Chapter 5

The alarm from the heart monitor blasted through the entire floor.

Doctors were shouting, “We need to resuscitate!”

In absolute despair, I begged every bystander in the hallway for help. “Excuse me, is your blood type O-negative?”

A kind young girl stopped and said, “I am.”

Just like that, Annie was saved, and the numbers on the monitor returned to normal.

When she woke up, she looked around the ward. “Did Daddy come?”

I couldn’t bear to disappoint her, so I said, “He’s out working. He’ll come as soon as he's off work. He even said he’d bring you a gift.”

She nodded happily.

I wiped my face and tried sending him a message. Since I wasn’t blocked anymore, I told him to bring a gift for Annie and that we could talk about everything else later.

He agreed. Yet when he arrived that night, his hands were empty.

“Where’s the gift?”

He rubbed his temples. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”

I lost my temper. “Do you have any idea what happened last night–”

Annie cut in before I could finish, hiding her disappointment remarkably well. “It’s okay. As long as Daddy is here.”

He nodded, leaning against the wall as he muttered, “Last night, when I walked Quinn home, I saw my parents. I hadn’t seen them in six years… and I didn’t even dare to say hello.”

Looking at his bleak smile, I turned my head away.

After that day, I stayed with Annie during the day and worked part-time at night. With those earnings, I managed to rent a house in a small southern town.

Julian, too, worked like a dog to make money, leaving early in the morning and returning late at night, and transferred all his earnings to me.

Occasionally, he would stare at me and say, “Claire, if I make enough money, we can…”

However, he never finished the rest of his sentence.

Though we lived under the same roof, we were now like two strangers.

On the day Annie was discharged from the hospital, she tugged at Julian’s shirt tail. “Daddy, can you please stay in tomorrow? Can we just have a meal together?”

Julian patted her head and agreed. “Okay.”

That night, Annie lay in my arms, saying, “Mommy, my teacher said that we should say a proper goodbye when we leave.”

The next day, she woke up very early. She wanted to make Julian’s favorite dish—pasta—with her own hands. She even stood on a small stool to mix the sauce and the pasta herself.

However, just as the dish was brought to the table, Julian’s phone rang.

He accidentally put it on speaker, and Quinn’s tearful voice echoed through the room. “I’m really leaving this time. I’ve agreed to the arranged marriage my family set up. I can’t wait for you anymore.”

Julian gripped his phone tightly and rushed out the door.

I grabbed hold of him. “You promised Annie you’d have a meal with her!”

He pried my fingers off, his face filled with anxiety. “It’s just a meal! It’s the same no matter when we eat it!”

With that, he left.

Annie stood at the doorway, watching as he walked away, for a very long time.

She even spoke up to comfort me. “It’s okay, Mommy. Writing a goodbye note to Daddy works just as well.”

Her writing was crooked but earnest, and she placed the note on the coffee table.

“Mommy, let’s go.”

I nodded, took her by the hand, dragged our luggage along, and shut the door behind us. I didn’t look back, not even once.

That night, when Julian returned home, the apartment was quiet, and the lights were off. The plate of pasta in the oven had gone cold.

He called out twice, but no one answered. That was when he found the note left on the table.

In Annie’s crooked writing, it said, “Goodbye, Daddy. Please eat well and sleep well. From now on, you won’t have to work so hard anymore.”