After the death of my first love, I became a mortician.

When the movie star broke up with his first love, he married me in the blink of an eye. During our marriage, he never had any scandal or gossip. 

That was until his first love returned. Suddenly, they could not wait to have a passionate relationship. Only then did I realize that my husband had faked his love?

As a response, I aborted our child. He went mad with anger, saying that I had spent so much time among the dead that I had become cold-blooded and cruel myself.

I ignored his tears and told him bluntly, "I did it because I don't want a child with you."

No one knew that I did not actually love him and the only reason I married him was for a dead man.

——

It was my third year as a mortician and also my third year of my marriage to Jeremy Holt, the movie star. Everyone thought our marriage would never last and they were right because Jeremy did not love me.

He married me out of spite, to get back at Carol Truman, his ex-girlfriend, who broke up with me. He purposedly tied the knot with someone she looked down upon. 

I did not have any reason to refuse him. So, after I agreed to marry him, Jeremy acted as if he had forgotten his first love.

He would gaze into my eyes in the quiet hours of the night, softly whisper my name into my ear and ensure his closest friends addressed me as “Sister-in-law.” He gave me a sense of security I had never asked for.

In his most tender moments, he even introduced me to his parents. I would never meet them if I did not marry him.

I also did not understand proper dining etiquette or how to navigate their upper-class world, but Jeremy taught me patiently, with a smile on his face.

Later, I overheard his mother comment. There was a distaste in her voice when she complained, "That corpse handler is a lot worse than the actress."

I wanted to correct her. I was not a corpse handler; I was a makeup artist for the dead. Besides, Jeremy had never looked down on my profession.

Just when I thought life would move without any waves, Carol returned. Since then, Jeremy turned into a different person. He flaunted his love for her openly but he treated me coldly.

It was not until the doctor told me I was pregnant.

That very day, I caught Jeremy and Carol having intercourse on the countertop where I worked. 

The doctor’s words still rang in my ears, "You’re two months and five days along.”

After I did the math, I realized it was exactly one day before Carol returned. That night with ragged breath, Jeremy whispered in my ears and begged me to give him a child.

I did not expect it to happen so quickly.

My hand drifted to my still-flat stomach, where I could almost feel the faint stirrings of life. For a moment, I didn’t know what to do.

Jeremy had not come home for days. The last time I saw him, he was coming home to pack his things.

“I’m going to Norway with Carol," he said.

Norway? It was the first place we came on our honeymoon. 

I stayed silent and quietly helped him pack his clothes. 

The silence was heavy. Jeremy glanced at me like I was a stranger. “I don’t need your help,” he said coldly.

So, I unlocked the door and went to grab something to eat. Suddenly, I noticed a sticky odor permeating the house and a few dusty footprints of men's shoes on the floor.

A sense of unease gripped me and I rushed to the one room in the house that was always locked.

However, the door was left ajar and the path toward the door was littered with assorted kinds of clothes. When I crept silently toward the door, I heard a woman moaning.

I always kept the door locked and Jeremy knew that I put my brother's urn there and he had never asked about anything. 

However, just because he wanted to sleep with Carol, he asked someone to pick the lock.

I leaned against the door and watched them making love on my workbench. As I watched, I thought in the daze, 

Didn’t they know this was the table where I worked?

Then, another thought struck me. Should I be worried?

What should I do if I disturb him?

While they were moaning in ecstasy, I silently packed my things in advance. The two of them were so engrossed in each other that they didn’t hear a thing. 

The two of them were so engrossed in each other that they didn’t hear a thing. 

It took half an hour before their panting subsided and the room fell quiet again. I set down what I was holding and strained my ears to listen.

The first one to talk was Carol. Her sweet coquettish voice was a bit hoarse when she talked, "Jeremy, when are you going to divorce Amy Callahan?"

There was a brief silence in the room before Jeremy's teasing and doting voice sounded, 

“What’s the rush? You just come back and now you want me to have a divorce?"

"I've been waiting for you for three years!" she snapped. "It's your turn to wait."

It seemed Carol was not satisfied with his answer, before long, the room filled with the sound of their intimacy once again.

As I stood there in silence while waiting for their sordid acts to stop, a bitter resolution took root in my heart.

Baby, it’s your father who let you down.

Carol's breathless gasps echoed again. She was using her body to push Jeremy to the limit,

"Jeremy, who feels better? Me or your wife?"

Jeremy did not answer immediately but Carol did not let it go and kept asking. Finally, I heard Jeremy's usually composed tinged with tenderness as if he was praising Aphrodite, "Carol, you have the most beautiful one."

Then with his usual voice he said, "Amy reeks. Maybe because she has been spending so much time in a place like that."

Carol seemed satisfied with his answer and the two of them resumed their sexual intercourse.

I just stood there, frozen in disbelief while wishing that someone would jump out and stab them to death.

Jeremy had never said those things before. When he was pursuing me, he praised my aloof demeanor. He even called me unique because I was different from the superficial people in his circle.

When his mother frowned at my profession, he defended me and called my work a “courageous and compassionate occupation.”

I had wanted to correct him back then and told him that my workplace was cold and sterile. However, his eloquent speech left no room for anyone else to interject. 

Now, he’d finally revealed his true colors.

A wave of nausea rolled over me and my stomach clenched painfully. I barely made it to the bathroom before I vomited some bile.

