"Find a new place to live. Didn't I buy you a condo across town? Move there."
"This is Amy's home. Mine and hers. If a single item of hers goes missing, I will hold you personally responsible."
My mother swayed, clutching her chest. My sister barely caught her before she crumpled.
"What... what did you say?" Her voice climbed to a shriek. "How can a man be unable to have children? It's clearly that jinx's fault!"
"And you want me to move out? I gave birth to you! Now that you're successful, you want to toss your own mother aside?"
"What do you mean 'yours and hers'? A home without a mother isn't a home!"
I looked at her.
Really looked at her.
And felt nothing but a vast, desolate emptiness.
Even I found my own mother suffocating. I could only imagine the hell Amy endured for four years.
"When I wasn't home, this is how you spoke to her, isn't it? Calling her a jinx? Mocking her for being barren?"
I stepped forward, voice hardening to steel. "I won't be back for a few days. Move out before I return. Don't make me say it twice."
Ignoring their stunned faces, I grabbed the diary and walked out.
This book was Amy's most treasured possession. I'd already lost her. I couldn't lose this too.
Behind me, my mother's shock curdled into hysteria.
"You unfilial wretch! Just because that bad luck charm died, you're abandoning your own mother?"
"Don't pretend you're some heartbroken lover now! If you loved her so much, why didn't you treat her better when she was breathing?"
"And don't try to fool me! I'm not uneducated! A man can't be infertile! You owe me a grandson!"
I didn't look back.
I just kept walking.
I hadn't lied to them.
Years of stress, late nights, and heavy drinking had destroyed my body. My sperm count was virtually zero.
Amy knew. But she also knew how fragile my ego was. So she took the blame. She let the world think she was the broken one.
She swallowed every insult, every mocking glance, and answered with a gentle smile.
The elevator doors closed. In the polished metal, a hollowed-out man in a wrinkled suit stared back at me.
*Dominic Delgado, you really are a monster.*
My mind was a chaotic wreck. I stumbled out of the residential complex and hailed a taxi.
"Where to?" the driver asked.
The words left my mouth before I could think.
"Jiangcheng University."