Chapter 2

“Mom sat downstairs for two whole hours. All the neighbors saw her.”

“She refused to get into the ambulance.”

“She just didn’t want to trouble me.”

Zhao Ming flung his jacket over the back of a chair.

“Tomorrow, you’re apologizing to her and bringing her home.”

I closed the children’s workbook.

“I’m not bringing her here.”

“Can’t you think about this family for once?”

“I’ve been thinking about it for twelve years.”

His expression changed.

When I gave birth to the twins, complications had landed me in the hospital.

The babies arrived one after the other. I struggled in the delivery room for well over ten hours and ended up with so many stitches I couldn’t even sit up.

I called my mother-in-law seven times.

When she finally answered, she said just one thing.

“Zhao Xue needs me here. You’ll have to manage on your own for now.”

Zhao Xue’s daughter was three months older than my children.

My mother-in-law was so busy looking after her granddaughter that she never came, not even when I was discharged.

My own mother took time off work to care for me. Dad brought meals to the hospital every day.

Zhao Ming worked during the day and made formula at night.

He was so exhausted he had dark circles under his eyes, yet his mother still called to urge him to bring chicken soup to Zhao Xue.

“Your sister’s little girl has a fever. Go and check on her.”

I said nothing then.

I had seen Zhao Ming fall asleep on the living room floor with a baby in his arms, too tired even to take off his shoes.

Later, when the children cried in the middle of the night, I walked back and forth through the living room carrying them alone.

The incision hurt so badly I had to brace myself against the wall and inch along.

Zhao Ming slept in the bedroom.

His mother occasionally called to ask whether the babies had a fever. She never asked whether I could get out of bed.

Zhao Ming remembered all of it.

He simply chose to act as though he didn’t.

“That was years ago. Why bring it up now?”

“Because you’re asking me to care for someone who never cared for me.”

“She’s my mother.”

“Then you look after her.”

“I’m a man. I have to work during the day.”

“Hire a caregiver.”

He looked as though I had made a joke.

“And that doesn’t cost money?”

“Get back the money you gave Zhao Xue for her car.”

His face darkened.

Two years earlier, Zhao Xue had said her husband’s family wanted a seven-seater and were eighty thousand yuan short.

My mother-in-law had called Zhao Ming and berated him, saying his sister had only ever asked him for help this once.

He took eighty thousand from our savings.

That money had been set aside for the children’s tutoring and their transition to the next stage of school.

When I found out, he said Zhao Xue would repay us gradually.

We hadn’t seen a single yuan.

“Why keep score with Xiaoxue? Her family has problems too.”

“She lives in a house of over three hundred square meters and drives a car worth over three hundred thousand yuan. What problems?”

“That’s enough.”

He pointed at me.

“Mom moving in is a family decision. You have no right to throw her out.”

“My name is on the property certificate.”

“We’ve lived here together for years. A court might not award the whole apartment to you.”

The words came quickly, as though rehearsed.

I looked at him.

“You’ve looked into it?”

He avoided my eyes.

“I was just saying.”

“You’d better have been.”

The children sat beside us. Even the rustle of turning pages had stopped.

I took two sets of documents from a drawer.

One was the purchase contract, dated two years before we registered our marriage.

The other was the receipt for Dad’s transfer to the developer.

“I kept all of these.”

Zhao Ming stared at the papers and reached for them.

I pulled them away first.

“Don’t touch them.”

“You’re guarding them from me?”

“From today on, I’m keeping all the important documents.”

He gave a cold laugh.

“Song Wanqing, you’re acting more and more like an outsider.”

Hearing him say that, I found I had no desire to argue.

Twelve years ago, his mother had told me that marrying into the Zhao family meant obeying the Zhao family’s rules.

Twelve years later, Zhao Ming was reminding me of much the same thing.

He had come to regard himself as the owner of this home.

My phone chimed on the table.

Zhao Xue had sent a photo.

In it, my mother-in-law lay in her living room with a suitcase beside her.

The caption read:

“Mom nearly had something terrible happen to her last night. I’m amazed you slept so well.”

I replied:

“If you’re worried about her, take her in.”

A voice message followed almost immediately.

“My daughter’s about to start school. I have to take her to another province. It’s really not convenient for Mom to stay with me. You have plenty of rooms. What’s wrong with letting her have one?”

I opened the recording and forwarded my mother-in-law’s words.

“You think owning an apartment means you’ve won? My son is a Zhao. So are my grandchildren.”

Zhao Xue fell silent.

A few seconds later, another message arrived.