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The Northern Bird No Longer Nests on the Southern Branch
NovelShort
Completed
After I woke from a vegetative state, Patrick and I held our wedding again. The little flower girl pulled out a ring box, took out the snap poppers inside, and hurled them at me. "I don't want a nasty woman like you stealing my daddy!" The poppers struck my wedding dress, one sharp crack after another, until they faded into little flecks of ash. Stiffly, I turned to look at Patrick.
Chapters (4)
第1章
After I woke from my vegetative state, Patrick James and I held our wedding all over again.
The little flower girl pulled out the ring box, took out the snap-pops inside, and hurled them at me.
"I don't want some cheap woman like you stealing my daddy!"
The snap-pops burst against my wedding dress, one shrill crack after another, until they scattered into little flecks of ash.
Stiffly, I turned to look at Patrick.
Following the dark line of his gaze, I saw Lucy Henson, half-hidden behind a pillar, one hand cradling her pregnant belly.
Five years ago, she was the one who ran me down and left me a vegetable.
"Poor sweetheart, no one is going to take Daddy away from you."
"This wedding is just for show. Your mother, Lucy, will always be the wife Daddy legally married."
The one lifting the little flower girl into her arms, hushing her so tenderly, was Patrick's mother.
Only yesterday she'd told me to give her a grandchild as soon as possible after the wedding, so her old age wouldn't be so dull.
"These past few years Lucy and Patrick have been so happy. You never should have woken up."
The one who walked up to me and said this, all reproach, was my best friend.
When I'd first come back to consciousness, she had cried until she could barely breathe.
"Irma Gilbert, Patrick may have held this wedding with you, but in our hearts Lucy is the real Mrs. James."
The one warning me in that cold voice was Patrick's close friend.
The same man who'd once sworn that if Patrick married anyone but me, he'd cut all ties with him.
So this was what happened during the five years I lay unconscious.
Patrick had not only failed to press charges against the woman who hit me, he'd given her a home.
Everyone had chosen forgiveness on my behalf.
Only I was kept in the dark, like a clown.
1
With every eye in the room on us.
Patrick walked straight over to Lucy.
"Why are you out here, in your condition?"
"You had such a hard labor with our first, I knelt outside the delivery room all night praying you and the baby would be safe. How can you still not be careful this time?"
In the silent banquet hall, his words carried to my ears, neither loud nor soft, and the color drained from my face in an instant.
Five years ago, on the eve of our wedding, a drunk Lucy sent me flying.
Blood ran from my belly, and Patrick had held me and screamed at her.
"If anything happens to Irma and the baby, I'll grind your bones to dust!"
Now, watching the care and doting in his eyes, everything in front of me blurred.
My best friend, Barbara Fox, followed my gaze, envy she couldn't hide in her eyes.
"The only reason Lucy hit you back then was that she loved Patrick a little too madly."
"She gave up her entire savings to pay my mother's medical bills. How bad could her heart really be?"
"Irma, you're not going to force your way between them and be some shameless third wheel, are you?"
Her tone of persuasion carried a thread of contempt, of mockery.
Just like five years ago, when she happened to see it.
Lucy, my assistant back then, ducking her head shyly, almost kissing Patrick where he'd dozed off at midday.
I'd rushed over like a little whirlwind and slapped her hard across the face.
"Irma sponsored you for ten years, and here you are, shamelessly coveting her boyfriend."
"Is this how your mother taught you to repay kindness with betrayal?"
Now, watching the corner of her mouth curl up.
It was as though something had closed around my throat. My face flushed dark with the effort, and still not a single word would come.
Patrick's close friend, Rodney Delgado, looked at me and frowned.
"Irma Gilbert, this wedding is something Lucy pushed Patrick to hold specially for you, to make up for what you missed five years ago."
"She's so kindhearted. Surely you don't mean to push your luck and tear their family apart?"
The disgust in his eyes came and went in a flash.
He was no longer the man who'd once sought me out on purpose to warn me.
