At the company’s annual meeting, my wife’s youthful male assistant suddenly played an audio recording. He accused me of leaking company secrets.
Before I could explain my part, my wife stepped forward and bent one of my fingers backward until it broke.
“Robert! How shameless can you be?” she shouted. “I feed you, I support you, but now you stab me in the back?!”
The company's success today was entirely due to my hard work and dedication. My fingers were my whole-life.
I shoved Beatrice away, protecting my hands and glared at her through the extreme pain. “Beatrice, I never said any of those words in the recording. Do you really trust someone who joined the company barely six months ago more than me?”
“Syl never lies!” Beatrice cut me off sharply. “Robert, you always brag about your achievements. I’m sick of it. Since you won’t admit your mistake, I need to teach you a lesson!”
Before I could react, Sylvester grabbed me with a twisted grin and forced me onto the floor.
Beatrice then picked up a knife and stabbed it into the center of my left palm, then ground her high heel down on the wound.
“Robert, today I’m ruining your hands. I sure hope you'll behave yourself after this!”
I looked at my bleeding hands and spat toward Beatrice’s feet.
Fine. I swore her company wouldn't survive without my hands.
——
Unfortunately, seeing my anger only fueled her anger. Beatrice stormed into the office, grabbed the expensive golf club I had bought for her and rushed toward me.
“Beatrice, don’t—”
Before I finished, she swung the golf club down on my right hand. I could hear my bones snapped and with it unbearable pain shot through my entire body.
My right hand went limp like tofu and got completely crushed after the incident.
I had been drawing all my life. My hands mattered more to me than my own life. And Beatrice sure knew that.
With tears and rage filling my eyes, I struggled to take out my phone to call an ambulance. If I didn’t get treatment soon, I might never hold a brush again.
Using my injured left hand, I pressed the numbers slowly. “9… 1…”
Just as I was about to press 1, Beatrice kicked the phone out of my hand.
“You still want to call an ambulance after what you did? Robert, I paid your expenses even phone bill! Do you think I'd let you spend my money while betraying me?!”
Her company's biggest income came from my paintings. People were lining up every day willing to spend millions on my work and I rejected all of them. I only allowed my paintings to be shown at her company’s exhibitions.
Because of my art, her exhibitions had become impossible to get tickets for.
“Robert, apologize to Syl! Right now! Or you’re not getting any medical help today!”
I stared at my own wife whose life I had helped build up with my own hands. “Beatrice… my hands are my life. You know that…”
She glanced at my bloody fingers. “Of course I know. That’s why, if you want to keep your ‘life,’ you’d better apologize.”
Around us, my coworkers started whispering.
“He did something wrong and still acts so confident. Just because he has a little talent?”
“Talent? Without our company’s exhibitions, his paintings wouldn’t even be noticed. Breaking his hands will teach him a good lesson.”
