I Was Just a Stand-In for His Dead First Love, Until I Walked Away for Good

My belly was a map of needle marks from the fertility shots. I'd given up hotpot, given up coffee, soaked my feet in water so scalding the skin turned an angry red.

All of it so I could carry his child sooner, so I could surprise him.

But every time I pressed a positive pregnancy test into his hands, beaming,

the first two times he explained it away, his face cold.

「Beth, my career is still climbing. Now isn't the right time for a baby.」

The third time, he finally didn't refuse.

But we couldn't dodge the accident. I was riding shotgun in Otto's car.

He took a call, said something urgent had come up, sped up, and not long after slammed into the car ahead.

When I came to, Otto was holding me and sobbing, swearing to me with eyes full of anguish,

「Beth, this was my carelessness. We'll have another baby. I'll protect you for the rest of my life.」

Looking at his face wrapped in bandages, I had no grounds left to blame him.

After that, the doctor declared the damage permanent. I would likely never conceive again.

And he did grow more attentive, more tender from then on.

What I never imagined was that all those years of careful comfort after I lost the baby

were nothing but indifference. Because his child had already been born long ago, to Cindy.

From behind the door of the guest room, Otto's voice rose as he answered the phone.

「Mom, I'll be right there.」

He hung up in a clipped, hurried tone, then turned to me with a furrowed brow, his voice forced into something softer.

「I'm sorry, Beth. I was drunk and spoke too harshly just now.

Mom called. She said she found the diary Cindy kept before she left. I'm going to go look at it.」

He paused, then added,

「You've worked hard these past weeks. Set aside looking after Mom for now. Rest a few days.」

His tone was easy, intimate, calling Cindy's mother Mom over and over.

As if those soul-cutting words, those brutal truths, had never been dragged into the light.

Back when Otto used to ache for me, an orphan with no parents at her side, he'd often tell me,

「Beth, care for my mother as if she were your own. It'll make up for what you've missed.」

I'd always thought it was his concern for me. Turns out he was only afraid I'd slack off in tending to his beloved's mother.

Otto. In your eyes, I was a tool from the very start, wasn't I……

You truly don't have a shred of a heart.

But you're wrong. I have a mother.

Years ago, I ignored her objections and chose to stay in the country with Otto.

We fought bitterly over it, and in the years since we'd nearly stopped speaking.

Yet blood runs thicker than water. Not long ago, Mom invited me again to come live with her abroad.

Once, for Otto's sake, that offer hadn't moved me in the slightest.

This time, it was time to accept.

The flight was booked for three days out.

I'd packed my bags early.

In five years with Otto, every day swallowed up caring for his young brother and a gravely ill old woman,

there wasn't much in that closet that belonged to me.

Even when Otto walked in and saw the suitcase, barely twenty inches, he showed not a flicker of surprise.

「Is that the things you packed for Mom? I knew you were sensible, Beth. You'd never make this too hard for me.」

「The caregiver I hired is clumsy, completely unreliable. I still need you.」

The look he gave me lost some of its venom, scraping together a thin gesture of goodwill.

「I won't be foolish enough to nurse your beloved's mother ever again.」

I lifted my eyes and looked straight at him. Nothing was left in them but a dead, frozen stillness.

Otto looked as if he thought he'd misheard, staring at me, thrown.

「What did you say? You handled every last detail of Mom's care before. You're walking away now, just like that? What am I supposed to do?」