"Are you a fool, ma'am? You brought that sponsored girl Lucy in as Patrick's assistant. Isn't that like burying a hidden bomb right beside him?"
"One look at that woman and you can tell she's no good!"
Now even Patrick's mother, the little flower girl in her arms, kept her patience and pressed me.
"Five years ago you couldn't finish your wedding with Patrick, and today all this trouble happens too. It's proof enough that you and our Patrick were never meant to be in this life."
"Irma, don't be so stubborn about things."
My whole body swayed, ready to fall.
Step by step, I walked up to Patrick and stared at him, my eyes burning.
"I don't care what anyone else says."
"I only want to hear your explanation!"
第2章
The moment I finished speaking, several of them rushed over and closed ranks around Lucy Henson.
They watched me with wary, guarded eyes, as if terrified I might do something to hurt her.
My mother, who had lost her mind after my accident, made her way to Patrick with quick, trembling steps.
"Son-in-law, why are you shielding another woman?"
"My Irma is your bride!"
Patrick gave her a complicated look, and his hand slid away from Lucy's waist.
He soothed the others, telling them to leave first, then paused as he passed me.
"I'll see everyone home first."
"I'll explain to you when we get back tonight."
They drifted off in twos and threes, glancing back at me, shaking their heads and sighing.
As if I were the one who couldn't stop pushing.
Once the crowd had thinned, Lucy came forward, her pregnant belly thrust out, glowing with triumph.
"Such a shame, Irma. Five years ago I sent you flying right before your wedding, and five years later my son ruins the wedding all over again."
"Looks like you and my husband really weren't meant to be."
I looked at the Lucy in front of me.
Flushed cheeks, skin smooth enough to break at a touch.
She was nothing like the little girl I'd brought down out of the mountains all those years ago, the one with rough, red cheeks and timid, wide eyes.
I steadied my mother, not wanting anything more to do with a pregnant woman.
But she stepped closer, gazing into my mother's confused eyes, and gave a soft laugh.
"Irma, tell me. Did my husband tell you your mother lost her mind because the shock of you becoming a vegetable was too much for her?"
Looking at the malice in her teasing eyes, something in me went cold.
"What are you talking about?"
Three months ago, when I woke, my mother, who had treated me as her whole life, was nowhere to be found.
Patrick had sighed and told me it was my sudden accident that had broken her mind.
After I was discharged, I visited her at the psychiatric hospital, and she was still stroking the jade bracelet she'd prepared for my wedding five years before.
The guilt was so heavy I couldn't forgive myself.
But now she was telling me there was more to it?
Lucy stroked her belly gently and spoke with contempt.
"Your mother came to my husband with the evidence she'd dug up about my accident, wanting to talk it over. And she walked right in on the two of us, going at it beside your hospital bed."
"She watched her trusted future son-in-law on his knees for me, the very woman who'd hit you, and then she watched him snatch that evidence out of her hands and destroy it."
"Irma, the reason he wouldn't let me appear in front of you was to protect me. He stopped loving you a long time ago."
"Even this wedding they threw together for you, with no real title to your name, I'm the one who talked him into throwing it to you as charity..."
Listening to her flaunt it, mockery and all, I felt the blood in my body freeze and my mind go blank.
I remembered how, after I woke, Patrick had knelt at my feet, his eyes red.
"Irma, I waited five years for you, and you're finally awake."
"Lucy Henson, who hurt you and your child, is already behind bars. I got justice for both of you."
I never checked. I believed him without a shred of doubt.
Only now did I understand.
All of it was nothing but a lie he'd carefully put together.
Lucy's mocking words pushed my mother over the edge.
Her eyes slowly widened, as if she were remembering images too ugly to bear.
She lunged at Lucy in a rage.
"You cheap little mistress, you didn't just hurt my daughter, you seduced my son-in-law too."
"I'll strangle you!"
But before my mother's hands could reach her neck, she was flung to the ground with brutal force.
Her head struck the corner of the table, and blood poured out at once.
Panic seized me, and I scrambled to hold her up.
"Mom... Mom... are you okay?"
Patrick stared at his own hands, dazed.
