“Ashton, I’m your wife. Don’t go thinking that you’re making life hard for me, because you’re not. We’ll both grow sick and die when we’re older—that’s just life, and I’m just doing what I promised when I married you.”
He gazed at me, his eyes swirling with emotion. After a long while, he finally let go of me.
The doctors said that Ashton could have some liquid food if he wanted. Cameron brought some soup over, and I fed it to him slowly, carefully blowing on every spoonful to make sure it wasn’t scalding hot.
He didn’t seem very hungry, but every time I brought the spoon to his mouth, he shot me a look and opened his mouth anyway.
Eventually, I managed to get him to finish half the bowl. Cameron sat quietly in a corner, watching us.
After I finished feeding the soup to Ashton, Cameron passed me another bowl of soup, her eyes swimming with bright tears.
She said, “You should have some yourself, too. Don’t go starving yourself just because you have to take care of Ashton.”
I looked up at her, seeing the look of sadness and heartache in her eyes. Almost subconsciously, I stretched out my hand for the bowl, before realizing that I still had Ashton’s unfinished bowl in the other hand.
The effects of the medication began to sink in just after the meal. Ashton finally gave in and fell asleep.
Cameron continued to gaze at me as I forced down a few spoons of the soup. When I put down the bowl, unwilling to eat anymore, she looked sorrowfully at me. “You need to eat more than that if you want to have enough energy to take care of Ashton.”
She was right, I supposed. I forced down another few spoons of the soup until I was sure I couldn’t eat anymore.
Cameron took the bowls and stood up to leave. She turned to me, still looking rather worried. “Take good care of yourself, alright?”
I looked sharply at her, feeling a little choked up. Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “What was going through your mind back when you abandoned me all those years ago?”
I asked this question very abruptly. All these years, I had put up a brave front in front of others, asserting that not knowing my birth parents didn’t make me worse off than other people. I had no need for them, anyway.
However, whenever I saw other people clinging on to their parents and acting cute, envy coursed through my veins. Afraid that they might notice, I never dared to let my gaze linger for more than a few seconds.
Cameron burst into tears immediately, her body shaking with sobs. Evidently, my question saddened her horribly.
Before she could reply, I continued, “When I was in the third grade, I wrote a composition that won a prize. The title of the composition was ‘My Mother’. Grandma was very pleased and asked me to show her my writing, but I refused to do so. I even refused to show it to Macy, who went to school with me back then. I intended to burn that piece of writing as soon as I could, but I couldn’t bear to do it in the end.”
As Cameron wiped the tears off her face quietly, I sighed. “Actually, you turned out to be completely different from the mother I imagined you to be. When I was a child, I kept wondering how my mother looked like, because I had never seen her before. I thought she would be like Macy’s mother. Macy’s mother liked nagging at her—she used to stand by Macy’s bed and yell at her to wake up, sometimes until Macy got so annoyed that she yelled right back. I also thought my mother would be like my neighbor Wendy’s mother—she liked buying Wendy pretty dresses and accessories. I thought long and hard about how you would be like, but when you finally turned up, you were nothing like what I expected. You never gave me the warmth and comfort I craved—instead, you only brought me suffering and pain.”
Cameron cried even harder. She was so upset that she could hardly draw breath.
She sobbed, “Scarlett, I’m sorry. I was wrong, alright? Give me another chance. This time, I’ll do my best to become the mother you have always wanted.”
I felt my heart clench painfully. I had longed for my mother day and night as a child. When I finally grew up, however, I realized that some people were better kept in distant, perfect memories.
I passed her a wad of tissues so she could wipe her tears. “I will never forget the sadness I felt when you abandoned me, but I can understand the love you feel towards your own child. Grandma always said that we must have a bit of sunshine in our hearts no matter how dark the road ahead is. However, I couldn’t keep up that optimism all the time. Honestly, neither of you is to blame—the only thing you ever did wrong was to give birth to me. I used to hate the both of you, but I don’t anymore.”
The world was full of imperfections. Cameron and Zachary weren’t wicked people, but neither were they good ones either. As parents, they had done me a great deal of wrong, but they had also done some right by me, too.
I was a pretty lucky person, I supposed. Ashton had finally opened up his heart to me, and my parents weren’t the heartless monsters I had made them out to be. I was very fortunate indeed.
Isabelle’s mother, however, probably struck hatred and dislike into the hearts of everyone unfortunate enough to meet her.
As for Rachel, her life wasn’t a bed of roses either. Like me, she had been abandoned at birth, and now that she was finally striking it out on her own, her parents had returned to pester her.
Life was never perfect. At some point in their lives, everyone would find themselves at their lowest point, and it was up to them whether or not to put their best foot forward and continue plodding on.
Cameron continued, “Scarlett, I know how much you’ve suffered all these years. From now on, we’ll be right beside you. As long as you’re willing to accept us into your life again, we’ll always be there for you.”
I pressed my lips into a thin smile. “Your soup tasted wonderful. Thank you.”
She froze for a second before the tears rolled down her cheeks even more fiercely than before.
I sighed silently to myself. This conversation had been a long time coming. I didn’t want to become a bitter man like Jared.
Opening up to others didn’t mean showing only the best parts of yourself to them. It meant believing in a shared future despite all the hurt you had caused each other.
When Cameron left, it was already past midnight. I didn’t feel very sleepy. Since I had to take care of Ashton through the night, I decided that I might as well remain in the same room.
