2: 2

2

Early the next morning, fighting through how sick she felt, my mother got up to make my breakfast.

Mila stood there with her arms folded, like it was all her due.

"Ma'am, I can't eat anything heavy or greasy, so keep the cooking light."

"Oh, right. My Snowball and Toffee need a fresh meat meal in the mornings."

"Make their food first. They're precious, and you couldn't pay to replace them if they went hungry."

My mother stood frozen in place, her lips working.

"I've never done that. I don't know how..."

Mila's eyes went red with hurt in an instant, and she turned to Clement, who'd only just woken up.

"Clement, did I say something wrong?"

"I was only worried the dogs would go hungry, and Ma'am kept putting me off, and then Sarah glared at me. I got so scared."

Clement's expression turned cold.

"Sarah, are you done making a scene?"

"To Mila, those dogs are her family. What's the harm in having your mother whip up a little food for them?"

"Can't you be a bit more generous? Quit nitpicking every little thing."

Watching him take her side, I felt my heart sink lower and lower.

"Clement, where's your conscience?"

"My mother is here to take care of me, not to be her maid."

My mother quickly grabbed my arm and pleaded under her breath.

"Sarah, that's enough, honey. I'm fine."

"It's just making food for the dogs. I'll do it. Don't fight."

And with that, she turned and walked into the kitchen without a word.

Every move she made was careful, terrified of doing it wrong and setting off another argument.

Mila's lips curled into a smug little winner's smile.

Breakfast was ready, a full table of it.

Mila went straight for the seat at the head.

Her two dogs swaggered up onto the dining chairs and sprawled at the table's edge, tongues lolling.

Off to the side, my mother quietly ladled out porridge for everyone and passed out chopsticks.

Clement gently picked out food for Mila and peeled her egg.

"Eat more. You're too thin."

He didn't notice, not for a second, that his own wife had dropped twenty pounds because the morning sickness was so bad she couldn't keep anything down.

So it turned out that once he stopped caring, he could look right past me even with me in front of his eyes all day long.

My mother was just about to sit down beside me when Mila arched a brow.

"Ma'am, I'm a bit of a germophobe. I can't eat anything someone else's chopsticks have touched."

"Why don't you use your own separate set of dishes from now on, so you're not mixed in with the rest of us."

The line dripped with humiliation.

She was plainly calling my mother dirty, a country woman who wasn't fit to sit at the same table as them.

I couldn't stand to listen anymore.

"My mother's been slaving away all morning, and she isn't good enough to eat here?"

Mila lowered her head, hurt, her voice catching.

"I'm sorry, Sarah. I'm being too precious. I shouldn't have a germophobe thing, I shouldn't be living here upsetting you."

Clement put down his chopsticks at once, his face like iron.

"Sarah, can you stop picking fights?"

"Mila spent years abroad. She's particular about table manners, and her germophobia isn't aimed at anyone on purpose."

"Do you really have to be this aggressive?"

My mother rushed over to smooth things over, humble down to her bones.

"It's fine, it's fine, I don't know the proper manners. I'll use my own dishes. Please, don't fight."

And with that, she quietly picked up the oldest set of bowl and chopsticks and walked off to the kitchen by herself.

The huge dining room was warm and bright.

My husband sat at the main table, sharing a cozy meal with another woman and two dogs.

My mother hid in the dim kitchen, her back bent, alone, head down over her rice.

A dense, prickling ache spread through my chest.

I looked down at the porridge in my bowl, the steam blurring my sight.

If this mismatched marriage could only go on by making my mother pay the price, over and over.

Then it wasn't worth keeping.

3: 3

3

The weather service issued a red blizzard warning.

Mila was curled up on the couch, not even lifting her head.

"Auntie, today I want the specialty breakfast from that old place on the south side of town."

Mom froze for a second, then looked out at the howling wind.

That place was an hour and a half away by city bus.

Mom only hesitated a moment before Mila's face changed.

She threw herself into Clement's arms, sobbing and playing up her hurt.

"Clement, does Auntie hate me?"

"I just wanted one breakfast, and she won't even do that for me."

"Living here in your home, am I just extra weight? Am I someone people can't stand?"

Clement's brows drew tight, his voice cold.

"Mom, you're a grown woman. Can't you show a little sense?"

"Mila spent all those years abroad and this is the one thing she's been craving. Can't you just accommodate her?"

I was about to speak when Mom got there first.

"All right, I'll go buy it."

"Mom!"

"It's fine, I could use a walk anyway."

She changed her shoes, took the thermal container, and went out the door.

The wind outside was fierce.

It whipped her hair into a mess.

She smoothed it back and headed toward the bus stop.

Watching her walk away, I felt an ache I couldn't put into words.

I kept looking out the window. It took a full three hours and more before Mom came limping back.

Her face was red raw from the cold, her lips purple, frost caught in her brows and lashes.

"Mila, I got the breakfast. It's still hot."

Mila opened the lid and gave it one look.

"Oh no, I waited too long. I've lost my appetite."

Mom stood there stunned.

"I, I already went as fast as I could."

"Never mind, never mind, I won't eat it."

She tossed the thermal container into the trash.

The pale breakfast spilled out across the top.

Mom stood there, mud and slush all over her knees, head bowed like a child who'd done something wrong.

I grew up in a single-parent home.

The day he proposed, Clement went down on one knee.

"Sarah, I know you're afraid of marriage. But I swear to you, for the rest of my life I'll treat your mother like my own and honor her as such, and I'll never let either of you suffer again."

Yet every bit of suffering now came from him.

My voice shook and I couldn't stop it.

"That's my mother, not a maid you hired."

Mila's eyes went red.

"Clement, I didn't say anything. Why is Sarah always coming after me?"

Clement shot me a glare.