"Irma... I didn't mean to!"
Watching my mother slip toward unconsciousness, my tears spilled over in a rush.
I no longer cared about my pride. I looked at him and begged.
"Patrick, I'm begging you, take my mother to the hospital."
"I won't make trouble, and I don't need an explanation."
"I'll let go... I'm letting go. Isn't that enough?"
第3章
Patrick looked at me, weeping and lost, and I knew he had never seen me this helpless.
Not even the year Lucy sent me flying and I coughed up blood, when I was still soothing his nerves.
Not even when I woke to a world that had moved on without me, and forced myself to pick up the professional knowledge I'd set down five years before.
Not even seeing my mother's mind broken, when I wiped my tears fast and went through her file line by line, hunting for a specialist.
He crouched to help me lift her, and his voice turned tender.
"Don't be scared, Irma. I'll get Mom to the hospital right now."
Before he could get her up, Lucy clutched her belly and cried out.
"Patrick, I think the baby's coming!"
"You promised me you'd be there for every single birth!"
His hands went still.
And under my desperate eyes, he slowly set my mother back down.
"Lucy nearly died delivering the first one. I can't risk anything happening to her again."
"I'll call a car for Mom, it'll come fast!"
I watched him lift Lucy and walk away without hesitation.
Something wrenched at my heart with a force I couldn't see.
With everything I had left, I carried my mother alone, flagged a cab, and rushed her to the hospital.
The rage and grief had brought on a brain hemorrhage.
When they wheeled her out of the emergency room.
Listening to the steady beep of the monitor.
Looking at her face, drained white, without a trace of color.
I cried without a sound.
I stayed with her the whole night. Patrick never called once.
Barbara, though, had a new post on her feed.
The photo showed:
Patrick cradling the newborn with the greatest care.
Bernice tenderly holding a cup of water to Lucy's lips.
Rodney sitting off to the side, gently rocking the older boy.
The caption read:
"Two babies in five years. Seeing my best friend this happy, how am I even happier than she is?"
I had pictured that exact scene five years ago, when the test told me I was pregnant.
But it would never come true now.
I kept vigil straight through until my body was ready to give out.
Only then did Patrick push open the door and catch me as I swayed.
"Why didn't you hire a caregiver?"
"Look how worn out you are. Are you trying to break my heart?"
Watching the concern flood his eyes, I felt myself go unmoored.
As if yesterday's ugly scene had only been a dream.
But looking at my mother still unconscious on the bed, breathing in the milk-sweet smell of a newborn on him.
I knew.
It was only those two weddings we never finished.
That had been the dream.
I pushed at him with the last of my strength.
"Patrick, we're over!"
"Over. Do you understand that?"
He let me shove at him and heaved a heavy sigh.
"Irma, we loved each other fifteen years. Can you really end it?"
My hands stopped, and the tears came streaming down.
From love at first sight freshman year, to the brutal grind of building a company after graduation.
From the business finding its feet inch by inch, to the horror of the wedding five years ago.
And now the empty dream I'd woken into.
Fifteen whole years.
But now.
He no longer carried the gardenia scent I knew.
No longer my anchor, already the father of two children.
Whether I could bear to end it...
Was that even mine to decide anymore?
Seeing me go quiet, he thought I was giving in, and held me tighter.
"Seven years ago you brought Lucy into the company as my assistant. She was drugged at a reception, and I was the one who saved her."
"She was a young girl, her first time. I had to take responsibility for her, didn't I?"
"When she hit you that day, she'd just found out her pregnancy hormones were unstable. She panicked when she heard I was going to marry you."
"I've already punished her. She only gets the title, and it's not announced publicly."
"Now she's given me two children. I really can't bring myself to be hard on her..."
Listening to him mutter it all out, I only found it absurd.
So it turned out Lucy had the nerve to hit me five years ago because she was already sleeping with him.
And in those five years he never won justice for me or my unborn child, because Lucy was carrying his child too.
I closed my eyes, spent.
"Patrick, thank you for being honest with me about all this..."
