Chapter 4

The air in the ward froze in an instant.

I looked at Mrs. Acevedo's shocked face.

Honestly, it wasn't just her—even I was shocked.

I didn't understand why Tristram would say such a thing.

The tense standoff dragged on for a long time.

Only then did Mrs. Acevedo speak, slowly.

"Tristram, do you know what you're saying?"

Tristram sneered and sat halfway up in the bed.

"Mom, stop pretending."

"If she weren't your own daughter, why would you shield her at every turn?"

Shield me?

I was baffled.

Just as I was about to speak, Tristram went on.

"You know perfectly well that I've always thought of her as a little sister."

"And you?"

"The moment she graduated, you pushed me to marry her."

I was completely stunned!

Back then he swore up and down that he loved me.

He said my parents had entrusted me to their family, that from then on their family would be my greatest support.

Now, out of his mouth, it had turned into coercion.

In the past, I would have made a scene, demanded to know why he married me if he didn't love me.

But now, I'd already decided to leave.

Even if I knew these things, they would only add to my troubles.

Whether he said them or not no longer mattered to me.

Mrs. Acevedo seemed to sense the change in me.

She didn't fly into a rage. Instead, she grew unusually calm.

"Tristram!"

"I'll say it once more: do you even know what you're saying?"

"If you're not thinking straight, I can treat what you just said as nonsense."

"I'm warning you to think it over carefully."

"Some words, once spoken, leave no way back!"

Hearing this, Tristram couldn't help but burst out laughing.

"What do I have to be afraid of?"

"Back in elementary school, when I had leukemia and needed a bone-marrow transplant, you and Dad worried yourselves sick over me. I remember."

"Afterward, I asked you more than once who donated the bone marrow, and the two of you flat-out refused to tell me."

"Well, today, I found her!"

"You found her?"

Mrs. Acevedo looked startled. "Where is she?"

Tristram smiled.

"For that I actually have to thank Paulette. If she hadn't run into Gladys, I never would have known."

"When I saw Gladys changing into her hospital gown, I happened to notice a crescent-shaped birthmark on her neck."

"You never told me who the donor was back then."

"All these years, I never gave up looking. The nurse said she couldn't reveal the other person's identity, so she just gave me a distinguishing mark."

"I just asked Gladys, and she admitted it was true."

I watched Tristram find his lifesaver, wearing the look of a man ready to devote his whole life to her in return.

Suddenly I wanted to laugh.

My parents and Tristram's father were good friends.

My parents died in a car accident, and before they passed, they entrusted me to the Dickerson family's care.

I was only seven that year.

When I first came to the Dickersons, Tristram wanted nothing to do with me.

But when he was ten, he suddenly fell gravely ill and was diagnosed with leukemia, urgently needing a bone-marrow transplant.

His father wasn't a match, and his mother was anemic and in poor health, unable to donate.

I watched the two of them go gray-haired overnight.

So, to repay their kindness, I volunteered to be tested for a match.

As luck would have it, my bone marrow was compatible.

I knew Tristram was a competitive person, so I asked his parents to keep it secret.

In all the years since, they never breathed a word of it.

I never imagined Gladys would find a way to slip through the cracks.

Seeing that Mrs. Acevedo and I stayed silent for so long, he assumed we had caved.

"Today, it just so happens you're both here."

"Paulette, let's get a divorce. I want to formally marry Gladys!"

"Fine!"

The word shot out of me.

Tristram was taken aback, as if he hadn't expected me to be so quick about it.

I hesitated for a moment, but in the end I couldn't help asking.

"Tristram, are you sure the person who donated the bone marrow was Gladys?"