Chapter 3
Whether it was because my words had struck a nerve, or because she knew I had discovered her affair with Mr. Johnson and felt guilty, I ended up having a peaceful month.
Margaret would leave the house after breakfast every day. She no longer called me to deliver lunch, and when she came home she would lock herself in her room. We barely even crossed paths.
On my birthday, David called in the morning to apologize that he couldn’t make it back due to work. In the afternoon, I received flowers he had sent.
The card on the flowers was a poem we loved in college. Reading it brought back all the sweet memories from those days.
“You vixen, David’s not home. Don’t tell me these flowers are from some lover of yours!” Margaret started causing trouble again. But I wasn’t worried at all.
“Mom, David had these delivered to me.”
Margaret scoffed coldly: “Hmph, I knew you weren’t one to be frugal. Making my son waste money buying you flowers!”
I couldn’t be bothered to argue with her. I was about to take the flowers back to my room when she called out again: “You ungrateful girl, you don’t even care that your mother-in-law is sick because of you! Hurry up and take me to the hospital!”
I immediately became concerned. She had seemed fine earlier - how could she suddenly be ill and need to go to the hospital?
“Mom, are you alright? Where are you feeling unwell? I’ll go get the car keys right away!”
“What car? Gas is so expensive. The hospital’s not far anyway. Just push me in the wheelchair!”
Margaret insisted, so I had no choice but to take her in the wheelchair.
On the way, Margaret said she had diarrhea and intermittent fever. The symptoms sounded like the flu to me, but I didn’t dare take it lightly. After all, older people have weaker immune systems. If it developed into something more serious, David would be worried.
At the hospital, after hearing the symptoms, the doctor had an odd expression. He told me to take Margaret for a blood test first. A few hours later, when I saw the test results, I was shocked.
It was HIV.