Chapter 2

Scrolling further back, I saw messages showing that he had driven Wanda and her son to the hospital in the middle of the night because Wanda’s son had nothing more than a minor cold.

He ran back and forth personally, sparing no expense, even paying a large sum to get a specialist to see the boy.

Meanwhile, that very same day, my son had a persistent high fever. I could not reach him no matter how many times I called, so I had no choice but to carry my son on my back all the way to the emergency unit in the hospital.

There were no beds or doctors available when we arrived. We had to wait in line just to be seen.

I was so desperate that I nearly knelt and begged the doctors and nurses on duty. Only then did they get an empty bed so my child could lie down and rest.

…

Scene after scene from the past flashed before my eyes like a slideshow.

So, this was the truth. Every single day, he was an absent husband and father in our small family, yet he played the role of savior in his ex-girlfriend's life.

I clutched the phone tightly as I kept scrolling. The more I scrolled, the redder my eyes became, until I could no longer hold back the tears.

Seeing me like this, Koah’s face turned pale as he tried to defend himself. “Honey, Wanda’s son is still young. He needs a father’s love. He cries all day asking for his dad. I had no choice.”

I retorted. “You went over there to be her man, to be her child’s father. What about our family? Where is my husband? Where is my son’s father? Is he dead?”

After saying that, I sneered. “With how things are now, you might as well be dead.”

As I spoke, I grabbed the water bottle in the car and hurled it at Koah with all my strength.

With a loud bang, the bottle struck him right on the forehead.

He clutched the wound, grimacing in pain, and looked at me with a hint of complaint.

“Honey, you hit me too hard…”

I ignored him and shouted angrily, “Koah, the downpayment for that house was money my parents left me before they died. How dare you touch it!”

“Our son is about to start elementary school. Without an apartment in the school district, how is he supposed to go to school?”

“Call her and get that money back now!”

I reached for the phone to make him call his ex-girlfriend, but he snatched it away and said to me, “Honey, can’t you have a little compassion? Wanda is a single woman raising a child. That ten thousand dollars every month isn’t just for the kid. It also goes toward her mortgage. Where would she possibly find money to return to you?”

I stared at him in disbelief, my voice trembling as I spoke.

“Koah, do you even know that your son is almost seven years old, and our family doesn’t even have enough money to pay his school fees?”

“To earn more, I get up before dawn every day to work a side job selling breakfast! Even when I injured my leg, I was afraid to go to the hospital for treatment!”

“As for you… you not only give all your salary to your ex-girlfriend to raise her son, but even help her pay off her mortgage by lying that you are paying for your mother’s medical expenses.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

Koah’s eyes widened. He looked at my leg in panic and said, “Honey, does your leg feel better now?”

“Do you want me to take you to the hospital to have it checked?”

I scoffed. “Don’t put on a fake pretense. If you really cared about me, why didn’t you answer when I called you thirty times that day?”

Koah seemed to recall something, and his face turned deathly pale in an instant.

His lips moved as if he wanted to explain, but in the end, not a single word came out.

Just as I was about to continue, our son’s voice suddenly came from the back seat of the car.

Rubbing his sleepy eyes, he called out to us in a drowsy voice, “Daddy, Mommy, are we at North Bay Elementary School already?”

I reached back, carried my son from the back seat into the front seat, and said softly, “Not yet. Did Mommy and Daddy’s voices wake you up?”

Sitting obediently in my arms, my son shook his head.

Seeing this, a trace of guilt flashed through Koah’s eyes. He was about to say something, but I cut him off.

“Let’s go. Take our son to get familiar with the elementary school first. We’ll talk about everything else when we get home.”

The rest of the drive passed in silence. Neither Koah nor I spoke.

Our son was about to graduate from kindergarten and enter elementary school, and I had long ago chosen North Bay Elementary School for him, a school renowned for both its faculty and its education quality.