Love Was My Mom’s Farewell

In the seventh year of my dad’s affair, my mom was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Her first reaction was to kneel and beg the doctor not to tell my dad. Aunt Rachel, who worked at the hospital, cried in frustration: “Willow, why do you have to torture yourself like this? Do you think this will make that scumbag cry and wake up to reality? Using your own death to punish someone else—don’t you have any self-respect?” But Mom just smiled, her gaze falling tenderly on me. “I don’t need his regret.” “I just need to secure a bright future for my Sienna.”

When Mom walked me out of the hospital, Dad had already left. He’d only left her a message: [My time is valuable. You were five minutes late, so I left.] Mom stared at her phone, a bit dazed. I remembered how things used to be. I have hemophilia, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve been in and out of hospitals constantly. Dad would always drop everything and wait patiently. Mom would act coy with him: “Aren’t you tired of this?” Dad would take me from her arms and kiss her cheek: “Not tired. Every second I wait for you two, I’m happy.” I’d be sandwiched between them, warm and happy too. Mom’s fingers trembled as she deleted the message. Then she sent a text to Aunt Rachel: [Did you send the forged health certificate to Vivian?] After getting confirmation, she took me home. Mom used to walk lightly—I could barely keep up with her. But now I had to support her just so she could move. When we got home, she immediately rushed to the bathroom and coughed up blood. After vomiting, she looked up and stared blankly at two overlapping handprints on the mirror. The blood was dark red, almost black. I panicked and called Dad. There was a woman’s laughter on the other end. I was used to it by now, so I pretended not to hear. Crying, I told him Mom had late-stage stomach cancer. Dad came home quickly. Seeing the shocking red in the toilet, he scooped Mom up in his arms: “Don’t be scared. We’ll find the best doctor for a second opinion right now.” “I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you.” He’d said before that the other women were just playthings—Mom was the one he loved most. He was a man of his word. But just then, the sharp click of high heels echoed, and that woman in the white dress, Vivian, appeared again. She held her head high and threw a piece of paper at Dad: “Dylan, you’re so stupid! That plain Jane fooled you and you don’t even know it!” “Late-stage stomach cancer? It’s all just her way of getting attention!” “This is from my friend at the hospital—she’s perfectly healthy!” I recognized it—the paper was the forged health certificate Mom had asked Aunt Rachel to make. I opened my mouth to explain, but Mom gripped my hand tightly. I could only watch helplessly as Dad’s face darkened. “Faking illness to get attention, and making Sienna help you lie.” “Willow, you’ve really outdone yourself!” Dad stormed off despite my attempts to stop him. Mom watched him leave with his arm around that woman, a faint smile appearing on her pale face. I sobbed uncontrollably. “Mom, why did you pretend to be healthy?” Mom sighed softly: “Because Vivian is too stupid.” “So stupid she’d never think of framing me for faking an illness on her own.” “So I had to help her create the evidence.” “This is building moral capital. The more I accumulate, the more he’ll feel he owes you…” “Besides, once your dad discovers her report is fake, he won’t believe any report she shows him in the future.” I didn’t understand. All I knew was that Mom was dying, so I cried even harder. Mom wiped my tears, and as she did, she started crying too: “Dylan, you’re so smart—how could you fall in love with an idiot like Vivian?” Mom used to be a coal baron’s mistress. Dad was a poor man groveling for investments. At a banquet, their eyes met—a rose blooming unexpectedly in rotten soil. Mom acted coy with the coal baron and secured Dad a huge investment and massive orders. Later, the coal baron went to prison, and Dad had become a business tycoon. Amid everyone’s mockery, he found Mom, who’d been passed around several times. Without another word, they got married immediately. After marriage, Dad pampered Mom into the most radiant woman. He gave her a French château, shares in his company. When she got pregnant with me, he even spent a fortune to buy her the naming rights to a small asteroid. They could have stayed happy like that forever. Until I was born.