“See if you still want it. If not, I’ll toss it out. That way, I’ll have room for the dough press.”
I wiped the dust off the box. Right away, my eyes landed on Hallie’s neat, flowing handwriting. [A gift from Byron.]
Curious, Cooper leaned closer.
He jokingly asked, “Oh, which woman gave you this present?”
“The wrapping looks so fancy, it’s clear she spent time on it.”
He eagerly checked the signature at the bottom.
As soon as he saw the graceful handwriting, he froze. His voice shook a little. “Hallie Walker?”
“You mean that famous genius beauty with a PhD?”
“That stunning astrophysicist PhD who got featured in an international journal for discovering an asteroid?!”
Cooper’s look toward me instantly turned full of surprise. “Byron, who are you really?”
Opening the box, I said quietly, “I was Hallie’s ex-husband.”
The unstable, unpredictable man. He had once stayed in a mental hospital because of his delusions.
The ex-husband she saw as a lasting shame.
Under Cooper’s constant questions, I sat down and told him my story with Hallie.
When I first met Hallie, she wasn’t yet known as a legendary genius.
She was just seen by the neighbors as a troublesome child with a quiet and strange personality.
No friends and no family. Her parents didn’t like her simply because she was a girl.
After their divorce, they passed her around like an unwanted burden.
Nashville’s winter was freezing cold.
Wearing only a thin undershirt, Hallie trembled in the stairwell. Feeling sorry for her, I brought her home.
While her father was playing games, he happened to notice her incredible skill in math.
From that moment, Hallie’s life completely changed.
At ten years old, she won the International Mathematical Olympiad and by fourteen, she entered Phoenix University without needing to take the entrance exam.
At sixteen, her published work gained global attention, earning her many awards.
The parents who once didn’t want her now fought over her custody, but she knelt before my father and bowed three times.
"I know in my heart who truly cares for me and who really loves me."
"From now on, you and Calla are my real parents."
"I’ll take good care of you and Byron."
After that day, Hallie kept pushing forward, never once thinking of leaving me.
When I was being recommended for university admission, she asked the school to lower the required score for me.