It was like the other shoe had finally dropped. My heart had never felt this calm.
"Ryan, let's get a divorce."
His head snapped up.
Then came the irritated pinch of his brow. He flicked on the lights and tossed his jacket carelessly onto the sofa.
"Noreen, you know I promised your father I'd never divorce you."
"What happened just now—that was my fault. I shouldn't have gone to see Sandra."
"But she went from being on top of the world to selling flowers on the street. She's suffered enough."
"I just felt guilty, wanted to give her some compensation. I won't see her again!"
I slowly lifted my gaze to the man in front of me.
We'd spent twenty years side by side, yet he felt like a complete stranger.
"What about me? Haven't I suffered enough? How do you plan to compensate me?"
After my mother passed, my father took me to teach in a remote mountain village.
That's where I met Ryan Stephens.
His mother had gotten pregnant out of wedlock, then been abandoned. She gave birth to him and left him with his elderly grandmother.
My father took a liking to this quiet, hardworking boy.
Then one night, in the pouring rain, Ryan knocked on our door.
His grandmother, Evelyn Stephens, had died. His Aunt Caroline Stephens wanted the old house back and was throwing him out.
Covered in mud, utterly wretched, he knelt on the ground and begged my father to take him in. Said he'd work like a dog to repay the kindness.
My father was still hesitating when I stepped forward and took Ryan's hand.
"Daddy, let him stay."
From that day on, Ryan became part of our family.
He was sensible and never idle.
When my father was busy with work, Ryan looked after me—cooking, doing laundry, even learning to braid my hair in different styles.
I became his little shadow.
When he was in class, I'd play outside the door, glancing up whenever I wanted to see him.
When he did homework, I'd sit quietly beside him, dozing off or folding paper.
Once, when my father was away on a trip, I spiked a high fever in the middle of the night.
Still just a kid himself, Ryan carried me on his back, stumbling through the dark all the way to town to find a doctor.
I came through fine. He ended up with a deep gash on his foot that kept him off his feet for three whole months.
I was too young to understand things. The first time I got my period, I thought I was dying.