2: 2

2

In the video, Rita Henson held Elmer, newborn, so careful she hardly dared move her arms.

When they wheeled me out of the operating room, the only thing beside me was an empty chair for family.

After the anesthesia wore off, the pain kept me awake all night.

The family of the patient in the next bed couldn't stand to watch, and poured me a cup of hot water.

She asked me, "When is your wife coming?"

I kept my eyes on the door and lied to myself, over and over.

"Soon."

But morning came, and no one did.

The screen kept playing.

Rita Henson was in every clip.

Changing the baby's diaper, holding him while he nursed.

When Elmer ran a fever, she sat by his bed all night without sleeping.

For four years, every time the child needed her, she was there.

Then came the clip of Elmer learning to walk for the first time.

Rita Henson crouched on the soft carpet and opened her arms to him.

"Elmer, don't be scared."

"Mommy's got you."

The boy tottered toward her.

He'd taken barely two steps before he pitched forward.

Rita Henson caught him at once and swept him up high.

Laughter went around the private room.

My mother pointed at the screen, wistful.

"Elmer was such a timid little thing back then. He wouldn't take a step unless he could see his mom."

But I was staring at the date in the bottom corner of the screen.

That same day was the first time I did rehab without my crutches.

The doctor told me to walk the whole length of the hallway on my own.

I took one step and went down hard.

My knee split open, and my palms scraped raw.

I braced against the wall and pushed myself up, again and again, and fell again and again.

Halfway down, I couldn't hold on any longer, and with a shaking voice I called Rita Henson.

"Can you come and be with me? It hurts so much. I really can't walk anymore."

Rita Henson was silent for a few seconds, but her voice was full of impatience.

"Max, the whole point of rehab is to teach you to be independent."

"I can't be at your side forever to catch you."

"Stop leaning on other people all the time."

The line went dead.

In the end, I gripped the wall and walked out of the hospital alone.

Every step was like stepping on knives.

And at that very same time.

Rita Henson was crouched in front of another child, telling him gently,

"Don't be scared. Mommy will always catch you."

The pain in my left leg grew sharper and sharper.

I couldn't stay on my feet, and slowly sank down against the wall.

The ribbon of the gift box cut into my palm and left a thin line of blood.

The light from the private room spilled through the crack in the door and stopped right at my feet.

So close.

And still it never reached me.

Chapter 3

Inside, they were still laughing.

Barret watched the video to the end, then said nothing for a long time.

"Dad, Mom, thank you."

"If it weren't for you two, I'd have been alone abroad. I honestly don't know how I'd have raised Elmer."

Mom took his hand at once.

"Silly boy, what are you saying?"

"You've suffered so much. Of course your father and I want to make it up to you."

Dad let out a sigh too.

"These five years, you're the one who's had it hardest."

Barret lowered his head and stroked the boy's hair, then suddenly asked,

"Is my brother really coming later?"

Mom was quiet for a moment.

"He didn't say yes last night."

"But Max is soft-hearted. Once he thinks it over, he'll come."

Barret's arms tightened around Elmer.

"What about the child, then?"

"If he sees Elmer, won't he hate me all over again?"

Mom rushed to soothe him.

"Before he gets here, we'll have the nanny take Elmer away first."

"And if there's no hiding it, we'll just say you adopted him abroad."

But Dad gave a cold snort.

"What's there to be afraid of?"

"His leg's like that now. He'll never have another child in this lifetime. Where would he go if he left Rita?"

"Even if he found out, he wouldn't dare do a thing."

I lowered my eyes and looked at that left leg, the one the crash had ruined.

They weren't wrong.

For five years now, I've needed a cane to walk.

On cold, rainy days the pain kept me awake all night.

At its worst, I couldn't even shower unless Rita set out the shower chair for me.

All this time I'd thought she never turned away from me because she loved me.

But in their eyes, those injuries had long since become the chains that trapped me.

They were certain of it: crippled, unable to father a child again, incapable of living on my own.

So even if they laid the truth right in front of me.

I'd have no choice but to swallow it.

Barret still wasn't at ease, though.

He looked at Rita and asked quietly,

"And you?"

"Do you still love my brother?"

The room went quiet.

Rita didn't answer for a long time.

And still my heart lifted, out of my control.

The way it had for the past five years, waiting in that small, degrading way for her to give me one shred of proof.

At last Rita spoke.

"He lost his son, and his leg's crippled."

"If I abandoned him now, he wouldn't be able to go on at all."

"The crash back then happened because of you. I can't let him bear the consequences alone."

She said it so calmly.

But it hit me like being struck by that car all over again.

