The Road Is Long, the Green Fields Vast

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At the company's morning meeting, Rodney Delgado publicly granted the honeymoon leave I'd been waiting three years for to my deputy, Rachel Chavez.

After the meeting, I stormed into the CEO's office and demanded to know why.

His back was to me, his tone easy:

Let's cancel our honeymoon for now.

Her morning sickness is severe. She can't come to work.

I thought I'd misheard and froze where I stood.

Only then did he turn around and toss a pregnancy test report onto the desk.

"Two months ago, during those days when you were hospitalized after your miscarriage, she and I slept together for several nights, and she got pregnant."

In that instant, my whole body shook.

Eyes reddening, I looked at the man I had loved for years.

It took me a long time to force out a single sentence:

"But we just had our wedding last week!"

Rodney walked over and sighed to soothe me:

"You've had three miscarriages. The doctor says it will be very hard for you to conceive again."

"And Rachelto repay your five years of supportshe stripped naked and knelt over me, crying and begging me to give her the chance to bear a child for you."

-------------------

1.

"What did you say?"

Tears welled in my eyes as I glared at him.

But he frowned, his expression full of reproach:

"Don't worry, the child will call you 'Mom' from the day it's born.

She's an innocent, decent girlshe doesn't even want a title. All she wants is a chance to repay a kindness.

You ought to be grateful to her. How can you not have even that much room in your heart for another person?"

I couldn't hold back my tears.

I snatched the pregnancy test report off the desk, tore it into pieces, and threw them in his face.

"Rodney Delgado, you make cheating during marriage sound so fresh and refined. Doesn't it disgust you?"

He took half a step back and lifted a hand to brush the scraps of paper off his shoulder.

Then he casually pulled a tissue from the desk and, the way he always had, wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes.

"Stop crying. Your health is poor. Too much crying will hurt you."

Just that one line.

Light and weightless, like coaxing a willful child.

I flung his hand off hard.

He was silent for a few seconds, and when he spoke, his patience was already gone:

"Rachel is young, smooth and firm, and healthy. She can carry on the Delgado line.

And you? Three miscarriages, and the doctor says the risk if you conceive again is extremely high.

I'm keeping her around to give the Delgado family an heir, not to cast you aside as my wife."

When I heard it, I didn't cry, and I didn't curse.

It felt like a gash had been torn straight open in my chest, the pain surging in half a beat too late.

How I lost those three children rose up in my mind.

The first time, three months pregnant, digging into the company's accounts.

I stayed up till the small hours every night, hemorrhaged badly, and couldn't keep it.

The second time, running a fever of a hundred and two.

Fighting for him at the negotiating tables of his major projectsI'd just signed a big one, then collapsed, and the heartbeat stopped.

The third time, the company was in turmoil, and to protect his position,

I worked forty-eight hours straight, fainted in the conference room, blood soaking my dress.

Three times, I was wheeled out of the operating room.

He stood outside the door.

And every first sentence was: "Don't be upset. Rest well, get your health back quickly. The company still needs you keeping an eye on things."

I lightly wiped the corner of my eye with a finger and gave a cold laugh:

"If that's the casenow that you've found someone to carry on the Delgado linewhy did you still go through with our wedding last week?"

He thought about it for a moment, then knit his brows.

"You're different from her.

You're sensible, capable, able to help me run the companyyou even gave up your family inheritance rights for me. You're the best choice for a wife."

He paused, then went on:

"But Rachel is different. She's too simple. To repay you, she was actually willing to use her own body to bear a child for you.

With that guileless nature of hers, she couldn't hold up the company, and she couldn't hold up this home."

Rachel.

Five years ago, I dragged her out of her stepfather's room and saved her from hell.

For five years I paid her college tuition on time, and now and then I bought her clothes.

The moment she graduated, I brought her into the company as my deputy.

These two people were the closest, most cherished people to me over the past ten years.

Now they'd gone behind my back and made a child.

Yet here he stood in front of me, telling me this was called repaying a kindness.

I was so furious I laughed, utterly beyond words.

Rodney crossed his arms and watched coldly as I cried one moment and laughed the next.

