I'd barely stepped outside when my phone rang.
It was Sophia's mother.
"Graham, what's the meaning of this? You think you can push my daughter around? If you don't come back and apologize today, I'm not through with you!"
I hung up. Five steps later, it rang again.
This time it was my mother.
"Hey, Mom."
"Son, you called off the wedding?"
Her voice was already breaking into a sob.
"Your father told me everything. How could you do this? Sophia's such a good girl, and you… you're trying to put me in an early grave?"
"Mom, she wanted to—"
"I don't want to hear it! Go apologize, now. I'm begging you. This sickness of mine… I was counting on your wedding to turn my luck, and now you pull this and it's flaring up again…"
For a moment I didn't know what to say.
Mid-stage liver cancer. She'd been in bad shape the whole time.
"Son, I can't breathe. You… you get to the hospital right now…"
I heard her gasping down the line, and then my father snatched the phone away and roared loud enough to shake the room:
"Graham! You listen to me, and you listen good! You go apologize to Sophia this instant! Or don't bother coming home! I don't have a son like you!"
"Beep—"
I rushed straight to the hospital.
In the ward, my mother lay in the bed with an oxygen mask strapped over her face, her skin a waxy yellow, her lips cracked.
My father sat at the bedside. When he saw me come in, his eyes went cold as knives.
"So the ungrateful brat still knows how to show up? You think your mother isn't sick enough already?"
I went to the bed and looked at her. Her eyes were shut, her breathing quick, her chest heaving.
"Dad, where's the payment card?"
"In your mother's bag. Find it yourself."
I opened the bag she'd left by the bed and found the payment card. Just as I was pulling it out, a business card slipped out with it.
A few words were printed on it: Hengtong Law Firm, Ellie Simmons, Attorney.
Ellie Simmons.
A month ago, I'd overheard Sophia's plan to add her first love's name to the marital home, and I'd gone specifically to ask about the legal risks of adding a name to a property deed.
At the time, Ellie had warned me that adding a non-relative's name carried legal pitfalls, and advised me to be careful.
I touched the volume button on my phone and remembered what Ellie had told me:
"Mr. Harding, I'll be there when you need me."
Then I went out to pay the bill.
