6,
One year later, I graduated from college and returned to the orphanage with a big belly. I looked into the eyes of the director.
I felt that what he said had come true.
This is my fate.
I suffered a lot with Tim.
During the most difficult time, I was only 78 kilograms thin. I was 1.67 meters tall. At that time, Tim, who was three years old, put the meat in his bowl to my mouth and said, ‘Mom, eat, I’m not hungry.’
Occasionally, I woke up late at night and saw him crying while holding my bony arms and asking me, ‘Mom, why don’t you eat more? Your bones hurt me so much.’
I could only hold him and cry.
So when Jone stood in front of me and asked me how I could atone for my sins, I almost said to him with a malicious smile, ‘I want you to divorce and give Tim a home. Can you do it?’
In fact, it was just a resentful remark. I just thought of him at that moment when he was choosing a wedding anniversary gift for his wife under the crystal chandelier, with a focused look and gentle eyebrows. I asked myself.
Why can he be so happy?
I worked so hard for such a long time, but he turned my life upside down, and then he left without getting his clothes wet. Why?
Of course, Tim was not born by him. I chose her myself. People should be responsible for every decision they make. This cannot be blamed on him. I just can’t accept that I, an excellent student who graduated from a prestigious university, was so close to the life I dreamed of.
Just a little bit, just a little bit.
Sometimes I think: If I had never met him, it would be better. If I didn’t take so much soy milk that day.
It was obviously just a little bit.
I still understand him so well after being away for so long. I know his weakness too well. Growing up in a single-parent family, the lack of fatherly love and the forced mother made him have a natural sense of responsibility for the family. He would not want his child to be like him, even though this was not the child he expected.
Later, when he stood in front of me and told me that he was going to divorce and give Tim and me a home, I was just surprised that he actually had the perseverance to do so.
But after a moment of silence, I did not reject him. Please forgive me.
I have experienced a lot in my life. If I ask myself, I have never let anyone down, but I know that I have let down Jone, the wife whom I have never met.
She should have had a very happy marriage.
But I couldn’t refuse. When I gave birth to Tim, no matter how difficult the situation was, I never went to find Jone. If Jone hadn’t met me by chance, I would never have brought the child to him in my life. This is my last dignity in front of Jone and his mother.
But when Jone found us, he took Tim to the amusement park the next day. They rode the roller coaster and the carousel. Jone held Tim on his shoulders and blew bubbles with him. It was the first time I saw Tim laugh so happily… I had a dream a long time ago. It was also a scene like this. Jone took Tim and me to the amusement park. When I woke up from the cold, the smile on my lips had not yet been restrained. The dream was warm, and outside the dream was a cold basement with no heating. Tim unconsciously struggled to get into my arms in his sleep, but he would not say that he was cold because he knew it would embarrass me.
I was helpless and could only hug him tightly.
Later, when I had a little more money, I went to buy a small sun, which could only be turned on for one hour every night, because the electricity bill was very expensive, and every penny of my money was arranged, and I couldn’t afford it for one more second.
But if one day, dreams can overlap with reality, and the playground in the dream is perfectly reproduced in reality, I have the opportunity to have a complete family, let Tim live a better life, and let him have a father, then how can I… refuse it?
Six years of life have worn out all my temper and arrogance. I did not forgive Jone, I just reconciled with him…
In the past, Abby, even if she longed for a family so much, when the adoptive man touched her thigh and kissed her obscenely, she could still smash a vase without changing her face.
In the past, Abby, even if she longed for the warmth of love so much, when Jone apologized to her with a pale face and said that he would make up for her for the rest of his life, she could still smash a bowl to return the grievances she had suffered.
But six years later, she is a mother.
I am an orphan, and I want my child to grow up in a healthy and loving family.
I, who have suffered so much from life, cannot refuse this temptation.
If I can, I just want to say sorry to Jone’s wife who was hurt because of me.
It doesn’t matter whether she will forgive me or not. Look, I have been hurt so many times by life. Have I ever said I forgive it?
After Jone divorced, the situation remained deadlocked for a year, and his mother, who was so high and mighty at that time, could only accept her fate.
I married Jone, and life in the Smith family was not easy. I was not used to such a life, the sarcasm and ridicule, the invisible person in such a big family, and the tacit smiles of disdain from Jone’s friends when they saw me.
I pretended not to see it all.
I had long been accustomed to such eyes and such treatment. I thank fate for forcing the heart made of soft flesh and blood mud in my chest into a worthless diamond. I will never get hurt again. This is probably its gift to me.
My marriage with Jone is neither salty nor bland. He is a good father. Days pass by like this, and we have never talked about his ex-wife.
Until one day, I knew that Janet remarried.
Someone from the Smith family deliberately mentioned it in front of me, and seemed to show me a wedding photo unintentionally.
A very beautiful woman, gentle and generous, with eyes that seemed to be filled with water, surprisingly bright. In fact, the expressions in the wedding photos are not much different, and the smiles on the corners of the mouth are all the same, but she smiled very happily, and the man beside her also smiled, very handsome and reserved.
Maybe it was happiness, I finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Later on the way back, I suddenly remembered that I had seen this woman before. At the airport when I went out for a trip, we ran into each other head-on. She and Jone were both pale and greeted each other slightly. I openly tried her name, but she just smiled and replied to me: ‘I just know her.’ A very cultured woman.
If her hand holding the book had not been shaking all the time, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the clues, after all, she was so generous.
At that time, I didn’t mean anything else, I just wanted to apologize to her. Now it’s good, she is very happy, and I don’t have to keep saying sorry to her and make people upset.
When I went back, Jone was in the study. I gently pushed the door open. He didn’t notice me. There was a faint smell of cigarettes in the dark room. He had actually quit smoking for a long time because he had children at home. He held the cigarette in his mouth and closed his eyes. I saw two tear marks on his face.
I closed the door gently. Tim was about to come back from school. I had to think about what to eat tonight and start cooking.
However, my thoughts were out of control. I was stunned and remembered the rare heart-to-heart talk between Jone and me when we got married. We asked each other a question that had been hidden in our hearts for a long time. I asked him: ‘Do you regret the divorce?’
He looked at me calmly and said: ‘I regret it, but this is what I should do. I want to atone my sins, Abby, I am sorry for you and Tim.
Then he asked me: ‘If you know that you are so miserable later, do you regret giving birth to Tim Smith?’
I looked at him for a long time, and finally I said: ‘I regret it.’
He smiled with relief, and I didn’t say anything.
Because one of us lied.
I don’t regret it. Even though it was very bitter, Tim’s existence accompanied me through those days. I loved him and I never regretted it.
But he should regret it. He and his ex-wife are so compatible. Their spirit, soul, appearance, family background, interests and hobbies are all compatible. If he hadn’t provoked me, hadn’t provoked an innocent person, he would have a very happy family now.
He could have been very happy, but he missed it.
Just like the pink diamond he put on the bedside table that he could never give away, just like the two rows of identical mini Lego in his study that no one would ever play with him again, just like the wedding photo of him and his ex-wife that he put in the closest place in his wallet and could never show to anyone again… This is his retribution.
I kept silent, but fate was fair after all. The hurt I suffered many years ago was stabbed into his own heart in the form of a boomerang many years later.
Me?
I will never feel sorry for him again.
I always thought you were the only candy in my life, but later I found out that you were arsenic wrapped in candy paper.
