Chapter 3

Evan left.

Meanwhile, Lydia sat on the couch in the living room and lit a cigarette. Then, she asked, "Alright. Tell me where Caleb is hiding."

I did not answer.

My eyes went through the half-closed door and landed on the black Maybach outside the yard. Evan was leaning back in the seat, scrolling through his phone. He was the picture of health.

What about Caleb?

The last time he appeared in front of me, his skin was pale, his lips were gray, and his eyes were sunken. He looked like a walking bag of skin.

They had been draining his blood for three years.

It wasn't some ordinary blood donation. They drew blood from him every few days, four hundred cc each time.

The nurse said that could kill someone, but Lydia simply said, "He's fine. Give him something sugary and he'll recover."

Every time Evan had an episode, Caleb had to give blood to him. When Evan's kidney function declined, Caleb had to give him his kidney. When Evan needed a bone marrow transplant, Lydia locked Caleb in the basement so that they could take it from him.

Caleb had tried fighting back. He tried to go on a hunger strike.

But after three days without food, Lydia brought him a meal and said, "If you starve to death, who will pay Noah's college tuition?"

So Caleb ate.

He tried calling the police. But when the police came, Lydia simply held up their marriage certificate and said, "It's a family matter. We're just having an argument."

Then the police left.

He tried to run away, but he managed to reach less than two-hundred miles before he was caught and dragged back into the basement before being locked up for seven days.

Only Evan came to see him. During those seven days, Evan would hold a bowl of oats and softly said, "Caleb, don't blame Lydia. She only did this because of me. If you want to blame someone, blame me."

Then he poured the cooked oats onto Caleb's face. "Is it hot? Sorry. I didn't mean to."

When Caleb told me those things, he didn't cry. He only looked at the ceiling and said, "Noah, sometimes I would think how different things would be if I managed to run away the first time."

His first attempt was during the second year of his marriage. He fell from a wall and fractured his tailbone, then crawled two miles to the highway entrance before Lydia's people caught him.

The second attempt was after the kidney removal. He was lying in a hospital bed and the anesthesia had not fully worn off. While the nurses were not paying attention, he ran outside in his hospital gown.

Security guards pinned him down in the lobby, and Lydia rushed over and slapped him in front of everyone.

"Are you mad?!" she said.

On the third attempt, he succeeded.

He cut his wrist with a shard from a broken bowl in the basement. Lydia panicked and sent him to the hospital. During the chaos in the emergency room, he ran in his slippers.

He took a bus for an entire day. When he got off, he collapsed into muddy water. The wound at his waist had split open, blood and pus flowed out together.

I carried him to the town clinic. When the doctor lifted his shirt, I vomited.

There was a fist-sized hollow on his side. It was the mark left by a missing kidney.

The surgical cut had been stitched and torn open, torn open and stitched again. The flesh had split, and the pale-yellow tissue beneath it could be seen. The skin was blackened and stiff, like dead flesh that had been made rotten again and again.

Caleb lay in the clinic's bed and told me, "Noah, don't go after Lydia. You can't afford to cross the Lanes. Just pretend you never had a brother."

I said alright.

Three days later, he died.

At five seventeen in the morning, the heart monitor became a flat line. I collapsed in the hallway and wailed.

I buried him under the old oak tree on the hill behind the town.

The mayor, Mrs. Dora Smith, found a carpenter right away to build the coffin. It was pine, unpainted. Caleb lay inside wearing his favorite white shirt. When I took the shirt out, I found a hole in the collar. He didn't even have one decent shirt left.

Evan had taken all his good shirts.

"Caleb, this jacket looks great. Can I borrow it?"

"Caleb, this watch is so nice. Lydia gave it to you, right? I envy you so much."

Once Evan borrowed something, he never returned it.

Once he wore something, he never took it off.

Caleb said nothing because he did not dare.

If he said anything, Lydia would call him petty.

If he said anything, Evan would look upset.

If he said anything, everyone would think he was a jealous husband.

"Noah, I'm asking you a question." Lydia's voice pulled me back into the present. "Where exactly is Caleb?"

She asked again, clearly losing patience.

"Lydia Lane," I said, using her full name. "Have you ever loved Caleb?"

The question was enough to stun her for a moment, but her brows drew tighter. "Why are you asking that?"

"Answer me," I asked.

She was silent for a few seconds, then turned her face aside.

"I did, but he changed. He became jealous, cruel, and unreasonable. He wouldn't even leave Evan alone when Evan was sick. He ran into the ward and pulled out Evan's IV line. Do you think a man like that is still worth loving?"

Caleb pulled out Evan's IV line?

Caleb couldn't even make himself kill a hen. How could he pull out another person's IV line?

I knew the truth.

Evan had deliberately turned his IV drip to the fastest setting, then screamed for the nurse and said Caleb had touched his line. When Lydia rushed in, Evan shrank into the corner of the hospital bed and looked at her with red eyes.

"Caleb probably didn't do it on purpose..."

There were no cameras.

There were no witnesses.

There was only Evan's word, and Caleb had no way to defend himself.

Lydia believed Evan.

From then on, she never looked at Caleb the same way again. The look that said, "I'll protect you," became the look that said, "I'm watching you."

"He didn't pull it out," I said.

Lydia stared at me for three seconds, then laughed. "You're just like him. Nothing but lies."

She stood and looked down at me.

"I'll give you one more day. By this time tomorrow, I want to see Caleb. Otherwise, your college, your degree, and the company you want to work for after graduation… Everything can be ruined with just one word from my family. Do you understand?"

I understood.

Caleb had understood, too.

So every time they drew his blood, every time they took something from his body, he simply gritted his teeth and said, "Fine."

Because he was afraid I would not have a good life.

Lydia turned and left.

The black Maybach raised a cloud of dust as it drove off.

I stood there and watched the dust slowly settle on my hair, my shoulders, and somewhere deep inside me.