"This matter ends here. Once she's given birth, I'll arrange for her to go abroad. You'll still be the glamorous Mrs. Delgado."

The calmer and more candid he was, the more I wanted to laugh.

Tears blurred my vision again.

"Rodney Delgado, let's get a divorce."

He was stunned at first, and had just started to say something.

At that moment, his phone rang.

He glanced at me, then at his phone.

In the end, he picked up the phone.

Rodney answered, his voice so soft I almost didn't recognize it.

"Rachel, what's wrong?"

I don't know what she said on the other end, but he turned his head to look at me, his tone nothing like the gentle one he'd used on the call.

"Rachel wants pork rib soup. Go back to the old estate tonight, make some, and take it over to her. She's pregnant, so from now on you take good care of her."

I stared at his face.

"I saiddi! vorce!"

He hung up, walked over, and grabbed my wrist.

"Divorce what? We just had the wedding last week."

"You will be at the charity gala tomorrow night. Don't let anyone outside catch wind of this. If the stock drops a single point, can you afford it?"

I wrenched my hand free, snatched the ashtray off the table, and hurled it at the floor-to-ceiling window.

I roared,

"While I was being resuscitated in the ICU, you and she were in bed making a baby, and now you want me in the kitchen waiting on her?"

"And putting on some devoted-couple act in front of everyone? Are you out of your damn mind?!"

Rodney's brow furrowed, and he looked at me like I was a lunatic. Three words dropped out of his mouth.

"You're insane."

The door opened.

Rachel stood there in a loose dress, one hand over her lower belly, her eyes red-rimmed, her voice light and soft.

"Rodney, don't blame Mavis... It's my fault, it's the baby being too willful, wanting the pork rib soup you make. Don't blame her for not making room for me."

"Mavis, don't be angry. I really do want to help you. I don't want to watch you suffer through pregnancy again. When this child is born it'll call you Mom..."

Before she could finish, she pressed a hand to her forehead.

Rodney crossed the room in a few quick strides and caught her.

"Who told you to come up here? I told you to wait for me in the car like a good girl. Now you've caught a chill in the wind, and you'll want to throw up again."

Rachel sank into his arms, using his shoulder to block her view, and slowly lifted her head to look at me.

Her expression had changed.

The timidity was gone, replaced by the look only a winner wears.

It was slightjust enough for me alone to see.

A wave of dizziness hit me out of nowhere, and I barely caught myself on the corner of the table.

The anemia symptoms came without any warning.

Rodney saw that something was wrong with me and started to reach out to steady me.

But Rachel, in his arms, suddenly stumbled and swayed as if she'd fall. At that, he instantly pulled his hand back and held her tight.

I watched it all coldly, then reached up, slid the diamond ring off my ring finger, and dropped it into the trash can.

Metal struck the plastic bin with a dull thud.

"Tomorrow, the County Clerk's Office. We're getting divorced."

With that, I walked straight out and never looked back.

And behind me, no one came after me.

I took the elevator down to the first floor and pushed open the company doors.

My assistant jogged over, holding a package.

"Ms. Gibson, this just came by local courier. It's marked that you have to sign for it yourself."

I don't know how I made it back to the car. I only knew the package in my hands was heavy.

I tore it open, and inside was a thick pink journal.

It recorded all of Rachel's sweet, loving daily life.

Every page, every word inside, cut me to pieces.

The first half of the journal was plastered with ticket stubs from flights and attractions.

So it turned out that over the past three years they had gone to Disneyland countless times behind my back.

They'd gone to Aspen, to Miami, even to Icelandthe place I had always dreamed of going.

The laughable part was that every time I planned a trip,

even for our honeymoon, Rodney's brush-off excuse was always that the company was too busy.

So it turned out he wasn't busy at all. He had simply saved every bit of romance and patience for another woman.

I turned a few more pages and, to my shock, saw a hotel room receipt from the exact same time as the day of my first miscarriagethe time was pinned down to the hour.

The next dozen or so pages were plastered with all kinds of hotel records.

On top of that, there were all the movie ticket stubs from the two years they'd spent watching films together, and the handwritten love letters they'd exchanged on Valentine's Day and Sweetest Day.

The most jarring of all were the few photos tucked in among them.

