Chapter 2

Mom pressed her lips in a thin line.

She took a very long time to calm herself down. That way, it wouldn't sound too obvious that she was on the verge of tears.

"Okay. Let's divorce as well. Tracy is your first love, and of course, she is more important than me. We're only strangers who met halfway through life, after all. Besides, Tracy is someone you've loved since you were young but never had a chance with.

"Now that she's back, you can finally go after her. You should chase after your love."

Thomas started roaring even louder through the phone. He was vastly different from the person I had heard earlier, gently coaxing and comforting Tracy.

"Divorce again? So, you and your daughter think marriages are just a joke? That it means nothing to you both? You told me before that you left your ex-husband because he had a bad character. It's obvious now that you were the problem all along! You get jealous of everything!

"Did you get water in your brain because of the storm just now? Tracy's leg is hurt, so shouldn't we have helped her clean her wounds? Her dog almost died, and since I'm a vet, I shouldn't have come to take a look at it either, right?

"Your jealousy has made you all sorts of delusional. How the hell could you get jealous of a goddamn dog?

"You want a divorce? Sure! Wait till the baby is born. And don't you both even think of taking away the baby with you!"

Mom didn't even get a chance to speak before Thomas cut the call. Similarly, her phone also slid to the ground with a loud thud.

She then looked out the window and said, "Penny, men are unreliable creatures."

I knew then that she was thinking of her past again.

Mom grew up in the country and fell in love with a "bad boy" like most youngsters nowadays. This was the person Thomas had referred to as my birth father.

Mom cut all ties with her family to be with my father and left the country with him.

At first, my father promised her the world. He told her he would work hard to earn a lot of money so that Mom could have it easy. Mom was still in her early 20s then, so she had believed every single word my father had said.

A while after that, she got pregnant with me, and that was when my parents hurriedly got married. Mom told me that the ten months she was pregnant had been the best time of her life. She was spoiled rotten by my father, who made her all sorts of delicious food and fulfilled her every need.

When I was born, however, the tune changed for my father when he realized that I was a girl. His attitude toward Mom changed even before she was discharged from the hospital. And whenever I cried or made a fuss, he would scold her and call her all sorts of derogatory names.

That was how Mom lived her life for the next few years. My father was extremely abusive toward her, either yelling or hitting her every single day.

When I turned six years old, my father came home with another woman, telling Mom that he wanted a divorce. His reasoning was simple. His new "love" would be able to birth him a son.

My father then chased me and my mother out of the house. We were penniless and owned nothing but the clothes on our backs.

We lived like nomads for years. Mom would carry me on her back while she did hard, laborious work. She then sent me to school with what little she earned. Eventually, I graduated from college.

The day I brought my boyfriend home was also the day she told me she had found someone new.

It wasn't until we each brought our partners to see each other that we realized we'd fallen in love with the father-and-son duo from the Patterson family.

A month later, the both of us got married on the same day. I was married to firefighter Walter Patterson, the son, while Mom was married to Thomas Patterson, the dean of a veterinary hospital.

Walter's mother had died from cancer a few years ago. On our wedding day, Mom had held Walter's hand in hers, saying, "Wally, I'll be your mother from today onward."

Meanwhile, Thomas also held my hand and said, "Penny, I'll be your father from today onward."

It was such a touching scene. Looking back, I could still feel the warmth from then.

However, both Mom and I had been so caught up in our happiness that we never realized that some other things were also starting to take root—our wedding day was set on the same day as Tracy Addams' birthday.

It was obvious what this meant to them both.

Also, both Walter and Thomas had called her, asking her to be there for our weddings.

I vividly remember Walter saying, "Tracy, it would mean the world to me if you were here."

I hadn't thought much about it back then. But now that I looked back at it, these had all been warning signs from the start. Tracy was someone special to the Pattersons.

Still, there was something I couldn't understand. Walter had his own mother. So, why did he like Tracy so much? He would even think that no one else could ever measure up to her.

Perhaps if Mom, Tracy, Maple, and I all died on the same day today, I bet that both Mom's and my funeral would come after the dog's.

I sat with Mom on the bed as we scrolled on our phones.

Tracy happened to post something on her Twitter just then.