So Rita rubbing my injured leg, sitting up with me through countless nights swearing she'd never leave.

None of it was because she still loved me.

It was only because I was the consequence Barret's mistake had left in her care.

Mom breathed a sigh of relief.

She smiled and coaxed Barret,

"Did you hear that?"

"Rita's heart belongs to you, and Elmer calls you Dad."

"Your brother holds nothing but the title of her husband. What's left for him to fight you over?"

Laughter filled the room again.

The photographer called them over for one more shot.

Five people looked at the camera, every face clear of any shadow.

"A family of five."

"Look right here."

The shutter clicked.

Their happiness was frozen for good.

And I leaned against the wall outside the room, pressing down hard on the injured leg that shook with pain.

The mirrored surface threw back the wreck of me.

Face bloodless, shoulders and back rigid.

Like a man who'd just watched a happiness that had nothing to do with him.

My phone screen lit up.

The flight details lay quietly at the top.

【*Eight hours until departure.*】

4: 4

4

As I turned to leave, my bad leg buckled without warning, and my shoulder knocked into the vase out in the hallway.

The crash of it shattering carried into the room.

The door swung open. Rita stood at the front.

The moment she saw me, the smile froze on her face.

"Max?"

My parents and Barret came out too.

Mom's first instinct wasn't to ask how long I'd been standing there. It was to step in front of Barret and the child.

"You said you weren't coming."

"So what are you doing, hiding out here eavesdropping?"

I didn't answer.

I only looked at Elmer, hiding behind Barret.

The boy stared at me, timid, then suddenly asked,

"Daddy, is he the bad uncle who won't let us come home?"

Barret scrambled to cover his mouth.

"Elmer, don't say things like that."

But everyone's face had already changed.

A four-year-old doesn't say something like that out of nowhere.

For four years, while they gathered around this child and enjoyed their family life, they'd been telling him, over and over.

That I was the reason his daddy couldn't come home.

That I had taken his mommy for myself.

That I refused to leave their little family of three alone.

The color drained from Barret's face.

"Max, don't blame Elmer."

"He only got the wrong idea about you because he saw me sneaking around every time I came back."

Rita stepped in front of him at once.

"If you've got a problem, take it up with me."

"Don't scare the child."

She turned side-on, keeping Barret and Elmer firmly behind her.

Just like five years ago, after the crash, when she'd stood by my stretcher while I lay covered in blood.

Back then she said she'd get justice for me, no matter what it cost.

Now she finally had.

And then she went and stood beside the man who'd hurt me.

I asked her, "Did Barret really do five years?"

Rita said nothing.

But Dad cut in, impatient.

"He didn't serve the full five inside, but hiding out abroad, unable to come home, how is that any different from prison?"

"Are you only satisfied if he suffers behind bars for real?"

I looked at my father.

"But abroad he had all of you. He had Rita. He had the child."

"When I was having my surgeries, who was there with me?"

The hallway went quiet.

Mom's eyes reddened again soon enough.

"How is it you only ever remember your own suffering?"

"All these years Barret couldn't come home, and he had to raise the child abroad. That hasn't been easy either."

"We only went over now and then to help him out."

Now and then.

They were in every single photo of that child, from birth to four years old.

But my three surgeries, my endless rounds of rehab.

Not once did they show up.

I lowered my head and asked, almost like I was punishing myself, "Why did you give him my son's name?"

Rita frowned.

"It's just a name."

"That child is gone. Are you saying the name can never be used again?"

My body swayed.

So in her heart.

Our son was already dead, which meant his name, his longevity locket, and his mother could all be handed down to another child.

Only I was still foolishly holding on to the past.

Elmer started crying, frightened by our argument.

Rita scooped him up at once.

My parents flanked them on either side, shielding them.

And I stood alone, facing all of them, dragging the leg Barret had crippled.

Not one of them came toward me.

Mom looked at me, disappointed.

"Your brother just got back, and it's Elmer's birthday today."

"Do you really have to pick now to make everyone miserable?"

Dad's voice was cold as he scolded me too.

"We didn't raise you all these years for you to turn this cold-blooded."

Even Rita spoke up.

"Max, I haven't divorced you. That's already me trying my best to make it up to you."

"You can't stop everyone else from being happy just because you lost your child."

All at once I felt exhausted.

I didn't even have the strength left to argue.

"And if I can't accept it?"

Mom's face hardened completely.

"If you can't accept it, then leave."

"But think it through."

"Walk out that door today, and don't ever come back, and don't ever call us your parents again!"

Rita spoke up too, her voice cold.

"If you leave now, I won't come looking for you again."

