###Chapter 1
“Margot, I’m willing to accept your job offer. I want to leave Richard.”
The man’s cold voice came through the phone. “Have you really thought it through? That’s thirty years of a happy marriage.”
Happy? No. It was a complete lie. The man I loved for thirty years had already registered his marriage with my sister when we were young.
Last night, I had a high fever of 39.8°C. I called Richard and the children more than ten times, but no one answered.
Half-conscious, I used his secondary card to order some fever medicine.
Early in the morning, I was woken up by the neighbors outside the wall, talking loudly on purpose.
“She cheated on her husband while he was on a business trip and even secretly bought birth control pills. She’s really stupid and dirty!”
“She always acted like a good wife and mother. Turns out, at her age, she plays the wildest games. No shame at all!”
I hurried out of bed, wanting to call Richard and explain.
In my dizzy state, I bumped into the bedside table. Papers fell all over the floor. A yellowed marriage certificate dropped by my feet.
The names printed on it were Richard and my own older sister, Margareth.
I could barely breathe.
For thirty years, every time I mentioned getting a marriage certificate, Richard would frown impatiently. “It’s just a piece of paper. What does it prove?”
My children also tried to persuade me. “Mom, you’ve been together for so long. Why care about the formalities?”
So it was not that formalities did not matter. It was that in Richard’s spouse column, I was never qualified to be there.
I sat there at the edge of the bed, stunned. I thought about how I had spent most of my life working hard, waking up early and sleeping late to serve my husband, raise our children and take care of the grandchildren. In the end, I was just an “outsider.”
Tears flowed down silently and I could not stop them.
Now, since that was the truth, I would let them have each other.
I wiped away my last tear and answered Margot coldly.
“I’ve made up my mind. But I have one condition. Help me investigate Margareth’s whereabouts over the past thirty years.”
After hanging up, I booked the earliest one-way ticket for five days later.
Later, my most beloved grandson was killed. I completely disappeared from Richard’s world.
Why was it that he and our children ended up kneeling before the whole world, crying and begging me to come back?
***
When I found that marriage certificate, my fingers trembled as I held it and checked it again and again. In the photo, the two people leaning sweetly against each other were the young Richard and Margareth.
The date was twenty-five years ago.
At that time, Richard and I had already been together for five years. Our son had just started kindergarten and our daughter had just been born. How foolish I was. I actually thought that was the happiest time of my life.
I sank down by the bed. Suddenly, I laughed out loud, but tears rolled down my face.
No wonder every time I mentioned getting a marriage certificate, his expression would change at once. His voice was always full of impatience. “Isn’t the good life I give you enough? What can one piece of paper prove?”
Later, when the children heard about it, I thought they would stand on my side.
But as soon as my son walked in, he threw his coat onto me. His cold face looked exactly like his father when he was young. “Dad is busy every day. Can’t you stop making trouble?”
Even my daughter-in-law looked disapproving. “It’s just a certificate, Mom. Why do you have to take it so seriously?”
My daughter held my arm and acted spoiled. “Mom, with or without that paper, Dad loves you the most.”
I felt like I could not breathe.
He was busy, but wasn’t I busy too?
In Richard’s eyes, there was only his company. He did not like strangers in the house. For thirty years, all the housework, raising the children and even helping him deal with difficult company matters were all on my shoulders.
I was like a spinning top that never stopped turning.
I only asked for a simple ceremony. Was that really so hard?
But looking at my children’s faces, I chose to stay silent in the end.
I never thought that from the very beginning, all of this had been Richard’s lie and his way of escaping responsibility.
The afternoon sunlight fell on my face through the window, but it could not warm my frozen heart.
In a daze, I suddenly heard Margareth’s sweet, playful voice from downstairs. “Richard, you actually bought negative trending news about Hermione for me.”
Richard let out a low laugh. His voice was like an ice spike stabbing into my heart.
“If her reputation is ruined, she’ll behave and stop making things difficult for you.”
My heart hurt until it felt numb. So after giving everything for thirty years, I still could not compare to his first love turning back once.
Thirty years ago, twenty-eight-year-old Richard was just a poor young man. My sister, who claimed she was independent and would never marry, left him—her fiancé—without looking back and went far away.
I married him in her place. I gave birth to his children and stayed by his side as he built his career. In other people’s eyes, we were a loving and perfect couple.
Until a few months ago, when Margareth had had enough fun outside and came back, everything turned upside down.
As the sun set, Margareth’s sweet laughter downstairs finally faded away.
Richard was in the living room, making a phone call. His voice carried clearly upstairs.
“Hurry up with the yacht I bought for Margareth. It has to be the best. Her fifty-eighth birthday party will be held on it.”
“Hold it together with the Hawthorne Group’s anniversary. Only that kind of grand event is worthy of her.”
A yacht?
From the time I married him at twenty-five until now at fifty-five, he had never even given me a proper piece of jewelry.
On our tenth wedding anniversary, I carefully mentioned that I liked a sapphire necklace. But he scolded me harshly.
“Several thousands dollars? Are you crazy? How did I end up marrying such a vain woman?”
He seemed to forget that not long ago, I had knelt in front of a client to apologize for a deal he messed up. I drank so much that my stomach started bleeding.
Now, he told his assistant to buy jewelry worth hundreds of thousands, just to make the woman who once abandoned him smile.
I gave a bitter smile, put the marriage certificate back where it was and checked my flight ticket again.
Heavy footsteps came closer, filled with open annoyance. “Do you know how badly people are talking about you outside? You’ve almost ruined the Hawthorne Family’s reputation!”
My heart felt like it was being cut with a dull knife. Where did those dirty rumors come from? Wasn’t he the one who knew best?
His eyes suddenly stopped on my phone screen.
“A flight ticket? Where are you going?”
