Chapter 5

Chapter 5

1. Had she forgotten?

She was the one who ran away from the wedding.

She was the one who took everything I had for another man.

Why, in her eyes, did I become the villain?

I couldn't help but wonder why I was still entangled with her.

Seeing me remain silent for a while, Kathleen thought I was reflecting on my mistakes.

She said, "Think carefully about what you did wrong today."

"I really don't know how you turned out like this."

Wrong?

My biggest mistake was meeting her.

She took everything, from our shared toothbrushes to the bags I bought her.

As the door closed, my last bit of patience for her disappeared.

...

"Can you lend me some money? I promise I'll pay you back soon..."

I spent the whole night making calls.

Colleagues, friends, even distant relatives.

I asked everyone.

Some hung up as soon as they heard I needed money.

The polite ones offered a few words of comfort.

By four in the morning, after finishing a pack of cigarettes, I had only managed to borrow two hundred dollars.

My desperate pleas felt like they had sunk into the ocean.

The bedroom light turned on, and my mother came out, leaning against the wall, holding a tin box.

"This is my retirement savings. Take it, pay back what you can."

She must have heard the argument between Kathleen and me.

She opened the tin box, revealing a stack of old, worn-out bills.

A lump formed in my throat, and I couldn't describe the feeling in my heart.

Seeing my mother's tear-filled eyes, my own eyes welled up with tears.

I grew up in a single-parent family.

My father died of alcoholism when I was three, and my mother worked three jobs a day to raise me.

She supported my education and became my strongest support.

Later, when Kathleen moved in, my mother would wake up early every day to make us breakfast and do the housework so we could focus on our work.

At fifty, she still bargained at the market to save a few pennies.

She didn't mind if others took advantage of her, but if anyone said anything bad about me or Kathleen, she would stand up and defend us.

Suddenly, I felt like a complete jerk.

I had let my mother become like this for someone who wasn't worth it.

"Mom, can we call off the wedding?"

I closed the tin box and held her hand.

After a long silence, a muffled voice filled the room.

"Whatever you decide, Mom will support you."