I hung up with the buyer, and then the calls from my workers started coming in.
Every one of them wanted their pay, terrified I'd skip town on them.
If I weren't already so hardened, reality would have crushed me a long time ago.
I clenched my jaw, swallowed the lump in my throat, and told them I'd get their wages to them later.
By the time the call ended, I realized I'd already walked out of the hospital.
Rain the size of rice grains pelted down on me. I stared at the road ahead and felt utterly lost.
After my father left, I was afraid people would look down on my mother, so I studied twice as hard, pushed myself to be the best.
It was the only way I could protect the two of us.
But all that effort only made me a thorn in Tristan's side. He turned everything into a competition with me, a quiet war.
And when he couldn't win, he stooped to the lowest tricks, using the people I loved most to destroy me.
The most urgent thing now was to pay back the buyer and get my workers their wages.
But I didn't have much money left. My only option was to sell the house that was mine before the marriage.
When I got home, my mother was bustling around inside.
Setting up a nursery, hanging festive decorations everywhere.
Her own son had just been gutted, and not once had she come to the hospital to check on me.
So this was what she'd been doing at home instead. Decorating for a celebration, getting ready for Cara to give birth to Tristan's son?
I came in soaked and disheveled, and she looked up at me, humming to herself.
The moment she saw my wet clothes, her first reaction wasn't to ask if I was all right. It was to hurry me back out the door.
"Oh, come on! Why would you track yourself in here dripping like that?"
"Get out, quick, don't dirty everything I just set up for my grandson."
She shooed me out to the doorway, and I laughed, a bleak, hollow laugh.
A house I'd paid for with my own money, and I wasn't allowed inside.
Just so I wouldn't stain the gifts for Tristan's bastard.
The rage rose in me slowly, curling up from somewhere deep.
I strode back in, and she snapped at me, furious.
"What are you coming in here for again?"
"Are you deaf?"
"Get out. When Cara and Tristan come home carrying my grandson and see you've messed up everything I worked so hard to set up, they'll be upset."
The moment she finished, she picked up a pomelo leaf and started swatting it at me.
"You've had nothing but bad luck lately. I'm afraid you'll pass it to my grandson."
"So I want you to stay away from this house for a while."
I knocked the pomelo leaf out of her hand, my chest full of fury.
Seeing me like this, so unhinged, she actually turned her face away, guilty as a thief.
My eyes were bloodshot as I closed in on her, step by step.
I backed her into a corner with nowhere left to go, then spoke, my voice thick with grief and hate.
"You're in such a hurry to get rid of me because you're afraid I'll see the baby doesn't look like me. It looks like Tristan, doesn't it!"
My mother froze, her eyes darting, unable to meet mine.
That was exactly how she used to look when she'd done something wrong and knew it.
"What are you babbling about? Doesn't look like you, looks like Tristan, what nonsense is that?"
"I just meant you've been so unlucky lately, you'll bring bad luck down on your own son!"
When I heard that, her reasoning made me laugh out of sheer disbelief.
But as I laughed, the tears came without my noticing, sliding down my face.
"Why have I been so unlucky? You should know that better than anyone!"
My mother still didn't dare look at me, guilt written all over her.
I was out of my mind with rage, and I nearly roared it at her.
"Because the one who framed me for cooking the books was you. You reported me, just so Cara would have a reason to fire me!"
"And the fish in my pond, you poisoned them, every last one, to back me into a corner so I'd never claw my way back up again."
"If it had been anyone else who did this to me, I wouldn't be in this much pain."
"Why you? Why would you do this to your own son?"
"All for Tristan? A worthless thing born to your lover, and because you didn't want him jealous, didn't want him killing himself, you'd do this to me?"
