Home / The Turned-Over Umbrella / Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

All Chapters of The Turned-Over Umbrella: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

22 Chapters

Chapter 11

Within the two weeks that I taught at the cultural center, my students had increased twofold. Mia was the first to arrive every day and the last to leave. Whenever she could not bend down, she would slump on the floor and cry. After crying, she would stand up again and practice. I squatted down to massage her legs. She sobbed and asked, “Ms. Brown, did you cry when you were younger?”“I did. I was an even bigger crybaby than you.” “Then, how did you stop crying?” I pondered for a while. Then, I told her that after I hid my dance shoes away, I no longer shed a single tear. Mia did not understand what I was talking about, nor did I explain it to her. On Friday, Caleb recorded a short video of the children performing. At the end of the video, he filmed Mia and me dancing. He uploaded the video to the cultural center’s social media page, and it went viral, garnering over a hundred thousand views the next day. There were a lot of comments. Some of them asked who I was, an

Chapter 12

When Lucian sent the video to Liam, he was just about to sleep. The video was less than a minute long. A group of children was dancing in an old dance studio. In the last few seconds of the video, I was dancing and twirling with Mia. Both of our dresses swirled around us as we laughed. Liam kept replaying those last few seconds. It was me. I had lost a bit of weight, and I had my hair up in a bun. However, the way I spun was exactly like how he had seen me twirling in the living room. He could not forget that sight. The location was tagged in the video. It was the culture center in Greenville Town. He gave Hugo a call. After Hugo answered, Liam simply said, “I found her. Are you coming with me?”Hugo was quiet for a few seconds. “Greenville Town… That’s where my grandmother lives.” Liam was stunned. We were together for five years, yet no one had mentioned my grandmother. It was 1 a.m. when they started their journey to Greenville Town. Lucian wanted to go with the

Chapter 13

The wind blew the gate ajar. I straightened up and turned around. Then, I saw both of them. Liam was standing before the gate with his hand raised in mid-air, and Hugo was standing behind him with dark circles under his eyes. The weeds fell from my grandmother’s hand. I did not move. Liam walked in and took a small box out of his pocket. Then, he opened the box, and the ring glinted in the sunlight. “Esme, come home with me.” His voice was strained, as if he had practiced the speech many times on his way here. “I’ve told Isla that it’s over. I’ll take down the decorations that she put up and restore your room to its original state. We’ll get married next month. Let’s not wait any longer. I don’t want to wait another day longer. I stared at that ring and recalled what he had said in the rain. “Didn’t you say that we’ll only get married after she passes?”The blood immediately drained from Liam’s face. “I was a jerk back then…”“No, you weren’t a jerk. You just thou

Chapter 14

Hugo went back to the city the next day, but Liam stayed behind. He checked in to the only inn in town and applied for some time off at work. His superior called him and asked when he would return to work, and he said he did not know. Every day at around 4 p.m., he would show up at the cultural center and peer into the dance studio through the window. I was teaching the children how to dance. I bent down and repositioned Mia’s leg, then I straightened up to demonstrate it to her. When I twirled, my ponytail swung behind me. The children were clumsily imitating my moves, yet I never lost my patience. I corrected their moves one by one. Once, Mia fell. She sprawled on the floor and sobbed. I crouched down to hug her as I gently rubbed her knees. Then, I whispered some encouragement, and a smile broke out on Mia’s face. Liam stood outside the window and recalled the first time we met. I was a bright and cheerful young woman, and I was almost always bouncing around in joy. As

Chapter 15

My mother arrived on Saturday afternoon. Hugo drove as Isla sat in the backseat with a thick blanket on her lap. They parked before the gate. My mother got out of the car, but she did not come into the house. Instead, she took out a foldable chair from the trunk and placed it under the persimmon tree. Then, she sat on the chair. “I will starve myself if you don’t come home with me.” She had used the same threat for the past six years, and it had always been successful. The neighbors all gathered out of curiosity. One of the neighbors asked my grandmother what was going on. My grandmother stood by the door and sneered as she stared at my mother. “I haven’t seen you in over a decade, and you’re greeting me by lying underneath my persimmon tree. I guess some things never change.” My mother opened her eyes to glare at her. “How dare you talk about me when you took my daughter away from me?”“Your daughter?” My grandmother stepped forward. “Do you even regard her as your da

