Chapter 3

I mentioned the divorce in a casual fashion, then grabbed my handbag and stepped out of the house.

I did not immediately leave after shutting the door.

Soon, I heard Patricia yelling inside the house.

“Adrian, your wife wants to quit her job! Yes! I heard her say that on the phone! And she wants a divorce!”

I did not want to listen anymore. The world suddenly became a joke in my eyes.

…

When Adrian came back from work, he had a sour expression. By the looks of it, he was going to settle accounts with me.

“What did you tell my mom?”

“I said that I’m going to move out and empty up the place for her. Weren’t you really eager for her to move back in?”

Adrian was rendered speechless and found himself unable to continue the conversation. After taking a moment to compose himself, he said, “Linda, I know that you’re in a bad mood because you’re sick, but you have to understand that we’re not the ones who brought this about. You can’t blame us for it.”

I stared at him and said, “Have you ever thought that perhaps you all actually are the reason why I’m sick?”

“What the… I don’t even know what to say to that!” He stood up in a rage.

“Let’s divorce then,” I offered.

The next day, we went to the courthouse to file for divorce.

After I returned home, I packed my stuff into a bag. Just as I was about to leave, I thought of something and called my mother.

She was living alone. She had been staying with my brother before, but since she could not get along with my sister-in-law, she moved out.

At almost eighty, she needed someone to take care of her. Since none of her children were rich, it was not practical to hire a caretaker for her. In the end, I was the one in charge of taking care of her.

Every afternoon, I dropped by to make lunch for her and clean up her place during lunch break, regardless of rain or shine. Even when things were bad for me, I still had to drop by. I lived this sort of life for three years.

Honestly, it was tough on my body.

I wanted to move to her place for a few days while I thought about what I was going to do in the future.

“Divorce? Why are you causing all this drama? No good woman gets a divorce.”

When my mother heard that I had filed for a divorce, she was immediately displeased.

“Women are free. If we don’t get along, we divorce.”

“What on earth are you saying?! Your husband is a pretty good man. He doesn’t flirt with other women, and he spends his money on the family. At most, he goes fishing. What’s wrong with that? Aren’t you content with it?”

The more my mother ranted, the angrier she got, as if I had committed a huge crime.

“I have cancer, and he refuses to spend money on my treatment.”

When I stated the reason, I felt as if someone had seized my throat. I choked on those words.

“What? Cancer?” My mother was silent for a moment. “You’re so troublesome. None of my friends or family have cancer!”

Her words were like knives to my heart.

I hung up while standing at the door. There was nothing more to say between us.

But then, my phone rang. The screen showed one word—Mom.

My heart skipped a beat. She was still worried about me! I answered the call right away.

“Call your sister or brother. If you can’t take care of me, let them know. Someone has to take care of me!”

I slammed my finger on the end call button, grabbed my luggage, and left.

I first moved to Jennifer’s house. She, too, was divorced, so we could keep each other company.

We then went to the hospital a few more times. My condition was bad, and Jennifer felt really down about it. She hugged me and cried.

…

One time, when I came back from the hospital, I felt exhausted.

Fortunately, my children were not around, so unlike before, I did not need to push myself to cook for them, no matter how tired I was.

Jennifer and I cooked some noodles for ourselves.

The setting sun soon vanished, and the beautiful scenery outside disappeared.

“I have an idea. Let’s go out and have fun. I’ve been trapped in my marriage for most of my life. I suddenly want to be free,” Jennifer suggested.

“Sure!” I clapped and agreed to it.

I once dreamed of traveling around the world. When I graduated from university, I thought of doing just that. At the time, I was coursemates with Adrian, and his attention was focused solely on me.

Unfortunately, I became pregnant with Oliver, and we got married in a hurry. From then on, even leaving the city became a luxury.

My life was like a prison. Each moment was like a steel bar that surrounded me. As time passed, even breathing became hard.

Adrian and I worked hard to earn money, buy a house, and prepare for Irene’s arrival. During that time, we witnessed the passing of both our fathers.

I expected to be able to escape my prison once my children became adults, but reality slapped me in the face. I could not climb out. I was supposed to be trapped forever.

It was time for me to break out and transform into a new person.

After the divorce, I got 100,000 dollars.

I could have gotten more. After all, I was one of the owners of the house, but sympathy won at the end of the day. If I had sold the house, my former family would have become homeless, and things would have been hard for them.

I was going to do as much as possible with the money I had.

Jennifer and I pooled together 180,000 dollars to buy a secondhand RV to travel around the country with her cat and dog.

She created an account called Two Ladies, One Cat, One Dog, and we streamed our journey. It was a record of the little time we had left.

Jennifer and I had studied in the same middle school. We knew each other for more than twenty years and were the best of friends.

We had supported each other throughout our lives, which was why I would say that we knew each other best in the world.

We talked about where we wanted to go. Since we were not doing this to jump on the bandwagon, we were not attracted to the popular scenic places and huge cities.

Jennifer had studied historic buildings and conservation in university. Later on, she became an insurance agent in order to make ends meet. On this journey, she could do what she liked again.

As for me, when I was younger, I loved drawing, but once the children were born, we were short on money. We did not have any spare money for me to attend art classes, so all I could do was fill up the inserted pages of books or the backs of notebooks with simple sketches.

I rewarded myself with a set of oil colors and a huge sketchboard.

Our livestream did not have any viewers. From time to time, someone would drop by but would leave after just a few minutes. We were two middle-aged women with faces marked by time. What we showed was also your typical scenery. We had no skills to boast of, and we did not know how to entertain an audience. It was no surprise then that no one was interested in what we had to show.

But we did not care. We just kept livestreaming and living every day to the fullest.

Then, out of nowhere, we went viral.

That day, we went to an old village. Apparently, it had a few monuments that dated many generations back.

It took us three days to reach the place, where a local showed us the monuments.

Jennifer started rubbing the monuments to copy their inscriptions while I set up my easel to draw.

It started pouring in the evening, and we ran back to our RV.

I made ginger tea and played Bressanone under a dim light.

That was how our evening passed. We listened to the rain and drank tea while our minds were occupied by different thoughts. Sometimes, we exchanged glances and smiled.

The cat and dog huddled together and slept.

This was what peace and quiet felt like. It was nothing special.

When I woke up the next day, out of habit, I checked our view count.

The number was so long that I felt dizzy. We had gone viral.