In one photo, Rodney stood at the stove in an apron, gently skimming the foam off the soup in the pot.

You have to understandhe never cooked.

In the ten years we were together, he never so much as poured me a glass of warm water.

The journal slipped through my fingers and fell to the car floor.

Every bit of strength drained out of me, and I slumped over the steering wheel for a long, long time.

At last I straightened up, took out my phone, and pulled up a number I hadn't dialed in a very long time.

The phone was answered after only three rings.

"Ray, what you told me before you went abroad... does it still stand?"

There were two seconds of silence on the other end.

"It stands. It always will."

I hung up, started the car, and drove back to the villa to pack.

Two suitcases. Ten years of marriage couldn't even fill them.

I had just reached the top of the stairs with my suitcase when Rachel appeared, having come in at some point, and stood at the far end of the hallway watching me.

"Mavis, are you moving out?"

I ignored her and dragged my suitcase down the stairs.

She followed and grabbed my sleeve.

"Mavis, it's my fault, it's Rodney's fault, you didn't do anything wrong, please don't go."

I shook her hand off.

She took a step back, her foot catching the edge of the stairs, and suddenly tipped backward.

The motion was so smooth.

So smooth that I didn't even have a chance to reach for her.

She tumbled down the stairs, her skirt flaring open, blood spreading out beneath her.

That was when the door opened.

Rodney stood in the entryway, his car keys dropping to the floor.

He glanced at Rachel lying at the bottom of the stairs, then looked up at me standing at the top.

A slap landed across my face.

I crashed to the floor, the back of my head hitting the porcelain flowerpot beside me, my ears ringing.

"If anything happens to Rachel or the baby, I'll take your life."

He crouched down and gathered Rachel up, cradling her carefully, like something that might break.

I braced myself on the coffee table to stand, but he kicked me in the shoulder and I fell back down.

I coughed up a mouthful of blood and spat it onto the floor.

The ambulance came quickly.

Rachel was wheeled into the emergency room while Rodney paced back and forth outside the door.

Before long, the doctor pushed the door open, his expression grave.

"The patient urgently needs a transfusion, but the blood bank doesn't have enough matching blood on hand."

Rodney turned his head and stared at me, leaving no room for discussion.

"Take hers. They have the same blood type."

"No... I have Mediterranean anemia, and I had a miscarriage only two months ago!"

I shook my head frantically, my voice trembling uncontrollably.

"If they draw that much blood, I'll die..."

He only sneered, his eyes full of malice.

"That's what you owe her."

Two bodyguards pinned me down into the blood-draw chair.

As the needle went in, I looked down and saw the bruises on my arm that still hadn't faded.

Blood was drawn out of me, tube after tube.

The lights on the ceiling grew farther and farther away, dimmer and dimmer.

I don't know how long I was unconscious.

When I woke, the only sound in the room was the beeping of the machines.

I turned my head and saw Rachel sitting in the chair beside me, her hand on her belly.

She smiled.

"Mavis, thank you for the blood."

She lowered her voice and leaned in close.

"The truth is, I never bled heavily at all. Before that fall down the stairs, I'd hidden a blood bag in my skirt."

She tilted her head and looked at me, her gaze almost greedily tracing my features, a strange smile at the corner of her lips.

"Mavis, thank you for pulling me out of the mud back then. You're so good, almost perfect. A good heart, good looks, a good family. You have a bright life ahead of you. I envy you so much, Mavis.

"I envy you so much I want to steal your life away.

"But why do you only ever have eyes for Rodney? Look, all it took was a few blood bags and a careless little fall down the stairs, and he came rushing to bite you like a rabid dog, without even bothering to check the facts.

"Mavis, how could you love a man that stupid for ten years? How could you be so blind?"

Footsteps sounded outside the door.

Rachel's expression changed, as fast as a card flipping over.

She snatched the glass from my bedside table and smashed it on the floor, picked up the biggest shard, and dragged it across her own arm.

As the beads of blood welled up, she screamed and fell to the floor.

"Mavis, no! Don't kill my baby!"

Rodney rushed in.

He saw the glass everywhere, the blood on Rachel's arm, and me lying on the bed.

He seized me by the neck and dragged me off the hospital bed.

I fell onto the broken glass, shards piercing through my back, blood soaking into my hospital gown.

I didn't struggle.

I looked at the ceiling over his shoulder.

A tide of hatred rose in my eyes.

Half an hour later, for the first time ever, he sent me a text message.

"I was too impulsive just now. Once the baby in Rachel's belly is born safely, I'll send her abroad."

"Rest and get your strength back. After you're discharged, we'll go on our honeymoon."

Then I got a mobile banking notification that five million dollars had been deposited into my account.

Five million dollars.

Back then I broke with my family and poured my entire fortune into his startupfifty million, down to the last cent.

I ran his company for ten years, worked myself into three miscarriages, my uterus worn thin as paper.

And now my life, my dignity, ten years of my youthall bundled together at a price of five million dollars.

Before I could even catch my breath, the ward door was kicked open.

Rodney rushed in, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and dragged me down off the bed.

The IV needle was still in the back of my hand. When he yanked me, the needle tore straight out of the vein, and blood ran down over my hand.

"Rachel killed herself. Are you satisfied now?!"

He hauled me off the bed to the floor like a madman. My knees slammed into the tiles, and it hurt so much I couldn't make a sound.

"Rachel's baby is gone! The doctor says her uterus is badly damagedshe needs a hysterectomy just to survive!"

I lay on the ground and looked up at him.

"Believe it or not, it wasn't me."

Smack! A stack of papers struck me hard across the face and scattered across the floor.

I glanced at them. They were the indecent photos taken of Rachel when she was being abused and violated by her stepfather.

"You were the only one who took away these negatives! Who else but you would leak them online to drive her to her death?!"

He crouched down and gripped my chin so hard that my teeth bit through the flesh inside my cheek.

"You were jealous she was carrying my child, so you stooped to something this filthy?"

I knew these photos were someone's deliberate setup.

But Rodney's eyes told me he didn't care whether they were real or fake.

All he wanted was a reason that let him torment me with a clear conscience.

I was shoved into the back seat of the car.

The car drove for a long time. The road outside the window got narrower and narrower, empty wasteland on both sides.

The car stopped in front of a building with no sign.

Inside, the lights were a ghastly white.

Several masked people lifted me onto the operating table and cinched belts tight around my wrists and ankles, buckling them shut.

Rodney stood in the corner, his face blank.

"Since you're the one who destroyed Rachel's uterus, then you can give her yours."

I started to struggle. The belts dug into my flesh, and my wrists chafed raw and bloody.

"Rodney, for the sake of the ten years we spent together."

I looked at him, my voice shaking so hard it barely held together.

"I'm begging you, let me go."

"A blood debt is paid in blood. Only when you remember this lesson will you learn to behave."

He turned, pushed open the door of the operating room, and walked out.

The door slammed shut.

The surgical lamp switched on.

Someone stuck a needle into my arm, and a cold crept up through my veins.

The metal face of the scalpel pressed against my lower belly, so cold my whole body convulsed.

The blade cut into my flesh, and a searing pain tore through my lower belly.

No anesthesia. The pain knocked me out cold right there on the operating table.

In that moment, ten years of love were cut away clean.

All that was left was hatred.

Half-conscious, I heard a huge crash.

I saw a familiar figure.

Dozens of people came in behind him.

"How dare you do this to herI'll kill every one of you!"

He came to the operating table, undid the belts, and lifted me into his arms.

I was trembling all over, my fingers clutching his collar.

"Tell him I'm dead. That I died here."

My voice was almost too faint to hear.

Ray didn't ask a thing.

He carried me to another car, and it vanished into the night.

Behind us, flames rose up.

Three days later.

Rodney sat in the VIP ward of Downtown Central Hospital, holding Rachel's hand.

Rachel leaned against the headboard, her face pale, having just come out of a D&C.

His phone rang.

He answered with a frown, assuming it was the shady clinic calling to make him come clean up their mess.

It was the voice of the police.

There had been an explosion and fire out in the suburbs, and a charred female body was found at the scene.

Among the belongings was a necklace, and the DNA comparison had come back.

The deceased was Mavis Gibson.

Would the family please come to claim the body as soon as possible.