Chapter 3

"Everyone stop filming! What are you looking at?"

"Honey, are you okay?"

My husband, Derek, shoved his way through the rubbernecking crowd clogging the doorway, his face full of worry, and slammed the hospital room door shut. He must have rushed here right after work—he hadn't even caught his breath before jumping to my defense.

When my sister saw Derek arrive, she turned coy and tried to press herself against him. But he showed her no tenderness at all—he just shoved her straight to the floor.

The moment I saw Derek, it felt like my pillar had arrived. I collapsed, drained, against the shoulder I had been longing for. My husband pulled me into his arms, silently soothing my restless, agitated emotions.

But the imagined tender moment didn't last long. Wails rose up from below—my mother-in-law and my sister.

My mother-in-law was on the floor too, throwing a fit, tears and snot mixing as she accused my husband.

"You've got a wife and forgotten your mother! You won't even let me have my way on something this small!"

"I raised you alone, a woman against the world! Do you think it was easy? I suffered ten times more than any man, and look at the result! Useless! A son belongs to someone else once he's grown!"

As if throwing a tantrum wasn't enough to vent her fury, my mother-in-law scrambled up from the floor and charged straight for the hospital's load-bearing wall. She was chanting some curse under her breath. "Oh, my departed husband… I'm coming down to join you. We'll be together in the afterlife. I just hate that I have to go before seeing my grandson…"

But a hospital is no place for their wild theatrics. The ruckus was so loud, security came up and pulled my mother-in-law away.

I looked at my husband, my heart full of gratitude and relief, thinking blissfully, "With a husband who protects and loves me like this, I have no regrets in this life." For a moment, I felt confident I could beat any woman trying to steal my marriage.

I just didn't realize—in this whole game, I was the only one who took it seriously.

After hearing his mother's words, tears filled my husband's eyes. His gaze went red, and he flung away my hand, the one I had been holding so tightly. His face twisted in agony as he told me not to make this hard for him. His mom had suffered so much raising him. All she wanted was a grandchild to spoil in her old age. She wasn't wrong!

I stared at the face of the man I'd known for four years, been with for eight. It kept blurring, overlapping with the memory of that shy boy who asked if I would marry him, who promised to treat me well for the rest of my life. I realized I never really knew him. Or maybe, I'd just never seen through him.

But with years of history behind us, a tiny, desperate part of me still clung to hope. My voice, though, betrayed my desolation. "What about me? What did I do wrong?"

"Please, tell me. I'll change."

I had always put on a strong front in front of my husband. This was the first time I ever showed him my vulnerability. He hesitated. I could see he did. But then, in the next second, someone announced my sister's water had broken, the baby was coming.

He turned and left without a second's hesitation. If I could have forced myself to believe he was a filial son trapped in a difficult position before, now, anyone with eyes could see it. He had feelings for this child.

Outside the delivery room, everyone waited with anxious, eager anticipation, welcoming the new life into the world. But I stood in a forgotten corner no one paid attention to, tearing the gift I had prepared long ago into shreds, hoping no one would ever discover this secret.