Chapter 3
When I woke up early the next morning, Gabriel was already gone.
He was busy with work and left early.
And I found a photo in the wallet he had left behind.
In the photo, a young woman looked radiant, smiling brightly with curved eyes. Her left hand was holding Gabriel’s arm, and her right hand was making an old-fashioned peace sign.
Her appearance was somewhat similar to mine.
No! It was very similar.
With trembling hands, I stuffed the photo back.
Gabriel was eleven years older than me, he must have had lovers in the past. I could let that go.
But the woman in the photo was Olivia, my aunt…
My husband and my aunt.
What kind of relationship did they have?
And what did they take me for in these four years of marriage?
Like a thunderbolt, scenes from the past involving Olivia flashed through my mind.
When we got married, he asked several times why Olivia didn’t attend the wedding; during New Year’s family gatherings, when my mother called Olivia, he would always lean in to say “Happy New Year”; even the clothes he bought for me were always in the cream color that my aunt loved to wear…
There were too many similar incidents, scene after scene flashing through my mind, leaving me confused and shocked.
The photo was old, the color fading at the edges, evidence of how many times the owner’s fingers must have caressed it longingly.
Trying to avoid the reality, I stuffed the wallet into the bedside drawer.
A moment later, I masochistically entered Gabriel’s study.
He had warned me several times not to enter his study, and I wasn’t interested in what was inside, assuming it was just some important documents of a workaholic.
I pushed aside the documents on the desk and looked at the photo album hidden beneath them.
The album was filled with photos of a young couple on every page.
I slowly flipped through, looking at the dates behind each photo, until I reached the last one.
[October 26, 2016].
This photo was a long-distance shot taken at the airport on the day Olivia left the country six years ago. Her black hair was flowing, and her expression was melancholic.
I was also in the photo. I was just a sophomore then, very reluctant to part with my aunt who had always doted on me.
I was hugging Olivia and crying.
I hadn’t noticed someone taking a picture from afar.
On the back of the photo, there was a message written in neat handwriting.
[Olivia, our ten years end here.]
A month later, I met Gabriel for the first time in the cold winter.
Two years later, after my college graduation, I unhesitatingly married him.