"She went on her own. Nobody forced her. And living here for free, isn't doing a few things the least she can do?"

Their shamelessness had me shaking all over, and for a moment I couldn't get a word out.

Mila slid a sideways look at my mother and pinched her nose, disgust all over her face.

"Ugh, so filthy. It reeks."

"Auntie, go wash up in the bathroom right now, before you get the house dirty."

My mother nodded, flustered, and quietly turned toward the bathroom.

I followed her in and watched her carefully lift her pant leg. The skin underneath was a solid bruise of purple and blue.

A sob caught in my throat.

"Mom, how did this happen? Does it hurt?"

"It's nothing. I just slipped and fell. It'll be fine in a couple of days."

"Mom, I want a divorce."

She patted my back gently, her voice worn out.

"Silly girl, you're carrying a baby. Where could you go?"

"A child needs a whole family when it's born. How can it manage without a father?"

"It doesn't matter if things are hard for me, if I'm tired, if I have to take some grief. As long as you're happy, that's enough."

A parent's heart is mostly like that.

She had been proud and dignified her whole life.

The year my father walked out on the two of us, she wasn't even forty.

Relatives and friends all urged her to remarry, saying raising a child alone was too hard.

She refused. She gritted her teeth and raised me, put me through college.

When the neighbors bullied us for having no man in the house, she stood in the doorway with a kitchen knife and cursed them out for three streets, and after that no one dared cross us.

But now, in this house, for me and the baby in my belly, she had ground down every last shred of her pride and dignity, too afraid even to raise her voice.

My happiness shouldn't come from swallowing my own hurt.

That night, I sent the lawyer a message.

"I keep the baby, everything else is fine however it lands. Please draw up a divorce agreement for me as soon as you can."

4: 4

4

From that day on, Mila acted like the lady of the house.

The smallest thing not to her liking, and she ran straight to Clement to complain.

Every time, Clement took her side without asking a single question.

"Do try to be more careful. Stop making everyone worry about you."

"There are so many people living here. Can you at least keep things clean?"

Every time, my mother only lowered her head and apologized, murmuring, "I'll be more careful next time."

She never once defended herself.

Every hurt, she swallowed it down alone and in silence.

On my birthday, I came back from grocery shopping with her.

Mila rushed at us, her eyes red.

"Where's my bracelet? My grandmother left it to me before she died. Please, give it back."

We had no idea what she was talking about.

"What bracelet?"

Clement's face darkened as he turned to my mother.

"Were you in Mila's room today?"

My mother nodded without thinking. "I went in to clean."

Mila threw herself sobbing into Clement's arms.

"She stole it. She's had it in for me from the start. Sticking up for her daughter."

My mother's face flushed red in an instant.

"I didn't. Why would I ever take your things?"

"Then let us search. Search your room, search you, all of you."

My mother stood in the doorway, her lips trembling, her eyes rimmed with red.

She had lived over sixty years and never once been humiliated like this.

"I didn't steal anything."

I stepped in front of her. "Enough. My mother isn't that kind of person."

"Of course you'd take her side. The two of you are ganging up on me!"

She stormed into my mother's room and tore through everything.

Clement dumped out my mother's bag, and a jade bracelet fell out.

His voice was ice-cold. "What more is there to say? Caught red-handed."

My mother's mouth opened and closed as she stared, lost, at the scene.

"I didn't. I don't know how it got into my bag."

She turned to me, her eyes full of tears.

"Sarah, believe me. I didn't take her things…"

Watching the smug little smile at the corner of Mila's mouth, I shook all over with rage.

"This is a setup."

"Enough!"

Clement's eyes were full of disappointment and disgust as he kicked my mother's things out the door.

"We don't keep thieves in this house. Get out!"

The rage twisted a sharp cramp through my belly. I pushed through the pain.

"Clement, we can check the security footage. One look and we'll know exactly who took it."

Mila's sobbing caught for a second, and a flicker of panic crossed her eyes.

"You people are unbelievable. Fine, I'll go. I'll go, all right?"

And with that she ran out, heedless of anything.

Clement snatched up his car keys.

"If anything happens to Mila, I'm not done with you."

I grabbed his arm and held on tight.

"Clement, my stomach hurts…"

Clement wrenched his arm free.

"Quit the act. Just looking at you putting it on makes me sick."

The force of it sent me crashing into the corner of the table.

The pain hit and I slid to the floor, clutching my belly.

Something warm ran down my thigh.

My mother flung herself down beside me, her hands shaking.

"Sarah, Sarah…"

She rushed to the door and blocked Clement, begging with everything she had.

"Clement, take her to the hospital, please, I'm begging you, the baby matters most!"

Clement looked down at her, cold, from above.

"Cut the act. A miscarriage, just like that? Do you think I'm three years old?"

"Mila's out there alone. What if something happens to her?"

My mother sank to her knees and shuffled two steps forward on them until she was at his feet.

"Clement, I'm begging you, save Sarah first."

"You want me to kowtow and apologize, fine. Throw me in jail, fine. Just save Sarah first…"

I tried to pull her back, but I had no strength left at all.

Clement looked down at my mother kneeling on the floor, his face blank.

"I used to think it wasn't easy, you raising Sarah on your own. I actually admired you for it."

"But now I get it. Some people's misfortune is something they bring on themselves."

"If something really does happen to the baby, it's because you two never earned any better."

He stepped around my mother in disgust and strode out.

I remembered when he first found out about the pregnancy, how Clement jumped up in front of everyone.

"I'm going to be a father!"

That night he lay with his head against my belly and talked for two hours, planning out the baby's name, the preschool, the college…

And now he didn't care at all.

Watching his back as he walked away without looking back, my heart went to ash.

Clement, there really is no future for us.