At the sales office, Sophia Butler, the girlfriend I'd been with for five years, added the name of her first love, Gordon Farley, to our home purchase contract.

The down payment had come from my parents draining their retirement savings.

She hadn't run a single word of it by me.

Her younger brother was egging things on from the side.

"Gordon, this place is basically yours now. Come crash here whenever you want!"

I pressed my hand flat on the contract, staring at Sophia, unable to believe it.

She just shook my hand off, irritated.

"Gordon just got back to the country. He's got nowhere to live. What's wrong with adding his name so he feels like he belongs somewhere?"

"We're still using the house after we're married. I never said you couldn't live here."

"And Gordon hurt his leg saving me. My whole family owes him. What's wrong with paying it back with a house?"

Gordon leaned on his crutch and sighed, putting on a guilty face.

"Sophia, if he minds, forget it. I don't mind sleeping under a bridge."

That set Sophia off. Her face went cold and she started cursing at me.

"Graham Harding! How can you be so cold-blooded? Won't you be happy until you've driven Gordon to his grave?"

"You're signing today, or you can forget about this wedding!"

I let out a cold laugh.

"Fine. Then let's not get married."

......

1

I slapped the contract across her face.

Smack. The whole room went silent.

Sophia froze for a couple of seconds. The contract slid off her face, showing an expression twisted with shock.

"Are you insane?!"

"My parents paid the down payment, and you put his name on it. Am I the crazy one here, or are you?"

Sophia shot to her feet, her face flushed red.

I looked at her. "Five years. Have you been waiting for him to come back this whole time?"

"Bullshit!" Her voice went shrill. "Gordon doesn't even have a place to stay. What's wrong with letting him crash for a while? A grown man like you, this petty?"

Gordon came hobbling over from behind, leaning on his crutch, a gentle smile on his face. He patted my shoulder.

"Buddy, don't get the wrong idea. Worst case, I'll go sleep under a bridge. Don't let me come between you two."

The way he put it, like if I didn't let him move in, I was sending him under a bridge.

Sure enough, Sophia swallowed it whole. The tears came right on cue. "See? He says he'll sleep under a bridge, and you still can't do this?"

Sophia's brother darted out from the side.

"Sis, I told you a long time ago, guys like this can't be counted on. If you can't handle the game, don't play it. Now he's copying people who call off engagements. Tsk, tsk."

"Graham, look at you, spineless. If you lose my sister, who else do you think you're going to find? Some hick from a small town."

I was so furious I laughed.

I turned and walked toward the door.

"Graham! If you leave, don't come back!" Sophia shouted after me. "Without me, you're nothing!"

I'd barely stepped outside when my phone rang.

It was Sophia's mother.

"Graham, what's the meaning of this? You think you can push my daughter around? If you don't come back and apologize today, I'm not through with you!"

I hung up. Five steps later, it rang again.

This time it was my mother.

"Hey, Mom."

"Son, you called off the wedding?"

Her voice was already breaking into a sob.

"Your father told me everything. How could you do this? Sophia's such a good girl, and you… you're trying to put me in an early grave?"

"Mom, she wanted to—"

"I don't want to hear it! Go apologize, now. I'm begging you. This sickness of mine… I was counting on your wedding to turn my luck, and now you pull this and it's flaring up again…"

For a moment I didn't know what to say.

Mid-stage liver cancer. She'd been in bad shape the whole time.

"Son, I can't breathe. You… you get to the hospital right now…"

I heard her gasping down the line, and then my father snatched the phone away and roared loud enough to shake the room:

"Graham! You listen to me, and you listen good! You go apologize to Sophia this instant! Or don't bother coming home! I don't have a son like you!"

"Beep—"

I rushed straight to the hospital.

In the ward, my mother lay in the bed with an oxygen mask strapped over her face, her skin a waxy yellow, her lips cracked.

My father sat at the bedside. When he saw me come in, his eyes went cold as knives.

"So the ungrateful brat still knows how to show up? You think your mother isn't sick enough already?"

I went to the bed and looked at her. Her eyes were shut, her breathing quick, her chest heaving.