Chapter 16

The town hospital was not big. There were many people in the emergency room hallway. My mother had low blood sugar and slight dehydration. After getting an IV drip, she regained consciousness. When she woke up, she immediately asked if I was there. Hugo said that I was not, and my mother turned her head to the wall in silence. Isla kept crying as she sat next to my mother’s hospital bed. As she sobbed, she pressed her hand against her chest, saying that she felt unwell. The doctor on duty was a young man named Leo Taylor. After hearing that Isla had a congenital heart disease, he immediately got a nurse to wheel an ECG monitor over. Then, he sent her for an echocardiogram. “Do you have all her past medical records with you?”Hugo combed through his phone to retrieve all the past medical reports. Then, he showed them to Dr. Taylor. As Dr. Taylor flipped through the records, he paused when he reached a surgical report from three years ago. “It seems like her surgery was a

Chapter 17

The next morning, Hugo knocked on our door. He did not sleep at all the night before, and his eyes were bloodshot. He was holding a stack of papers in his hand. My mother, Isla, and Liam were standing behind him. My mother’s face was still a little pale, and Hugo was supporting her with his other arm. Isla was the last to approach, and she hung her head as she walked. She was no longer wrapped in that thick blanket. Hugo passed me the stack of papers. “Have a look. You should know this too.”It was Isla’s medical report from three years ago and the ECG report from the day before. The last line of the report read [Cardiac function is normal.] I stared at those few words for a really long time. “What does this mean?”Hugo gulped. It was a while before he managed to speak. “She recovered a long time ago. Her surgery from three years ago was a success. She made up the lie about her prognosis.” My grandmother dropped her basket, and her produce fell onto the ground. I lo

Chapter 18

On the day they went back to the city, Liam did not return to his own house. Instead, he went into my bedroom. The soft toys were still piled up in a box by the door. He carried all of the boxes downstairs and put them in his car trunk. Then, he glanced at the matching mugs and tossed them into the trash can downstairs. The diffuser, fairy lights, and the sign Isla hung on the door were all thrown away too. Isla stood in the hallway and watched him. She did not cry or try to stop him. When Hugo walked past Isla, he took out the broken musical box and put it in a trash bag. Then, he tossed it on top of the soft toys. My mother sat in the living room and watched as they moved the boxes out. It seemed like she wanted to say something a few times, yet she kept quiet in the end. The bedroom was empty except for the light gray bedsheet I had put on the bed. It looked very tidy. Liam stood by the door and stared at the bedroom for a really long time before shutting the door. A

Chapter 19

Hugo came to see me alone. It was drizzling that day, but he was not holding an umbrella. He stood beneath the persimmon tree. His hair was wet, and his shoulders were drenched. He knocked on the door softly, as if he were afraid of startling anyone. My grandmother was the one who opened the door. She glanced at him yet did not chase him away. However, she did not let him in either. When I stepped out, he passed me a bank statement. It was a little crumpled up from his grip. “I’ve transferred the money to you. Have a look.” I glanced at my phone and saw a bank notification. It was exactly 41,080 dollars, just like I had calculated. “You sold the car?”Hugo was a little stunned as he nodded. “How did you know?”“With your savings, you wouldn’t have been able to repay me this quickly otherwise.” He hung his head and chuckled. His smile looked more like a frown. “Esme, I’m sorry.” I did not say a word. “Back then, I only tore your offer letter into pieces because I

Chapter 20

The theater performance was scheduled at 7 p.m. on the 18th. Liam managed to get a ticket. It was a corner seat at the very last row, and it was very far from the stage. When he entered the theater, the lights had already dimmed. He did not pay attention to any of the first few performances. His hand clenched around that letter in the pocket of his coat. Liam wrote that letter on the day he proposed, and it was three pages long. His handwriting was a little messy because he was so anxious. At the very end of the letter, he drew a tiny heart shape. After I received that letter, I had not opened it. I told him I wanted to save it for our wedding day and read it then.He thought that I would always keep that letter. When the emcee announced that Greenville Town cultural center’s performance was next, everyone started clapping. The curtain went up, revealing over twenty children standing in two rows. Mia was standing in the front row, and her face was flushed red from nervousn

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