It seemed my husband and his mistress were alerted by the sound because there was a of flurry movement from the room.

By the time I emerged from the bathroom, they had already dressed properly.

I didn’t spare them a glance. Without a word, I headed for the door.

Just then, Jeremy’s agent called me. His voice was frantic as he explained that paparazzi had caught Jeremy and Carol together and the photos were already trending online. He couldn’t reach Jeremy and asked if I knew where he was.

I kept my voice calm. “He’s home right now,” I said and hung up.

I looked directly at Jeremy's uneasy expression and Carol's smug, triumphant look and said, "I want a divorce."

I left Jeremy's house so quickly that I did not take anything with me, including him.

To make it easier to retrieve my belongings later, I booked a nearby hotel. When the time was right, I would get my things.

When I opened my phone to call a taxi, I saw a news alert.

[The movie star Jeremy Holt has been secretly married for three years and the woman is a mortician who worked at a funeral parlor.]

The comments section went into a frenzy.

“A big star married someone who handles dead bodies? Did she save his life or something?”

“A mortuary worker? Is that even a job for a normal woman?”

“If I were Jeremy Holt, I couldn’t stand my wife being around dead people all the time.”

“Yeah, hurry up and divorce her so he can be with Carol.”

Don’t worry. The divorce was already in motion.

I suppressed my rising anger and headed back to the house to collect my things. Fortunately, neither the fingerprint lock nor the passcode had been changed.

"Jeremy! You're back! Ah … it's you."

Carol, wearing Jeremy's shirt that exposed her white thighs, stared at me with a malicious smile.

She twirled a lock of her hair around her finger and sneered. “What are you doing here? Jeremy doesn’t want you anymore.”

"Have you seen the comments online? Just because you married a distinguished man, it doesn’t mean you become a lady."

"Aren't you ashamed doing this kind of thing? Especially since you are a woman?"

Carol's face twisted into a malicious grin. It was far from the national goddess image she portrayed to the public.

"Did you know? It was Jeremy himself who leaked the news of your marriage." Carol then added, "He did it to protect me."

To protect her, Jeremy was willing to do anything, even at the expense of the woman who had been his wife for three years.

I smiled coldly, "After all this year, you're still a mistress. Well, congratulations.

Her face turned stormy and she made a toward me but I blocked her advances easily and swatted her hand away.

Carol's face changed drastically, "Who do you think you are? How dare you against me."

She grabbed a wine glass from the table and tried to smash it at me. Even though I managed to snatch the glass away because of my quick move, I still got cut by the ring on her finger during the tug.

I stared at the blood dripping from the cut, then at the ring on her finger. Then I realized that it was my ring.

Before I left Jeremy's house, I had taken off the ring and left it on the shoe rack by the door. I had never expected that it would sit on her hand.

She noticed my silence and smirked. "Why are you so quiet? This was mine all along. You’re just a thief returning what never belonged to you."

I couldn’t help but laugh. "You take the man I discarded and things …. Carol, are you a trash can?"

Her face turned bright red. She raised her hand and slapped me hard. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth as pain flared across my cheek.

Before I could retaliate, a hand gripped my wrist, it was hot and unyielding. "Amy! What the hell is wrong with you?"

Jeremy shoved me aside so hard that he sent me stumbling. I barely caught myself before my abdomen hit the corner of the table. My hand instinctively moved to protect the baby.

I steadied myself and retreated to protect my child while looking coldly at Carol who threw herself into Jeremy's arm tears streaming down her face as she sobbed, "Jeremy, don't blame her. She hit me because she loves you too much. She didn’t mean it."

Jeremy glared at me. However, when his eyes flicked to my bloodied lips, he hesitated a while before he turned back to her to comfort her.

Once, there was a man who treated me as if I were his whole world. However, that was a long time ago.

I forced myself to remain calm as I gave them my final warning, "She’s wearing my ring."

Before Jeremy could respond, Carol pouted. "Jeremy, can’t I wear it? It’s my favorite design. I told you that before."

Jeremy looked at me again, with a cold gaze, when he saw that I showed no vulnerability, his expression hardened.

"Throw it away," he said casually. "That ring is outdated. It doesn’t suit you anymore."

He pulled Carol closer, coaxed and promised her to give her a newer, more extravagant ring. Carol smiled triumphantly and turned to him. "Throw it out the window," she urged.

For a moment, Jeremy hesitated, his eyes lingered on me. Then, under her insistent gaze, he tossed the ring aside.

I didn’t see where the silver ring landed. It didn’t matter anymore. With that single motion, our story ended.

"Fine," I said, my voice steady. "The divorce papers will come soon. My lawyer will contact you."

I didn’t make it to the hospital to terminate the pregnancy because Jeremy knew about my pregnancy. He showed up at my door. His hand was holding the shredded remains of my medical report. His expression was a mixture of disbelief and excitement.

"Amy! We’re having a baby!" he said happily.

I stared at him in a bafflement by the man standing before me, as though seeing a stranger.

Realization dawned on him and his smile faltered. He shifted nervously and his voice dropped. "You know how much my family wants a child."

His words were like a slap. For a fleeting moment, I almost believed we were a loving couple again.

Jeremy’s mother had always been insistent, her demands for grandchildren constant and unrelenting. Whenever I saw her, she would look down her nose at me and remind me to "hurry up and produce an heir."