Chapter 3

3: 3

The apartment was very quiet.

I pulled the curtains back to let the light in.

There wasn't much to take to the hospital, but I still found a big suitcase.

When people are about to leave, they always want to leave something behind.

At the very bottom of the drawer sat an old tin box.

I opened it.

A pearl necklace lay inside.

It was fake.

The year I was nineteen, chemo took all my hair.

I lay in that hospital bed day and night and refused to step outside.

Oswald had just come out of a bone marrow extraction; his back hurt so much he couldn't stand up straight.

He still slipped out and bought me this necklace.

He fastened it around my neck with great care.

"Rebecca, look. You're the prettiest."

I touched the bead with the little air bubble in it and laughed at him.

"This is fake."

His ears went red all at once.

"When I have money, I'll get you a real one."

I said okay.

Later he really did have money.

I never once let him replace it.

I was afraid that if he did, it wouldn't be that necklace anymore.

Below it was a stack of movie tickets and Polaroid photos.

I placed them into the suitcase one by one.

At the very bottom, pressed flat, was a red marriage certificate.

I opened it gently.

In the photo Oswald was smiling beautifully, his eyes curved, his teeth showing.

I sat on the floor with the red booklet open across my knees and looked at it for a long time.

I couldn't understand it.

Why did Oswald have to lie to me?

Countless times I had pushed him away, told him to go live a new life.

He only had to say he didn't love me anymore, and I would have let go at once.

Instead, of all things, he chose to lie.

All these years, I had found so many reasons for him.

He was busy, he was under pressure, he had suffered too much.

People change. That's normal.

I knocked down each reason one by one, and one by one I built them back up again.

In the end I finally understood.

He couldn't bear to.

He had seen me at ten in the orphanage.

He had seen me at nineteen with all my hair gone.

He knew I had no one left in this life but him.

He had fallen in love with someone else, but he couldn't say it out loud.

He was afraid I wouldn't be able to survive it.

So he made up another person, and let that person be cruel to me.

That way, the one I hated wouldn't be him.

You see, he still loved me.

How thoughtful of him.

I held the red booklet against my chest and laughed for a long time.

Laughing and laughing, tears fell onto the cover.

I quickly wiped them away.

The next morning, the hospital.

The nurse needed to log my information and asked about my spouse.

I handed over the red booklet.

"Yes, I have one."

The person at the window took it, entered the number, entered it twice.

"It's not coming up in the system."

She turned to the inside page and rubbed her fingertip over the embossed seal.

When she finished, she looked at her finger.

"This seal is printed on."

I didn't understand and looked at her.

She hesitated.

"It's just… they sell these online."

"Nine ninety-nine a copy."

A three-dollar medical record.

A nine-ninety-nine marriage certificate.

I let out a laugh and quickly said it wasn't possible.

"You don't know my husband. You don't know that he isn't that kind of person."

I told her he was the one who pulled me out of the orphanage when I was ten.

And that he sent the ones who bullied me to the police station.

I told her that when we were poorest, we split one tub of instant noodles across two meals, and every time he scooped all the noodles out for me and soaked the leftover bits in the broth for himself.

I told her he took me out to the edge of town to look at the stars, making a wish for me on each one.

"How could our marriage certificate possibly be fake?"

I hurried to pull out my phone, wanting to prove it to her.

My fingers trembled as I opened the photo album and flipped through them, one by one.

The first, a coffee shop.

Oswald and Davina sat side by side looking at a laptop, their heads close together.

I sat across from them, head down, stirring my cup.

The second, the steps at a scenic spot.

They walked in front, Davina laughing.

I trailed a dozen steps behind, holding up the camera.

The third, the fourth… the tenth.

I flipped faster and faster.

A mall, an airport, a company party, that tree outside his office building.

Some of him eating, some of him in meetings, some of him asleep.

Every single one had Davina in it.

Either standing on his left, or sitting on his right.

Either holding his coat for him, or him carrying her bag for her.

And me, always outside the frame.

I flipped through them one by one, and the blood in me turned cold bit by bit.

The phone buzzed in my palm.

A message from Oswald popped up.

"It's pouring where I landed."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

I stared at those two lines.

Before, every time he went on a business trip, I would write down the weather over there three days ahead.

Which days it would rain, which days it would turn cold, whether to bring an umbrella, which coat to bring.

I was afraid he'd get caught in the rain, because rain always gave him a fever.

This time, I forgot.

The medicine kept me dazed all day; one nap and half the day was gone.

I wanted to tell him I hadn't done it on purpose.

And I wanted to ask him: that marriage certificate, did you really buy it?

These words, I typed them out one by one, and deleted them one by one.

Never mind.

I wiped my eyes.

How many more times will we even get to talk?

In three years, every time we fought, he would leave me hanging for a long time.

The longest was two months.

Before, I had all the time in the world to wait.

Now I didn't.

"You can check the weather app yourself."

"From now on, you need to learn to take care of yourself."

The nurse leaned in and called me.

"Your bed's ready. Come with me."

I picked up the suitcase and followed her down the corridor.