I only found out when I went to collect my husband’s retirement fund. His salary wasn’t the seven hundred dollars a month he’d claimed. It was nearly three thousand. He gave me seven hundred. The other two thousand, he’d been sending, like clockwork, on the first of every month, to a woman with the last name Miller. I laid the bank statements out on the table in front of him. “All these years, you lied to me. You said you only made seven hundred a month. Even the year our son had pneumonia, you said you couldn’t spare a single dime.” “In the end, it was my mother who sold the wild ginseng she needed for her own heart condition. She traded her life for our son’s.” I stared into his eyes. “This Ms. Miller, the one who’s been getting two thousand dollars from you every month, who is she?” His lips trembled. He was about to speak when our son, Ryan, burst out of his room and snatched the papers from the table. “Mom, Mia’s mom has had it tough all these years, raising a kid on her own. Don’t go causing trouble for her.” Mia’s mom. Lily Miller. In that single moment, I understood. For thirty years of marriage, my husband had been supporting his first love. And my son, it seemed, had found himself a new mother. 1 Faced with my silence, my husband, Mark, moved his lips as if to say something. Our son, Ryan, jumped in first. “Mom, I didn’t mean it like that, I just…” But I knew. The words that tumble out in a moment of panic are always the truth. For thirty years, Mark had placed seven hundred dollars in my hand on the first of every month, without fail. In the beginning, seven hundred dollars was a decent amount. We lived comfortably. But then our son grew up. Our parents grew old. The price of everything went up, except for the money he gave me. Life became a struggle. I wanted him to have a hot meal waiting when he came home late from “overtime.” I wanted our growing son to have proper nutrition. I wanted to set aside a little something for our aging parents. So, on top of my job and running the household, I took on part-time work. Was I tired? Of course, I was. But when I looked at my happy, thriving family, I told myself it was all worth it. Now, he was telling me his salary was almost three thousand a month, and for thirty years, three-quarters of it had gone to his first love. My decades of hardship suddenly felt like a cruel joke. Seeing me silent, Mark’s expression hardened. “Laura, I’ve explained everything. What more do you want?” “Besides, we’ve managed just fine all these years. Why do you have to dig up the past?” The confusion on his face was genuine, as if I were the one being unreasonable. A bitter laugh rose in my throat. Before we were married, he had looked me in the eyes just like this and promised me the world. Back then, when I worked late, he’d wait for me at the end of the street, a warm cup of coffee in his hands, worried I’d be hungry. Now, when I’m sick in bed, he just sends a text: “Drink plenty of water.” I’d felt the change, of course, but I’d always found ways to explain it away. But the bank statements didn’t lie. Each transaction was a testament to the truth. My life, for the past thirty years, had been a lie. And I didn’t want it anymore. “Mark,” I said, my voice steady. “Let’s get a divorce.” He stared at me, stunned. He clearly hadn’t expected this. But it was our son who reacted first, his brow furrowing in disapproval. “Mom! What are you doing? Dad and Mia’s mom… I mean, Ms. Miller… there’s nothing going on between them!” “You’re too old to be throwing a fit over something so small. Aren’t you embarrassed?” I looked at my son’s indignant, accusing face and felt a chill I’d never known before. My husband’s betrayal was one thing. This was so much worse. “That’s enough, Ryan. Say less.” Mark stopped him, his face shifting into a placating expression. He took out his phone and tapped the screen a few times. My own phone buzzed. “You’ve worked hard all these years, Laura. Take this thousand dollars.” His voice softened. “Go buy that dress you were looking at the other day. You deserve to treat yourself.” See? He remembered. He always remembered the little things, my likes and dislikes. But it was always just talk. This was the first time his supposed affection came with actual money. Mark seemed to think that a thousand dollars and a few soft words were enough to smooth everything over. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and, just as he had countless nights before, headed for the balcony. Ryan shot me a glare and retreated to his room. I was left alone in the large, empty living room. The lights were warm, the furniture familiar and comforting. But in that moment, it all felt suffocating. I went to our bedroom and called my best friend. She’s been a lawyer her whole life. She would know what to do. “I’m getting a divorce.” “Yes, he’s been cheating on me. For the last thirty years.” 2 Just as I hung up with my friend, Mark came back into the bedroom from the balcony. He went through his usual nightly routine, washing up before slipping into bed. In the soft lamplight, I noticed for the first time how young he looked for a man his age. His body was still trim, his hair dark and thick, the lines on his face shallow. Time had been kind to him. And me? My gray hairs were starting to outnumber the dark ones. My face was a roadmap of wrinkles, and my body had lost its shape from years of hard labor. Perhaps it wasn’t time that had been kind to him. It was me. It was only then that I remembered: I had seen Lily Miller before. She was on a local news program, featured as a “model of the modern independent woman.” On the screen, she was dressed in a chic, expensive-looking suit, her makeup flawless, her demeanor confident and articulate. I had pointed at the TV, a mix of admiration and wistfulness in my voice. “Look at her,” I’d said to Mark. “She’s so impressive. I wish I could be a successful, independent woman like that.” What was his reaction then? He had stared at the screen for a long moment before his eyes refocused on me. His voice was casual. “Those types always have a family fortune or a rich benefactor. We can’t compare ourselves to people like that. You take care of our home, and in my eyes, that’s the best thing in the world.” I’d been a little flustered by his sudden sweet talk, and my flicker of envy had been quickly extinguished. Looking back, I realized the expression on his face as he stared at the screen wasn’t just admiration. It was pride. Pride that he had a hand in creating the radiant