Chapter 1

For six years of marriage, my husband and I had always gone back to visit our own family graves separately.

This year I went to the cemetery in Louis's hometown, hoping to surprise him.

But after searching for a long while, all I found was a low grave mound with the name "Lyons" carved on it.

The people from the village told me.

"That's a Lyons child who died young a few years back. Poor little thing."

Louis had told me his elder brother's posthumous child was born on the very same day as my son—only one died young and the other was healthy and sturdy.

So every year he'd bring our son back to his hometown to visit the grave, to ease his brother's wife's grief over losing her daughter.

Looking at the low mound, I felt a tightness in my chest out of nowhere, so I simply hired someone to fix it up.

But one dig of the shovel turned up a baby's protective locket.

Exactly like the one I lost in the delivery room five years ago.

...

I froze for a moment, then instinctively picked it up.

I turned it over, and there were eight words carved on the back.

"Peace and smooth days, every blessing in full."

Even the strokes of the engraving were the same as the one Harry lost.

Back then, Louis had blamed himself for being careless, saying he must have lost it while showing the baby off to relatives.

Later, when his brother's wife heard about it, she added a thirty-gram gold locket, saying it was a gift for the child.

Reason told me this had nothing to do with me.

My Harry was clever and well-behaved. My parents said he'd inherited our Simmons genes, and they'd poured their hearts into raising him.

How could he not be my child?

But the locket seemed glued to my hand; I wanted to let it go and couldn't.

As if something had come over me, I sent a message to my dad.

"Dad, when you get a chance, could you pull the security footage from the maternity hospital the year Harry was born?"

"I found a baby's protective locket at the cemetery in Louis's hometown, exactly like the one you had blessed back then."

Right after I sent it, I heard Harry's affectionate voice behind me.

"Mommy, I want you to carry me."

I thought Harry had seen me, and my furrowed brows relaxed at once.

I really was foolish—thinking, just because of a locket, that the Harry I'd raised with my own hands wasn't my own flesh and blood.

But when I turned to look, I saw him nestled in the arms of his brother's wife, Yvette James.

And standing beside them was my husband, Louis Lyons.

Yvette gave him a helpless smile.

"Look at our son—big as he is, and still so clingy."

Louis's eyes were full of tenderness as he reached out and wrapped his arms around the two of them.

"A son takes after his father. I can't do without you either."

Since when could Louis not do without anyone?

In six years of marriage, he'd spent half his time at the company.

Under the fine excuse of easing my father's burden.

After I gave birth, whatever romance and sweetness we'd once had dissolved into thin air.

He could be hospitalized for a week with appendicitis without my knowing a thing.

When I was in a car accident, I couldn't get through to his phone no matter how I tried.

In his words, distance made the heart grow fonder.

Anything too passionate, anything he wasn't sure of, he'd never been able to hold onto.

He always asked me to give him a little more time.

I'd thought this Memorial Day visit to the family grave would be a good chance to break down the barrier in his heart.

Now it just seemed ridiculous.

He didn't bring me because he'd long since had someone else at his side.

Sure enough, someone spoke up.

"That young couple from the Lyons family is here. If you care about this grave, you can just ask them."

I stood frozen in the shade of the tree, cold washing over me in waves.

Couple?

"Aren't they in-laws—an uncle and his brother's widow?"

The man shoveled a cap of earth onto the grave.

"Seven years ago, yes. Then the eldest Lyons boy died in a car accident, and the two of them got together."

"I hear he's done real well for himself—runs a big company in the city, and once Memorial Day's over he's planning to move the whole family out there."

"Oh, right—didn't you see their son? Fair-skinned and bright, a real city kid. When he turned one they threw dozens of parties, and I even walked off with a bag of celebration eggs..."

My ears were ringing, and the whole world spun.

On his first birthday, Louis really had brought the child back to the countryside.

If what they were saying was true.

If Harry was their child, then where was mine?