Chapter 2

The photograph captured the both of them smiling sweetly, their heads tilted toward each other in an unmistakable display of intimacy.

On the back, their names were inscribed in neat handwriting: Megan Gibson and Zack Taylor.

Beside Zack's name, there was a poetic note in the same familiar handwriting: "No one compares to you."

Beneath the photo, a small line of red print caught my eye:

—Victoria Photo Studio.

That was the first photography studio in our town. I had once suggested taking a family portrait there with Megan and our son, only to be chastised in the middle of the street.

"Do you know how expensive one photograph is? That money could buy enough meat to feed our son for days!" she had snapped.

I never brought it up again.

Now I understood why she had already known the price of a photograph without asking. She had gone there before—just not with me.

As I examined the photo, my eyes were drawn to the suit she wore in it. It was one of those premium pieces from the city's department store. It dawned on me then: she had bought the genuine article, just not for me. She saved the real thing for this photo, for him.

Every detail in that photo screamed of significance, of care, of something far beyond the mundane routine of our marriage.

Tears slid silently down my face, tracing the lines age had carved into my skin. They tasted bitter, a reflection of my marriage.

The door creaked open behind me, breaking my reverie.

Megan walked in and froze. Her eyes locked onto the frame in my hands. In an instant, she was across the room, shoving me hard enough to knock me to the floor, showing no concern for my sixty-five-year-old body.

"Sam, how dare you touch my things!" she hissed, her voice trembling with a fury that felt strangely familiar.

I didn't respond to her accusations. My mind was too preoccupied with the faint scent that clung to her clothes—the unmistakable aroma of old-fashioned hand-rolled cigarettes.

The smell triggered a long-buried memory.

When I was twenty-eight, I used to sell poem and calligraphy pieces to make ends meet. My talent had earned me a small reputation, and one of the local shop owners, Michael Leighton, had given me a box of hand-rolled cigarettes as a gift.

Excited, I brought it home to show Megan.

"Do you know how much money you've just wasted?" she had shouted, her anger reducing me to a stammering mess.

I tried to explain it had been a gift, but her fury left no room for reason. "You're not a child anymore, buying whatever catches your fancy. You're my husband now, and you have responsibilities!"

That night, I swore never to "waste money" again, even on gifts. The cigarettes remained in the house, untouched—by me, at least.

Over the years, I would occasionally catch the scent of them on Megan, mingled with her perfume. I always thought it odd but had dismissed it. Now, the realization hit me like a thunderclap.

How could the smell of those cigarettes have lingered for decades? It couldn't.

Each time I smelled it, it wasn't a memory—it was evidence. Evidence that Megan had been meeting him.

"Do you remember the box of cigarettes Michael gave me?" I asked, my voice breaking the silence.

Her expression flickered, her fury faltering for a split second. "What cigarettes? You've never smoked a day in your life! I told you back then that a scholar should smell of books, not smoke!"

I sat on the ground, and Megan looked down at me from above.

It was then I realized that perhaps, in her eyes, I had always appeared this way: a groveling, spineless figure, a sycophant reeking of ink, serving as nothing more than her personal cash dispenser.

"You smell of them now," I said.

That was when she exploded. "You think women don't pick up a bit of cigarette smell here and there? I go to the gambling parlor! The men there are always puffing away. What, are you going to start some crusade against them now?"

For years, I had deferred to her, grateful for the life she had given me, for the son we raised together. But now, looking at her, I felt nothing but revulsion.

When our son and daughter-in-law heard about our fight, they came to take us out for dinner, hoping to smooth things over.

"Dad, you're being unreasonable," Tommy said, his tone patronizing. "We're doing well enough now. There's no need to dwell on the past. Come on, let's eat."

I looked at Tommy—this son of mine whom I had raised on watered-down porridge and a mother's indifference. Did he know that when he was barely a year old, his mother had nearly starved him to death in her obsession with making Zack a millionaire?

The boy I had fed with my own hands now stood before me, a stranger in every way that mattered.

"I'm not going," I muttered, turning away.

"Why's the old man acting like such a child?" Tommy grumbled as he left, slamming the door behind him.

The house was quiet again, and I was all alone.