After hearing my words, my dad’s face darkened.
He reached out and pinched my cheek. “I believe you.”
With that, he turned and charged upstairs. That posture didn’t look like he was going to catch someone, but fight for his life.
Mary’s face went pale. When she failed to stop him, she could only stomp her foot and cry out, “Honey! The most important thing right now is sending our son to the hospital!”
However, my dad was someone who could tolerate anything except being cuckolded.
What was a son’s broken leg compared to his pride?
He didn’t look back and went straight upstairs.
Of course, he came up empty-handed. The man had already slipped away, but the unfamiliar scent of men’s cologne upstairs was so strong it was choking, lingering no matter what.
Mary, of course, came prepared. Her tears flowed instantly, and right there on the spot, she pulled a beautifully packaged bottle of men’s cologne from her bag and cried softly.
“Honey, I bought this especially for you. I wanted to surprise you…”
No one believed her excuse.
However, my dad had no evidence.
The ambulance arrived with a wail and took Ethan away. Before getting into the vehicle, Dad stared hard at Mary and squeezed out a few words through clenched teeth.
“If I find out some wild man caused my son’s leg to break, I’ll make sure his entire family pays!”
I was anxious but powerless, knowing how skilled and prepared Mary was. I couldn’t beat her head-on yet and could only wait for another chance.
At the hospital, Ethan cried in pain nonstop.
I immediately rushed to the bed, grabbed his little hand, and choked up. “Ethan, don’t cry. Your sister’s here.”
Maybe the fall had stunned him, or that my usual fake kindness had worked. He subconsciously leaned into me. “It was Lucy who saved me.”
My dad praised me from the side, calling me well-behaved.
However, when he saw Ethan’s leg wrapped in plaster, he couldn’t help sighing, muttering, “At least it didn’t cause more damage.”
With no evidence of who opened the yard gate, my dad could only keep a suspicious eye on Mary.
Mary, meanwhile, acted as gently and obediently as possible, insisting it was because the gate was old and had loosened on its own.
And just like that, the matter passed without much resolution.
After we returned home, Mary treated me unbelievably well. She personally cooked barbecue ribs for me, bought me pretty new dresses, and even tucked me in at night.
She was so gentle, as if I were her biological child.
Watching all this, my dad’s suspicion gradually faded. He probably thought that even if a woman had done something wrong, for the sake of the children and the family, she would eventually settle down.
But I knew better.
The more she acted like this, the more it proved she had a guilty conscience. She was desperate to wash the filth off herself, just so she could dump it back onto me later.
I was also waiting for her true colors to show.
Despite all my precautions and calculations, I still underestimated how vicious she was.
That weekend, early in the morning, Mary sent me back to my second-floor bedroom to do homework, while she pushed the sleeping Ethan out onto the second-floor balcony to get some sun.
I lifted my head from my workbook. The unease in my chest grew.
Sure enough, at the exact moment my dad pushed open the front door, a loud crash echoed from the stairwell, followed by Mary’s piercing scream.
“Ah! Lucy! How could you push Ethan?!”
My dad’s steps stopped abruptly. As he looked up, he saw me standing in the second-floor hallway, while Ethan, with his wheelchair, lay overturned at the bottom of the stairs on the first floor.