"Dad, where's the payment card?"

"In your mother's bag. Find it yourself."

I opened the bag she'd left by the bed and found the payment card. Just as I was pulling it out, a business card slipped out with it.

A few words were printed on it: Hengtong Law Firm, Ellie Simmons, Attorney.

Ellie Simmons.

A month ago, I'd overheard Sophia's plan to add her first love's name to the marital home, and I'd gone specifically to ask about the legal risks of adding a name to a property deed.

At the time, Ellie had warned me that adding a non-relative's name carried legal pitfalls, and advised me to be careful.

I touched the volume button on my phone and remembered what Ellie had told me:

"Mr. Harding, I'll be there when you need me."

Then I went out to pay the bill.

Chapter 3: Chapter 3

3

I opened the door.

Out in the corridor, Gordon was leaning on his crutch by the doorway of the hospital room, a bag of fruit in his hand.

"Hey, man, I came to check on your mom."

My mother waved a hand.

"Gordon, go on home."

Gordon nodded and started away on his crutch.

I followed him out of the room.

"I'm going to pay the bill. You can go."

"Sure."

Gordon hobbled toward the elevator, leaning on the crutch.

Three minutes later, I came back from paying.

I was halfway into my jacket when I saw Gordon hurrying toward me on his crutch, two police officers behind him.

"That's him!" Gordon pointed at me, his voice loud. "Officers, I think he stole my ring!"

"Who stole your ring?!"

"Whether you stole it isn't up to you," Gordon said with a cold smile.

An officer stepped forward and reached into my jacket pocket.

He felt around twice, then pulled out a small box. Inside was a diamond ring.

Gordon shouted right then and there: "That's the ring!"

I looked at the ring, then at the look on Gordon's face, and it all came clear.

"Officers, I think he planted that ring in my pocket himself."

"Bullshit!" Gordon roared. "Graham, you broke dog, short on cash so you just steal?"

Then, as if he despaired of me, he sighed and turned his back.

One officer frowned. "Sir, you're a suspect in a theft. Please come with us to the station and cooperate with the investigation."

I glanced into the hospital room.

My mother lay in the bed, wanting to say something and not saying it.

Before she could get a word out, the two officers took me by each arm and walked me out.

At the police station.

"Come clean and it'll go easier. Fight us and it'll go hard," the tall officer said. "Why did you steal the ring?"

"Officer, I really didn't steal it..."

I was about to ask them to pull the hospital security footage.

The door of the mediation room burst open and someone rushed in.

Sophia's eyes were red, and the moment she was through the door she screamed: "Graham! Have you no shame?"

She charged up to me and slapped me across the face.

Crack.

The sound was sharp, and the whole mediation room went quiet.

"Fine, you have no money." Sophia's voice shook. "But you steal the keepsake his mother left him too? Are you even human?"

"Sophia, listen to me. I didn't steal it!"

I thought back to five years ago.

Five years ago, when Sophia and I had just gotten together.

"Graham, you're the person I trust most. Even if the whole world blamed you, I'd still only believe you."

She used to lean into my arms all the time, patting my back, telling me I was the best.

"What are you looking at me for?" Sophia glared at him. "You're just a loser! Gordon is a hundred times the man you are!"

I turned my head away, not wanting to argue with her.

The mediation room door opened again.

A nurse wheeled my mother in.

She was in a hospital gown, her face deathly pale, an IV line still taped to the back of her hand.

"Mom."

I saw the look in my mother's eyes.

That look was all disappointment, all heartbreak.

"Graham..." My mother caught her breath. "Sophia has been good to you with all her heart. How could you do something like this?"

"Mom... I..."

My mother's voice trembled. "Calling off the engagement, stealing. You've shamed me completely!"

Afraid it would worsen her condition, I dropped to my knees at once. "Mom, I swear to God, I did not steal it!"

She sighed, turned her head, and said to the officers: "Officer, this is mediation, isn't it? I'll vouch for him. I'll apologize to Gordon myself in a moment."

"All right, you work it out. If you settle privately, have Mr. Farley come in tomorrow to withdraw the case."