Chapter 3
Charlie died from massive blood loss. My son—who used to burst into tears over the tiniest cut on his finger—how could he possibly endure something like this?
Signing my name on the death notification felt like it drained the very last of my strength. I cried so hard I kept blacking out, only to come to and have the pain crash back in all over again.
And every time I woke and realized Charlie was truly gone, I wished I had died with him.
The doctors had no choice but to give me sedatives to calm me down.
My right knee was shattered, my left ankle was crushed, my left shoulder was fractured, and three ribs on my left side were broken. Except for my right hand, I had lost almost all mobility.
But I no longer cared whether I would ever walk again. Charlie had been the light of my life. Without him, my life had lost all meaning.
My brother, Michael, rushed over to help handle Charlie's funeral arrangements and coordinate with the funeral home.
They planned to bury Charlie only after my surgery, once I could sit up in a wheelchair.
Michael kept urging me to cooperate with treatment. He said our parents had already lost Charlie—if they lost me too, they might not survive the blow.
As for Andrew's parents, we were still keeping it from them.
Years earlier, Andrew's father had been so enraged by him that he suffered a heart attack, and he had been half-paralyzed ever since. His mother hadn't been well either. She had been on antidepressants for years.
That heart attack had been triggered back when Andrew was in college, when he insisted on dropping out and going abroad with Sophie to study art.
Michael said that how Andrew chose to explain to his parents was his decision. Our family would not get involved.
When I thought about both sets of parents, the pain tore through me again, leaving me gasping for air.
The elderly all doted on Charlie—especially Andrew's father. Their family had only one son for three generations, so Charlie meant everything to him.
Even with his limited mobility, he often hired a caregiver to push him downstairs just to play with Charlie. If he didn't see Charlie for a few days, he would keep asking me to bring him over.
If they ever found out that their grandson was gone and that their son had once again run off overseas with the very woman they had fiercely opposed back then, I doubted they could survive the blow.
*****
Andrew's friends came to visit me in the hospital, group after group.
On the surface, everyone looked grief-stricken and full of regret over what had happened to me and Charlie.
But what they truly thought deep down—who could say?
I didn't want to see the masks on their faces. I pulled the blanket over my head, cutting myself off from this hypocritical world.
They were whispering right next to me.
"Has Andrew still not come back? All this happened, and he's not even bothering to show his face?"
"Shh, keep it down. I heard from his company assistant that he went to Iceland with Sophie. He probably doesn't even know yet."
Their voices dropped even lower.
"Maybe Andrew already knows and just chose not to come back. Everyone knows he only married her because of the kid. Otherwise, Sophie would be the one married to him."
"Drop it, not now."
Those words were the last straw. I suddenly threw off the blanket with my only uninjured right hand and grabbed whatever was on the bedside table, hurling it at them with all my strength. "Get the hell out! All of you, just get lost!"
They stood there watching me fall apart—some embarrassed, some amused, some pitying, and some mocking.
In the end, they all left the ward, shutting the door behind them.
When the ward finally fell quiet again, I broke down completely. I cried until I went numb, my tears soaking the pillow.
I had always known that my marriage to Andrew was built on duty, not love.
But I never imagined he could be so heartless toward his own flesh and blood.
This ridiculous, farcical marriage gave me nothing but betrayal and pain.