Chapter 3

Mom was silent for a long time.

And then, so that Dad could pull himself back together, she actually nodded and agreed.

The next day she moved into the doghouse on the balcony.

In less than a year, Dad's company miraculously went public again, and he became the richest man in the city.

But he still made Mom sleep in the doghouse on the balcony.

Even though we had a housekeeper, he made Mom wash his shirts by hand,

and those shirts turned up with other women's lipstick on them, other women's earrings in the pockets.

When Mom finally meant to hold up an earring and confront him, she saw him stagger through the door dead drunk,

and she swallowed every last bit of it back down, turned around, and went to make him a hangover soup.

But whenever Mom lay in that doghouse writhing in pain, Dad just stood in the living room and watched, cold-eyed.

“Every time you get sick, my stock goes up.”

“You really have been draining my luck all along!”

He had no idea that was Mom taking the hits for him, the sabotage at the company, the car crashes, the terminal illnesses.

It was only later that I understood: that rainy night,

the two words Dad was supposed to hear, “death substitution,” had been blocked out by the system,

and only on the day Mom's mission was complete would Dad be allowed to know the truth——

One time, Mom had just finished a death-substitution mission and lay in the doghouse barely breathing,

and I sat beside her, my eyes red, and asked,

“Do you hate Dad?”

Her face was ghost-white. Her trembling hand brushed the stray hair off my forehead, and she smiled, softly.

“Nina, you're still little, you don't understand……”

“When you love someone, you'd give up your own life for them……”

Silly Mom——

The rain came down in sheets, and a crack of thunder seemed to snap Dad out of it.

He looked at Mom coldly:

“Weren't you worried Nina would suffer? Fine. Then you stay tonight and wait on Marjorie.”

“As long as Marjorie's happy, I won't lock Nina up.”

Dad glanced at his watch:

“The party starts in five hours. You'd better do exactly as you're told!”

Mom didn't argue. She said only two words:

“That's fine.”

Before the party started, Mom and I were shut in the room next to theirs.

For five whole hours, through the wall came Marjorie's exaggerated moaning and Dad's teasing laughter.

Mom covered my ears and stared blankly out the window.

At eight o'clock, the party began.

Marjorie wore a lavish couture gown, like the real lady of the house.

And Mom was forced into a waiter's uniform, a mask over her face, weaving a tray through the crowd.

“Oh my, Mr. Gilbert and Miss Simmons really are a match made in heaven!”

The guests flattered them.

Marjorie smiled, pleased with herself, then suddenly pointed at Mom in the corner:

“Frank Finch, I'm pregnant, I can't drink. Let my personal maid here drink for me.”

Frank was a lecherous old man, and his eyes crawled up and down over Mom.

“Sure! Let's see how well this maid knows her place.”

Mom's face gave nothing away as she drank down one glass of hard liquor after another.

In the old days, at drinking events, Dad would rather drink until his stomach bled than let Mom touch a single drop.

But now Dad sat with his arm around Marjorie, watching coldly as a ring of men crowded Mom for toasts.

One glass. Two. Three.

The hard liquor went down her throat, and Mom's face turned deathly pale, cold sweat rolling off her in big drops.

“Can she drink! Another one!”

Frank egged them on.

Dad's face went dark all at once. He crossed the room in long strides and snatched the glass out of Mom's hand.

“Enough! If she drinks herself dead here, who's going to wait on Marjorie?”

Mom shoved his hand away and let out a cold huff.

“You……”

Seeing this, Marjorie hurried over and slipped her arm through Dad's:

“Giles, don't be angry. Samantha must just be tired. Let me have someone help her up to a guest room to rest.”

Dad pinched Marjorie's cheek:

“You're the one who understands me.”

Mom took my hand and walked us out, unsteady on her feet.

At the corner, I looked back.

I saw Dad murmuring something to one of his bodyguards.

The bodyguard nodded again and again, then turned and left.

Then Dad's gaze crossed the crowd and found us,

and I don't know if it was just my eyes playing tricks,

but I really did think I saw, on Dad's face,

a trace of…… worry?

A roll of thunder——

The huge crack came down again,

and I shook my head.

I must have been seeing things.

Outside, the rain fell harder and harder, with no sign of stopping.