren’t you curious as to who that person
was?”
“After the Mid–Autumn Festival, I thought that
something was different, I don’t know what,
but you seemed more emotional and
homesick.”
Г
“And that kid. I knew he wasn’t just a friend’s
kid.”
I touched his nose: “I didn’t know you were so
thoughtful.”
He pulled me close: “You know I studied art.
I’m allergic to romantic feelings.”
