Chapter 12
Friends knew about the news of my divorce and all advised me not to leave, tactfully.
“You have endured so much hardship with Lucas, and now that he has money, you’re just going to let him go to another woman? Are you kidding me?”
“Yeah, I heard that Lucas has been distancing himself from that mistress recently. He used to take her everywhere before, but now they don’t seem to be seen together much. It seems like he transferred her to a subsidiary company.”
“This person is also capable of being fresh outside. Men, you know, they are all like this. If they can come home and give you all the money, isn’t that enough?”
Actually, they were also doing it for my own good, and what they said wasn’t completely
unreasonable.
This was just not the life I wanted.
People live in the world for just a few decades, and I don’t want to waste my life clinging to a man
who has changed his heart.
***
When I returned to Goldcrest, I was still a bit dazed.
Just a few months had passed, but I felt this place incredibly unfamiliar. Lucas came to pick me up
in his car, his face had almost healed from the injury. We didn’t talk much on the way.
He didn’t say “thank you” until he got out of the car.
I nodded, “Judith treated me well, so it was only right for me to come and see her.”
Lucas’s grandmother Judith Krueger was seriously ill, and her only concern in her life was her children and grandchildren. She said she really wanted to see me and Lucas.
Because Judith’s health was not good, Lucas asked me not to tell her about our divorce for the time
being.
I agreed.
Because Judith was really kind to me, I still remember when she came to visit me before I got married. She found out that I liked to eat cured meat, and after that, she would smoke a lot of cured
meat every year and send it to me.
At that time, she was already quite old, and her family members advised her not to do it anymore. She just smiled and said, “Helen loves to eat.”
In just a few months of not seeing each other, Judith had become nothing but a bag of bones, with a
1/3
face full of wrinkles and hollow cheeks.
Her eyes, which had been half–closed all the time, finally brightened up slowly when she saw us, and she reached out her rough and thin hand to hold mine.
“Is Helen here?” My eyes welled up with tears. “Judith…”
I couldn’t continue speaking.
Judith just looked at us, her mouth struggling to form a faint smile. “It’s okay, don’t cry, everyone has this day, child, don’t cry.”
“I’ve lived long enough. Seeing you two living well… living well, I can close my eyes.”
Lucas held my hand, his voice dry. “Grandma, we will be fine.”
Judith paused for a moment and looked at Lucas, “Child, Helen has been with you for so many
years. Now that you have money, you must not let her down.”
“Sincerely-”
She hoarsely said, “In one’s lifetime, sincerity is truly the rarest.”
“There was someone who genuinely treated you well, and no amount of money could buy that.”
Lucas’s hand trembled imperceptibly.
“Okay.”
Judith rested, left the ward, and Lucas pulled out a cigarette in front of the window, thought for a
moment, and then put it back in his hand. The two of us stood there quietly like that until he spoke
first.
“Helen, I now know where I went wrong.‘
“I thought I was tired of the monotonous life, constantly eating and flowing like a river, but now
realize how much you have sacrificed behind all of this.
“I have thought a lot during these days when you were away, and I didn’t really like Kelly as much
as I thought, it was just a momentary infatuation.
“I have already broken up with her. I promise I will never make this kind of mistake again. Let’s
reconcile, just like before. We can have a child and live happily as a family of three.”
A strange hope appeared on his face, as if he was truly immersed in the happiness he described.
But I found it ridiculous.
“Have a child and then let him inherit the genes of a cheating person within the marriage?”
