Chapter 2
When I got home, Richard was waiting for me in the living room, as I expected.
His favorite gray cashmere blanket was draped over the sofa, and a bowl of steaming tomato soup sat on the coffee table.
"You're back." He stood up and took my bag. "How did the check-up go?"
"It showed that I'm in great shape and look ten years younger than my peers," I replied.
He laughed, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes bunching up.
"Of course. I'm always the most beautiful." I looked at his face.
Richard was sixty-five, his hair mostly gray, but he still stood tall. He wore a custom-made dark blue shirt with Cartier cufflinks.
I'd been looking at this face for thirty-eight years. Every line was as familiar as the creases on my own palm, yet I'd never seen through him.
"Richard," I said.
"Yeah?" he replied.
"Do you remember which hospital I had my appendectomy at back in 1997?"
His hand froze for a split second as he held the tomato soup, barely noticeable unless watching closely. "What's with the sudden question?"
"At my check-up today, the doctor noticed an old scar on my belly and asked if I'd had surgery. I couldn't remember which hospital it was."
"It was probably the Sacred Heart Hospital." He handed me the soup. "That was over twenty years ago. Why are you still thinking about it? Have some soup."
I lowered my head and took a sip from the bowl.
The steaming tomato soup slid down my throat, leaving a burning ache in my chest.
Richard sat down next to me and picked up the remote. "By the way, Justin is inviting us to a dinner party next week for his daughter's wedding. Dig out that Chanel suit."
"Which one?" I asked.
"The emerald green one I bought you in Polusia last year."
"Okay." I held the bowl and stared at the news playing on TV, not taking in a single word.
Only one thought kept looping in my head: his hand had hesitated.
When I mentioned the surgery from 1997, his hand faltered for a second.
That night, Richard went to bed first.
*****
I waited until his breathing was steady, quietly sat up in bed, and tiptoed barefoot to the study.
There was a rosewood cabinet in the study, and on the bottom shelf were all our family's documents and old papers. I crouched down and rifled through them one by one.
I found property deeds, our marriage certificate, and insurance policies, but no medical records.
I searched the whole cabinet, but there wasn't a trace of anything related to that surgery in 1997.
This was odd. I was used to keeping records of everything. Back when I taught at the university, I organized my students' assignments by semester.
I would never toss out my own medical records, unless someone else "cleaned them out" for me.
I closed the cabinet door and sank into the swivel chair in the study.
Outside the window was the garden of the Lane Mansion. Moonlight spilt over the perfectly trimmed lawn, turning it silver.
We bought this villa in 2003. It was over 8,500 square feet, with five bedrooms and an indoor pool. The five bedrooms were for Richard and me.
When we first bought it, I asked him why we needed such a big house. He told me that he wanted to make me live comfortably.
But five bedrooms for a child-free couple felt like an empty punchline that never landed.
I pulled out my phone and searched for the contact info of Emily Carter. She was my college classmate, now a partner at the best law firm in the city.
It was midnight, and I still hadn't dialed. I was afraid that if I made the call, my thirty-eight years of marriage would shatter into pieces.
Earlier today, Mary asked whether the surgery was of my own free will. Her words still haunted my mind, and I couldn't shake them off.
I stared at Emily's number on my phone for ten minutes and then made the call.