Chapter 1

My wife was eight months pregnant, and during a fight with me she suddenly lost the baby.

Her childhood sweetheart screamed for me to pay with my life.

My mother threw herself in front of me.

"If a life has to be paid, then take mine."

Not long after, my mother swallowed pills and died in the bathroom.

I was destroyed by grief. Sadie Marsh came back from recovering abroad, and she settled down too.

She never mentioned her childhood sweetheart Aiden Abbott again.

A year later, sunk in severe depression, I went abroad to clear my head without telling my wife.

And ran straight into my mother, the one who was supposed to be dead, carrying a baby, walking beside Aiden.

In front of her stood my wife, Sadie, the same wife who'd told me she was away on business.

"This year's been hard on you. Divorce Peter Gilbert soon, and go be happy with Aiden."

My wife was quiet. "But Mom, isn't this too unfair to Peter?"

My mother sighed.

"They're both my flesh and blood. Aiden just happens to be the illegitimate son I left out there all those years."

"Peter's already gotten more than enough. Since Aiden loves you, and you're carrying his child."

"He should give some of it up."

That was when I understood. A year ago the miscarriage was a lie. The story about recovering overseas was so she could quietly carry the baby to term.

And my mother paying a life for a life.

Was nothing but a con they'd all cooked up together to bring me down.

1

Hearing that, Aiden gripped my mother's hand, moved.

"Mom, I always knew you were the best to me."

"All I said was that I wanted to spend my life with Sadie, and you came up with such a perfect scheme. That idiot Peter actually believed it!"

In the corner they couldn't see.

I leaned against the wall, shaking all over and unable to stop.

In my whole life, the one person I never doubted was my mother.

And she was the one who'd woven the biggest lie of all around me, with her own hands.

Right now she stroked Aiden's face, tenderness pouring off her.

"Silly boy, Mom wronged you before, letting you live as an illegitimate son all those years."

"Of course I have to do everything I can to make it up to you now."

"If Sadie hadn't lost the baby by accident last year while pretending to fight with Peter, then seized the chance to go abroad and give birth, how would Peter ever have let you two keep your child?"

Back when I found out Aiden existed.

I really did fight him to the death.

Put him in the hospital more than once.

Threw a check in his face, forced him to leave Sadie.

I tried everything, gentle and hard.

But he clung on like something you couldn't peel off, wedged dead between me and Sadie.

"Peter, Sadie just likes my face. I'm not leaving. What are you going to do about it?"

He was baiting me on purpose, and I couldn't hold it in. I slapped him.

I didn't expect Sadie to come rushing over to shield him.

She cried out in pain and dropped to the floor right there.

Then the bleeding started.

"Peter, look what you've done!"

"If Sadie and I lose this baby, I will never let you off!"

Aiden got her to the hospital in time.

I waited outside, frantic. When they told me it was a miscarriage, I was standing in that hospital, and my whole mind went blank.

"Miscarriage? It was just one slap. How could she lose the baby?"

But Aiden was furious.

"Peter, that's a human life!"

"Even if the baby is mine, you had no right to be this vicious, making your own wife lose a baby at eight months!"

He was making a scene, demanding the police take me away.

"I already told you, I'm not the one who made her lose the baby."

I set my jaw, refusing to back down.

"If you've got the nerve, let them haul me off. A life for a life."

Later Sadie really did call the police, and they took me into the station.

Three months later, I was released.

Only to find my mother's suicide note.

"If a life truly has to be paid back, then let it be mine."

"Sadie, let my son go, and have a good life with him."

I clutched that note and wept until I could barely breathe, asking Sadie where my mother was.

"She's already been cremated."

She held me in silence. "This ends here."

After that storm, we had a brief stretch of peace.

Once the baby was lost,

Sadie made up her mind to cut things off with Aiden.

But a human life now lay between us.

It was no longer as simple as forgiving her affair.

However deep our love had once been, there was no going back.

I couldn't even accept my mother's death, and slowly sank into severe depression.

Countless times I stood on the rooftop, imagining myself turning into a bird and flying off the edge.

But I never once imagined this.

My mother, who had faked her death, had gone abroad to look after this illegitimate son Aiden's baby, cooking for him, tending to his every need.

Right now my mother's hand patted the back of his newborn, over and over.

The way she used to soothe me to sleep when I was small.

"There, sweet baby. You like it when Grandma holds you, don't you?"

To keep from making a sound, I bit down hard on my wrist, until blood seeped from it.

I got depression over people like this.

Countless nights I couldn't sleep, countless times I tore myself apart.

What was the point?

The three of them were still laughing and talking, one happy little family.

And I couldn't watch anymore. I hurried to buy a ticket and fled back home.