4: 4
Back home.
The moment I opened the door, the family portrait in the center of the living room TV cabinet caught my eye.
I stared at that photo, and my eyes reddened before I could stop them.
Even with my heart gone cold, twenty-some years of mother and son couldn't be cut clean in a single breath.
Owen stood beside me, following my gaze to the photo, and let out a long sigh.
The year Sebastian turned three, he came down with severe pneumonia and went straight into the ICU.
For three full days and nights, Owen and I never closed our eyes, never dared step away.
We were worn down to nothing, and finally fell asleep slumped against the edge of the bed.
Half-dreaming, we felt a small hand reach out and gently take hold of Owen's hand and mine.
The child had only just been pulled back from the edge, his whole body drained, his movements soft and weak.
First he took my hand and bent his head to brush his lips against the back of it.
Then he turned, took Owen's hand, and kissed it the same gentle way.
Clumsy and obedient, with the pure, dependent trust only a small child has.
My nose stung at once, tears almost spilling over, but I forced them back and kept my eyes shut, pretending to be fast asleep.
Owen did the same, lying still, quietly taking in the child's love.
Owen reached over and drew my shoulder in, his voice hoarse and tired:
"I really can't understand it. How did he turn into this?"
"Love and everything money could buy, we never shorted him one bit. Where did we go wrong?"
I looked at Sebastian in the photo, everything tangled up inside me.
I stayed silent a long time, and in the end my heart softened again.
I said:
"How about we sit down and talk with him properly, one more time?"
Owen was quiet for a few seconds, then nodded.
Early the next morning, we brought gifts and went to his door ourselves.
Just as we reached it, we heard voices coming from inside?
Caroline was the first to speak.
"Honey, did we push too hard this time? What if your parents really dig in and cut you off? Then we lose more than we gain."
But Sebastian sounded completely sure of himself:
"No way! Absolutely no way! I'm the only son they'll ever have, they've treated me like the apple of their eye since I was little."
"They're only getting older, and the one thing they cling to is having someone to care for them in old age. Just wait. In a few days they'll come crawling back on their own, begging me to forgive them."
"Hmph! Always going on about how they love me, and yet they're the reason I can barely have kids. They know I'll only ever have one child in my life, and they still won't hand the company over to me! Such hypocrites!"
Caroline's mother laughed and picked it up:
"Exactly, people that fake deserve to be taught a lesson!"
"Oh, that's my Caroline for you, so clever. Just spent a little money faking a livestream page and cleaned up, and got to see whether those two really meant it, too."
Caroline's father sounded thoroughly pleased:
"Tomorrow we'll get your brother a new car. That last one's already a year old."
"We're not the kind of family that hoards it away. When we've got money, we spend it on our son, no holding back!"
But Caroline's brother sounded a little hesitant:
"Sebastian, I've been reading these novels lately, and in a lot of them, when only-child parents get squeezed too hard, they just have a second kid and squeeze right back."
"Your parents aren't all that old. You're not worried they'll have another one?"
The moment he finished, Sebastian's loud, careless laugh rang out from inside:
"Don't you worry. I planned for that a long time ago."
"For years now I've quietly been slipping something into the health supplements they take every day. Their bodies gave out long ago. There's no way they could ever conceive again."
"In this life, I'm the only son they'll ever get!"
I froze on the spot in the doorway.
Before I could even come back to myself, Sebastian's voice turned suddenly cold, thick with hatred:
"They owed it to me in the first place!"
"If they hadn't put me through surgery after surgery as a kid, overdosed me on all that medicine, my sperm count would've been fine! I wouldn't be like this!"
"And now they still won't even make it up to me!"
Caroline soothed him at once, her voice soft:
"Don't be afraid, honey, you've got me right here~"
Sebastian was moved, and the two of them fell into kissing right then and there.
The little wet sounds were unbearably grating.
Caroline's whole family clapped and cheered them on, laughing again and again.
Owen and I stood outside the door, hands and feet gone ice-cold.
Everything in me died.
I turned my head toward Owen, his face livid beside me, and my voice came out strangely calm:
"Honey, make that call."
Owen's head snapped toward me:
"You're sure? Once it goes out, there's no turning back."
I looked off into the distance and gave a small nod:
"I'm sure."
