They'd even taken a pen and jotted down a long list of reminders, leaving the notes on my nightstand. The way they fussed over every little detail, you'd think leaving was tearing them apart.
Jean wiped the corners of her eyes as she stepped out of the room.
"Jill, sweetheart, I can't bear to leave you, and I can't bear to leave the baby. But this illness won't wait. I just don't have a choice."
Brad wrapped his arm around my shoulders, his eyes rimmed red.
"Honey, I've already hired a postpartum nurse for you. The second Mom's better, I'm coming straight home. I promise. Not one extra day."
I nodded and watched them leave.
It wasn't until they were gone that something occurred to me.
The moment it did, I grabbed my phone and called my parents, asking them to come over right away.
They must have heard the urgency in my voice, because they arrived in record time.
"What's going on, Jill? You sounded frantic on the phone."
I didn't hold back. I told them everything in one breath—how Brad and his mother had conspired to deceive me, how they were really going to take care of his pregnant mistress during her maternity recovery.
When I finished, my father couldn't believe it.
"Jill, could this be a misunderstanding? Everyone can see how good that boy is to you."
"And your mother-in-law has treated you like her own daughter all these years."
"Why would the two of them team up to lie to you?"
"What if it's just a coincidence? What if Jean really is sick?"
My mother shut that down immediately. "Not a chance!"
"I saw her two days ago in the courtyard doing her line dancing. Two solid hours without breaking a sweat. That woman is healthier than an ox. Heart disease? Please."
"And Brad Delgado—when he married you, he knelt on those front steps until his forehead bled, swearing he'd treat you right. Now he has the nerve to gang up with his mother and pull something like this?"
My mother was furious.
But what I felt more than anger was confusion.
Because my father was right.
All these years, Brad had been nothing but good to me.
He was young, successful, and devastatingly handsome. There was never a shortage of women throwing themselves at him.
Even his boss's daughter had gone out of her way to pursue him, openly declaring that if Brad would be with her, the entire company could bear his name.
Brad hadn't so much as flinched.
He'd turned her down flat, offending her so badly that he'd nearly been blacklisted from the entire industry.
Even then, he never wavered. He looked me in the eyes and said:
"I can lose everything in this world. The one thing I can't lose is you."
As for Jean, she'd treated me even better than she treated Brad, her own flesh and blood.
One night I'd been hit with acute appendicitis. The pain was so severe I couldn't stand. Brad was away on a business trip, and it was Jean—in the dead of winter, through howling wind and snow—who hoisted my unconscious body onto her back and ran for miles to get me to the hospital.
That night, the cold nearly cost her both legs.
But she was so worried I'd blame myself that she gritted her teeth and never said a word.
It wasn't until Brad came home and saw that both her legs had turned black that he rushed her to the emergency room.
Even the doctor was shaken, saying she'd been gambling with her own life.
Jean had only smiled. "As long as Jill is okay, nothing else matters."
It was precisely because I'd felt their love so deeply, so genuinely, that I couldn't make sense of any of this.
What kind of woman could possibly make Brad—a man who loved me that much—and Jean—a woman who treated me like her own—betray me at the same time?
"Let's go. We're heading to the airport right now to see what the hell is going on."
My father shot to his feet, snatched his car keys off the table, and headed for the door.
My mother was right behind him, cursing under her breath as she went:
