Chapter 3

I still attended his funeral.

The faces at the funeral were mostly unfamiliar to me. Only Liam – I remembered that porcelain-doll face very clearly, and I loathed it.

I recalled the year Adam adopted Liam; he’d called me. His tone on the phone was a little cautious. "Jules, I've adopted a child. He's very sweet. Would you like to meet him?"

"From now on, he's your little nephew."

"Mom really likes kids, could I…?"

My voice was unusually sharp. "No! Don't even think about it!"

"You adopt a kid now, you're all happy and perfect, and you want to bring him back to disgust us?! Take that little bastard of yours and get as far away as possible!"

He was silent for a long time, then his voice trembling, he said, "I'm sorry, Jules."

That was the first time I knew of Liam's existence, but in my mind, he was never a concrete person. He was more like a symbol, a symbol to disgust me. A symbol that shattered my family while granting the culprit a happy one.

I watched him from afar. He wore a black suit, pinned with a white boutonnière. He bowed in return to every mourner. His face was expressionless, but I could see the red, swollen circles on his thin eyelids from crying. That small figure stood before the altar, radiating an indescribable loneliness.

I stood far away for a long time, until the condolences ended. Everyone dispersed, but he remained standing there, lost. As if he didn’t know where his future lay, with no one left to guide him.

I walked up to him and simply said two words, "Let's go."

He looked up at me, two streams of large tears falling from his eyes, but fearing he would annoy me, he quickly used his sleeve to wipe them away. He trailed behind me obediently. He kept a distance, not too far that he'd be left behind, not too close that he'd be unwelcome. His legs, tired from standing all day, felt a bit numb. As he walked, he misstepped and fell hard.

I stopped, turning back to look at him. His hands were scraped raw from bracing himself on the ground, and his knees had a slight injury. But he quickly scrambled back up, staggering, and gave me an awkward, placating smile. He softly called out, "Uncle Julian."

I had never acknowledged him as my nephew, but watching him carefully rub the dirt from his pants, it was the first time I didn't refute that title.