2: 2
Two hours later, my friend put three years of Abner's statements into my hands.
"He didn't love her all that much, from what I can tell."
"He gave Bianca a supplementary card. She could spend on it, but couldn't pull out cash."
"Over five million in three years."
"The mistress has no property in her name and barely anything in her accounts. The house, the cars, all of it is in your husband's name."
Three years. More than a thousand line items.
I read down them one by one, and every draining fight we'd ever had finally traced back to its source.
When I was hospitalized with pneumonia, he said he was away on business and couldn't come.
He was actually out surfing with Bianca.
Through the darkest stretch after my mother died, he said the company was at a make-or-break point and couldn't spare him.
He was actually following Bianca around the country, chasing her favorite singer's concerts.
Every moment I needed someone beside me, he was standing beside another woman.
More than a thousand line items, and only one was paid for me.
An ordinary Tuesday in March.
Abner had made a special trip to a luxury store to buy me a bag that cost two hundred thousand.
Because of that gift, the feelings that had been frozen between us for so long thawed for once.
That night we even had a rare, harmonious night as husband and wife.
Lying in his arms afterward, I asked him what had made him think to give me a present out of nowhere.
The answer Abner gave me was:
"Do I need a reason to buy something for my own wife? I just wanted to make you happy."
I didn't understand it then.
I understand it now.
That day he'd gone with Bianca to her prenatal checkup.
He'd found out he was going to be a father.
Abner was so happy, so happy he wanted to pass that joy on to someone else.
So he bought me a bag to cheer me up.
Quietly sharing the joy of becoming a father for the first time.
Thinking of the pleasure of that night.
I felt so sick I nearly threw up.
The child in my belly seemed to sense it, pressing against my belly to comfort me.
"Daddy's bad. We don't want Daddy anymore."
"From now on I'll protect Mommy."
I checked into a room at a five-star hotel, spent the whole night organizing the evidence and storing it away safely, then took my time going home.
I'd been gone barely a day, and the house had already changed completely.
Every one of the wedding photos of Abner and me had been taken down, replaced with Bianca's maternity shots.
Right now, she was wearing my pajamas, sitting with her legs crossed on the leather sofa I'd picked out myself.
Asking Abner in a coy little voice:
"Between me and your wife, who looks better in this?"
Abner slid his arm around Bianca's waist, lifted her foot, and kissed it.
"Her face isn't even as soft as your foot."
"So who do you think looks better?"
Bianca nestled into his arms, laughing so hard she trembled.
I hadn't meant to disturb them.
At heart I'm still a traditional person, after all.
I understand the principle that the dead deserve deference.
But my mother-in-law suddenly blocked my path, looking down on me as she said:
"Your own belly can't do its job, so don't hold up the Gilbert family from carrying on the line."
"From now on Bianca is the most precious person in the Gilbert family. Stop hovering around her."
"If you upset the baby, I won't let you off."
Bianca curled into Abner's arms, tipping half her face into view with a playful look.
"Auntie, don't blame Celine."
"I'm sure Celine wants a baby too. She's just too old to conceive."
"Once a woman hits a certain age, it's not just the outside that goes old. The inside stops working too."
She kept giggling and giggling.
Abner bent his head, holding her with doting tenderness, as if he'd quietly signed off on this humiliation.
I gripped the armrest, and all at once I was fed up.
Why we still had no child after eight years of marriage, Abner knew better than anyone.
The first four years we were building the company together.
He said we couldn't afford distractions in the early days.
I miscarried three times in a row.
He knelt on the floor and washed my feet, swearing he would never fail me.
By the fifth year we had money, but he and I had drifted into different time zones.
We'd become the most familiar strangers in one house.
Even this pregnancy came only on the back of Bianca's.
The laughable part was that no matter how my mother-in-law humiliated me, Abner didn't say a single word for me.
I didn't want to say more, and turned to go back to my room.
But my mother-in-law chased after me, relentless.
