Chapter 1
Ryan Walker's first love had been dead for two years when I married into the family and raised his two children.The Walker Family
Everyone said I was a Cinderella who'd married far above her station.
Ryan thought I had no self-respect just because I bore a passing resemblance to his dead love. His elders looked down on me. High society shut me out.
Even the two children I'd poured my heart into raising said I wasn't fit to be their mother, and that I embarrassed them.
After six years of exhausting myself just to fit into this wealthy family, I was diagnosed with heart failure. Finally, I was free.
I was dying, and suddenly they started to love me.
*****
"Mrs. Walker, I'm afraid it's bad news. Your heart is showing signs of rejection. You've been diagnosed with heart failure. You have at most six months."
The doctor's words echoed in my head.
I pushed open the door of the mansion.
My mother-in-law sat on the sofa, her well-preserved face having lost some of the sharpness of earlier years.
"I thought you'd dropped dead out there," she said. "This is the new batch of premium tonic. I saved some for you."
"No, thanks." I remembered how, after my miscarriage, my body had been completely wrecked.
Back then I'd helped myself to the nourishing soup from the kitchen.
She'd mocked me in front of everyone, calling me a country girl from the gutter, reaching for the moon.
For a long time, I was the running joke among the society wives.
Now, six years in, I'd finally clawed my way up.
I'd memorized every rich wife's preferences and slid effortlessly into their world.
My mother-in-law had finally stopped hating me so much.
But it didn't matter to me anymore.
She looked surprised, about to say something, when a tall figure walked through the door with two children in tow.
"We saw Auntie Grace at the hospital today," the little girl said. "She looks so pitiful, Daddy. Can we bring her home?"
"Why don't you ask your mother?" Ryan replied.
The always-aloof man crouched down to look at his children, a rare gentleness on his face.
Mia was a pink-cheeked little girl who wore her hair in a bun. She was only eight, in third grade.
She turned her face away with open resistance. "She's not my mother."
Charlie planted his hands on his hips, a blue backpack on his shoulders, already carrying traces of his father's youthful features. "Yeah. I wish Auntie Grace were our mother. She's just sick for now; she'll get better."
Ryan frowned and corrected them. "Claire is your mother."
"You don't like her either, Daddy, do you?" the pink-cheeked little girl accused him.
Ryan didn't deny it.
In the early years, he'd humiliated me more than once for resembling his first love.
"It's fine," I said calmly. "You can pick whoever you want as your mother."
Soon, the children's wish would come true.
The twins, who had seemed not to notice me, now had surprise flickering in their eyes.
I thought back to my third year in this house. I'd tried so hard to fit in, playing with Charlie's Lego set, when he'd shoved me away hard. "It's all your fault! You killed my mom! I don't want you here!"
The shouting drew my mother-in-law over in an instant.
I'd opened my mouth to explain, but she'd just snapped at me, "They're not your kids, so you don't care, is that it? The Walkers feed you and clothe you, and this is how you repay us?"
When Ryan came home and heard about it, he locked me in my room for three days without food or water.
Knowing I'd be punished, the children made a habit of tormenting me and telling on me.
Once, I even broke my pinky finger.
Still, I was forced to take care of the whole family's meals and daily life, until the wound got infected and I ran a fever.
By the time they took me to the hospital, it was too late. My finger never worked properly again.
But none of it mattered anymore.
A flicker of surprise crossed Ryan's usually arrogant face. "The kids didn't mean anything by it."
Lightly, I said, "Ryan. Let's get a divorce."