"For making me understand..."
"I don't want to love you anymore..."
第4章
The arms around me went rigid.
"You don't love me?"
"I waited five years for you to wake up. How can you be so cruel, telling me you don't love me?"
Patrick's kiss came at me, hard and vicious.
It only made me sick, and I bit down on his lip.
He let go with a hiss of pain, wiping the blood welling at the corner of his mouth, and let out a cold laugh.
"Irma, don't you forget."
"For five years I've been paying for your treatment and your mother's."
"Leave me, and what will you use to treat your mother?"
I stared at him, unable to believe it.
When we first started the company, we were lovers and partners both.
Right after I woke, he'd used the company's growth as his reason and talked me into signing away my shares.
My complete trust had become the tool he used to threaten me.
I unclenched my bitten lips and snarled at him, grief and fury breaking through.
"What exactly do you want?"
He looked at me, careless.
"Irma, I want you..."
"...to be my mistress..."
My mind went off like a blast.
I couldn't believe what I'd just heard.
While I stood there stunned, the ward door opened.
Lucy came in, surrounded by everyone.
The laughter and chatter cut off the instant they saw our tangled bodies.
Barbara sneered coldly.
"I warned you at the wedding not to be the mistress, and here you are, still shameless enough to throw yourself at him."
The disgust in Rodney's eyes only deepened.
"Lucy just gave birth and came straight to see your mother, and you seduce her husband right in front of your own mother?"
"Irma, you really are beyond shame."
My face went white before I could get a word out.
It was Patrick whose face turned cold.
"Enough!"
"I just got Irma calmed down. Don't come stirring up more trouble."
Hearing Patrick defend me, Lucy shot me a look of pure hatred.
It was gone in a flash, and she walked in first, a smile on her face.
"Irma, it was my recklessness that hurt you back then, after all."
"From now on let's be sisters, one heart, and take care of Patrick together, all right?"
"From now on your mother is my mother too. I'll help you look after her."
As she spoke, she made a show of going to check on my mother.
But the moment everyone's eyes were fixed on me, she yanked the ventilator plug out of the socket.
The moment the monitor stopped beeping, horror seized me, and I shoved Patrick off with everything I had.
I stumbled to my mother's bedside, grabbed the plug, and had just pushed it back in when Lucy knocked over the water pitcher on the table, sending the water splashing squarely onto the socket and the outlet.
In an instant the whole ward shorted out.
The monitor, which had beeped twice, went dead.
My mother drew a few quick breaths, and her chest never rose again...
I called out softly, refusing to believe it.
"Mom..."
"It's me, it's Irma. Open your eyes and look at me..."
But the woman who had once said she would protect me with her life, who couldn't close her eyes until she saw me happy, would never answer me again.
"Lucy, I'm going to kill you!"
A raw, wretched wail tore out of me, and I threw myself at her like a madwoman.
But a solid wall of flesh blocked my way.
Patrick gripped my arms, the veins standing out on them, and patiently made excuses for Lucy.
"Lucy only meant well and it went wrong. Nobody wanted this!"
"She just gave birth. She can't take you tearing at her."
"Get out of my way!"
I fought with everything in me, screaming myself raw.
Blood surged up in me, and I bit down hard on his arm.
He let out a low, muffled sound.
Lucy, hiding behind him, gave a frightened warning.
"Honey, could Irma have inherited her mother's mental illness?"
"Maybe we should send her to the same psychiatric hospital her mother was in, for treatment?"
Barbara and Rodney looked at me with disgust and chimed in, one after another.
Patrick watched me tear at everything like something possessed and hesitated a moment.
In the end he nodded.
As they hauled me away, my eyes were shot through with red, the taste of ground-up blood in my mouth.
"Patrick, Lucy, you'd better pray I don't live."
"Because if I do, even if I burn in hell forever, I will never let you go!"
A week later, Patrick came to see me with the wedding ring from five years ago.
The doctor spoke, puzzled.
"Irma Gilbert?"
"Our hospital never admitted that patient."
Patrick froze on the spot.