Chapter 2

Two years ago, Angela's mother had a sudden brain hemorrhage and was rushed to the hospital.

It was two in the morning. The phone at home wouldn't stop ringing. Angela hung up, her face drained of color, and snatched up her clothes, ready to run out the door.

"What's wrong?" Desmond woke, annoyed, and sat up.

"My mom had a brain hemorrhage. They're trying to save her right now." Angela's voice shook, her fingers fumbling the buttons into the wrong holes.

Desmond paused, then threw off the blanket and got out of bed. "I'll drive you."

At the hospital, the light over the operating room was on. Angela's brother was pacing outside the door, frantic, and when he saw Angela it was like grabbing a lifeline.

"Sis! The doctor says she needs surgery immediately, and then the ICU. The deposit is fifteen thousand. I've only got five in hand. You have to think of something, fast!"

Angela pulled out her phone and checked her balance, and her face went ashen. She scrimped and saved, but on forty-five hundred a month, after her split share of the household costs with Desmond and their daughter's odds and ends, there was almost nothing left over.

She turned and looked at Desmond, standing at the far end of the hall answering work emails.

He felt her gaze, put his phone away, and came over. "How does it look?"

"There's a deposit." Angela's lips were cracked and dry. "Desmond, could you... lend me ten thousand?"

"Lend?" He raised an eyebrow. "Your mother's sick, and as her son-in-law it's only right that I help out some. But that's not a small sum, so I'll need to follow the proper process."

Angela stared at him, something almost imperceptibly dead in her eyes. "What process?"

"Sign an IOU." Desmond took the notebook and fountain pen he always carried from his briefcase. "Even between family, you keep clear accounts. This isn't a small amount, and it's your side of the family, not a shared household expense."

People came and went in the hallway. Angela's brother, listening beside her, was struck dumb, and just as he moved to charge forward, Angela threw out an arm and stopped him.

"Fine," Angela said.

Desmond scrawled out the IOU in a few strokes and handed it to her. "Take a look, and if there's no problem, sign. Given the size of the amount, in the interest of fairness, interest will be calculated at the bank's current loan rate, with a repayment term of one year."

Angela took the paper and pen and, without hesitating, signed her name and pressed her thumbprint.

"Transfer it, then." Angela handed the IOU back.

Desmond tucked it away and transferred the ten thousand on his mobile banking app right there.

"It's not that I'm heartless." Desmond looked at the light over the operating room. "If it were one of us sick, I'd cover half, no question. But your mother's side, well, your brother's there, so responsibility has to be clearly divided."

Desmond often came home to find Angela asleep on the couch, worn out, a rag still in her hand. It didn't move him. If anything, it confirmed his theory.

"See, you're earning three thousand more a month now." Desmond had once said this to her, holding a financial statement. "That's the drive that splitting everything gives you. If I just handed you money, would you go work these two jobs? You wouldn't. People are lazy by nature."

Angela had been wiping the windows at the time. When she heard it, she stopped, turned her head, and looked at him.

It was a strange look. Not the way you'd look at a husband. More like the way you'd look at some strange, curious object.

"You're right." Angela smiled a little and went back to the window. "People really can't let themselves get lazy."

She set a thick stack of cash on Desmond's desk. "Principal plus interest. Ten thousand seven hundred. Count it."

Desmond was a little surprised, and set down the finance magazine in his hand. "Paid off already? Not bad."

He picked up the money and fed it into the bill counter.

"Shff, shff, shff—" The machine riffling through the notes was jarringly loud in the quiet study.

"Exactly right." Desmond put the money in the safe. "Angela, honestly, it's not that I had to have the interest, but it builds a sense of contract. You'll thank me someday."

Angela stood on the other side of the desk, hands folded in front of her, the professional posture she'd developed over years as an administrative clerk.

"Mm, I already thank you," Angela said flatly.

Desmond didn't catch what was underneath it. In good spirits, he stood up. "You retire next week, and it's your fifty-fourth birthday too. I booked Summit Private Kitchen. We'll celebrate then."

"Sure." Angela agreed without a beat of hesitation.

Desmond thought life would go on like this forever. Precise, rational, nothing owed either way. He held the great fortune and enjoyed the superiority of an elite, while Angela struggled down at the bottom, keeping the household running. It was a perfect balance.