"Whenever you truly come to your senses, that's when you come back and apologize."

They all looked at me.

Certain I had nowhere to go.

Certain that this crippled leg of mine would never carry me out of the life they'd penned in for me.

I nodded.

"Fine."

No one tried to stop me.

Mom turned away to comfort Barret.

Dad crouched down to pick up Elmer's birthday hat off the floor.

Rita carried the child back into the room without so much as another glance at me.

The door closed slowly in front of me.

Inside, the birthday song started up again.

I dragged my bad leg into the elevator.

Back home, I signed the divorce papers and set my wedding ring down on top of them.

Into the suitcase went only a few clothes, my passport, and my painkillers.

Eleven forty at night.

I boarded the flight out of the city.

As the plane taxied toward the runway, Rita's message finally came through.

【Come back once you've thrown enough of a tantrum.】

【Mom and Dad were just angry. Don't actually think they'd disown you.】

I didn't reply.

I only switched off the phone and pulled out the SIM card.

They all thought I was only sulking.

None of them ever imagined.

That line, never come back again.

Really did come true.

5: 5

5

Rita didn't get home until the next morning.

She'd expected me to be sitting in the living room, waiting for her, the way I always did.

Maybe with a dark face, demanding to know why she'd lied to me. Maybe insisting that Barret and his son never show themselves again.

But she figured a few words of explanation, one more promise that she'd keep Barret and the boy out of my sight, and in the end I'd stay. I always did.

After all, in five years I'd gotten used to leaning on her arm just to go downstairs and buy groceries.

Where else could I go?

But when the door opened, the apartment was too quiet.

The running shoes I always wore were gone from the entryway.

On the coffee table sat the signed divorce papers, my wedding ring pressed against the last page.

Rita stared at it for a few seconds, and her face went dark.

"Max, are you done with this?"

No one answered.

She searched every room, then stopped in front of the closet.

Most of my clothes were still there.

She seemed to breathe again, and pulled out her phone to message me.

*You're leaving all your clothes behind?*

*Come home and we'll talk. I can pretend yesterday never happened.*

Beside each message there was only a red exclamation mark.

Her hand finally went stiff.

She yanked open the nightstand drawer and found my passport, my documents, and the painkillers I took every day all gone.

Only one blister pack of expired pills was left.

The back of the box was covered edge to edge with dates.

Every date was a day she'd promised to take me to a follow-up appointment, then canceled at the last minute.

Once she'd said it was a meeting at work.

She was actually abroad, celebrating Elmer's first birthday.

Another time she'd said her father was in the hospital.

In the photo, she was holding Elmer, building a snowman on a ski slope.

She'd never looked closely at those dates before.

Because every time she came back, I would smile and tell her the doctor said I was healing well.

And she'd believed it.

Her phone suddenly rang.

Not me.

My lawyer.

"Ms. Henson, Mr. James has authorized me to handle the divorce entirely on his behalf."

"He won't meet with you, and he doesn't need you to care for him."

Rita shot back without thinking: "He can't manage on his own with that leg."

The lawyer was quiet for a moment.

"Ms. Henson, yesterday he boarded the flight alone, and he arrived alone."

"His leg was injured. That doesn't mean he can't live his life."

After the call ended, Rita stood in the bedroom for a long time.

Elmer's laughter came from outside the door soon enough.

Barret walked in with the child and their parents, movers hauling luggage behind them.

The James mother said with a smile, "Max is just in a temper. Let Barret and Elmer stay here for now."

"When he comes back and sees the whole family getting along, he'll come around."

Barret carried Elmer toward the nursery.

"Elmer's been wanting to see the room his mommy set up for him."

His hand had just touched the handle when Rita slammed her own down on the door.

That room still held the crib I'd picked out myself.

Faded stars were stuck on the wall.

In five years, she'd never once dared to go in.

Barret froze.

"My brother's gone anyway. It's a waste to leave the room empty."

He said it as easily as Rita had said, the day before, that a dead child couldn't keep a name forever.

For the first time, Rita heard exactly how cruel that line was.

Slowly she let go of the door, but she didn't step aside.

"Get out."

Barret went pale.

"Rita?"

"Take your luggage and get out. All of you."

Elmer burst into frightened tears.

Before, the moment the child cried, Rita would give in at once.

This time, through the half-open door, she saw the dust settled thick over the crib.

And she remembered, all at once, how after our son was gone I'd asked her whether we could lock this room.

She'd said yes.

She'd held my hand and promised that as long as I was alive, we'd have children again.

Later, I could never be a father again.

And she gave that promise, that name, and the place of a mother to another child.