woman on the television. And me? On my seven hundred dollars a month, buried under an endless mountain of chores and part-time jobs, I had become a frumpy, rundown housewife who knew nothing beyond the price of groceries. “What are you staring at?” Mark noticed my gaze and frowned. I knew this was a precursor to his anger. Normally, I would have immediately looked away or changed the subject to avoid a fight. But I wasn’t going to do that anymore. I didn’t answer, just looked back down at my phone. My friend had sent over some preliminary information about the division of assets in a divorce. The phone was so old the screen was blurry. My silence clearly infuriated him. He shot up in bed, snatched the phone from my hands, and threw it to the foot of the bed. “Laura! Are you ever going to let this go?” “We’ve been together for thirty years! I never thought you were the kind of woman who only cares about money! You’d throw away our family for a little bit of cash?” Even now, he was convinced that my anger was only about the money. I almost wished I was the materialistic woman he accused me of being. Maybe then, the past thirty years wouldn’t have been so hard. I looked him straight in the eye and said, enunciating every word, “Mark, we’re getting a divorce. I’m serious.” Hearing me bring it up again, he exploded. “A divorce? Where did you learn this nonsense? Are you trying to threaten me?” “Let me tell you, it won’t work! If we really get a divorce, what will people think of me? How will I face my colleagues, our friends, our family?” “Ryan is about to get married! Do you, his mother, really want to embarrass him in front of his future in-laws?” He was panicking, but every word was about his own pride, his own image, our son’s image. My feelings didn’t even register. A wave of grief and fury washed over me. I sat up straight, my voice rising to match his. “Mark, do you have any idea what I’ve done for this family over the past thirty years?” “When your father needed that hundred-thousand-dollar bypass surgery, I used every penny of the dowry my parents gave me, and I stayed up all night doing the books for three different companies to make up the rest.” “The year Ryan got into that expensive private high school, the tuition was fifty thousand dollars. I cashed out my own company pension to pay for it. I didn’t even leave myself a safety net.” “All these years, every major expense, every financial crisis… who was the one who worked herself to the bone to fill the gaps?” The bedroom door creaked open. The shouting must have drawn Ryan out. He stood in the doorway, his face a mask of undisguised irritation and disapproval. “Mom! Have you not made enough of a scene?” “So you’ve contributed to the family. Does that give you the right to blackmail Dad now?” “No wonder you can’t compare to Aunt Lily in any way. You deserve to be this miserable!” His words were like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head. I looked at his face, so much like a younger version of Mark’s. This was the son I had carried for ten months. The grandson my mother had given her life for. When Ryan was seven, he came down with a severe case of pneumonia. I couldn’t get ahold of Mark. I borrowed from every friend and relative I had, but I was still two hundred dollars short for the surgery. Without telling me, my mother sold the precious wild ginseng she relied on to manage her heart condition. The baby came home from the hospital, healthy and well. But my mother’s condition worsened, and she passed away before I could even say goodbye. And now, it was clear that neither her sacrifice nor my own had been worth anything at all. 3 In the past, after every argument, they were the ones who would storm out. This time, I was the one who left. Lying on the hotel bed, I fell into a deep, exhausted sleep. In my dreams, I was back in that terrible time. My son’s face, flushed with fever. The nurses, hounding me for payment. My husband, unreachable. My mother, wasting away in her sickbed. In the end, my son got better, and my mother was gone. My husband returned from his “business trip,” looking tired and full of remorse. He said he’d taken an emergency project out of town to earn extra money for the surgery, and the signal had been bad. I believed him. I even felt sorry for him. I thought we were a pair of star-crossed lovers, supporting each other through life’s cruel storms. I never imagined that my honest, hardworking husband, with his three-thousand-dollar monthly salary, would refuse to spend a penny on his dying son, but would happily give two-thirds of his income to enrich another woman’s life. For thirty years, everyone else had moved on. Only I remained trapped in that moment of unbearable loss. The nightmare was broken by the ringing of my phone. The caller ID read “Mother-in-law.” I stared at the screen for a few seconds before answering. “Laura, dear, I know you’re hurting. What Mark did… he was wrong.” “But you two have been through so much together. Thirty years of marriage, a grown son.” “At our age, sometimes it’s better to just… turn a blind eye. Forgive and forget. It’s better for everyone. You can keep the family together, can’t you?” I clutched the phone, my fingertips cold. “Mom, you’ve known about Lily Miller all this time, haven’t you?” The line went silent. After a few seconds, I couldn’t help but laugh. This was the woman who, from the day I married into the family, had held my hand and said, “From now on, you’re my own daughter.” The woman who, every time Mark and I fought, would scold him first and always take my side. She, too, was a silent accomplice in this long, elaborate deception. The phone screen suddenly went dark. It was an old phone. The battery was shot. Sleep was now impossible. I plugged the phone in and opened my banking app. Inside was the few thousand dollars I had managed to scrape together over the years, plus the thousand Mark had “graciously” given me yesterday. The next morning, I went to the mall and bought a new phone. I’d thought about getting one before, but I was intimidated by the new technology. I’d asked my son for help. He had rolled his eyes. “Mom, you’re old. As long as your phone can make calls and send texts, that’s all you need. Anything more is a waste of money. You wouldn’t know how to use it anyway.” Now, the text was crisp and clear. The videos didn’t lag. It only cost four hundred dollars. All the hardships I had endured, I realized, were truly not worth it.
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