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The Long Winter Ends, I No Longer Wait for You
NovelShort
Completed
When I was three months pregnant, Tom signed a five-year overseas contract with his company and went to the Santiago office. He said he would bring me over once I hit seven months. "The medical care there is good, and if the baby's born there, he can get local citizenship. School will be easier for him than for other kids down the line." My parents worried about me, so they came along too. Tom called them Mom and Dad warmly enough, but he put them in a windowless maid's room.
Chapters (4)
第1章
When I was three months pregnant, Tom James signed a five-year overseas contract with his company and left for the Santiago office.
He said he'd bring me over once I hit seven months.
"The medical care's better there. The baby can get local citizenship when it's born, and school will be easier for it down the line than for everyone else."
My parents worried about me, so they came too.
Tom called them Mom and Dad warmly enough, but he put them in a windowless maid's room.
Then his junior colleague Yuna Fletcher showed up, and he handed over the guest room with the best light.
"My folks are country people. They're used to it. They don't fuss over things like that."
The day before Christmas, my labor came on without warning.
Tom, who'd promised his phone would be on twenty-four hours a day, didn't pick up a single call.
My parents don't speak Spanish, and we lived out of the way.
In the end my sixty-something father ran several kilometers through the rain before he could beg the neighboring farm owner to drive me to the hospital.
The doctor said that any later and the baby would have been severely oxygen-deprived, and I'd have been at risk of a major hemorrhage.
The next afternoon, Tom finally came, with Yuna.
Through the door of the ward, I heard Yuna, her voice thick with tears:
"I really had no idea you'd ignore your wife's calls just to keep me happy."
"I only said it offhand, that it would be so cool if the baby shared a birthday with Jesus…"
Tom scoffed.
"What could possibly go wrong? Her parents farmed their whole lives. They can't handle something as simple as a birth?"
"And you have even less to worry about. Cry for a couple of days and you'll be fine. She can't stand to lose me. In the end she'll be the one finding a way to smooth things over for me."
I looked down at my father's feet, worn raw and bleeding.
In that moment, I suddenly didn't have the strength left to make excuses for Tom.
…
When Tom pushed open the door, my mother was crouched by the bed, soaking the blood off my father's socks with warm water.
The socks had stuck to the flesh, and every time she peeled one back, my father's shoulder flinched.
But when he saw Tom, he smiled first. "Tom, you're here. The baby's over there, a boy, and what a strong cry."
Tom didn't look at him. He frowned at me first.
"Why did your labor come early?"
I lay in the hospital bed, the incision throbbing and numb in waves.
"I called you nineteen times."
"My phone was on silent."
He said it as if all he'd missed was a promotional text.
Yuna stood behind him, holding a cream-white gift box, her eyes red.
"I'm so sorry. It's all my fault. If I'd known you'd really go into labor, I never would've dragged Tom off to watch the fireworks with me."
I stared at her.
"Really go into labor?"
Yuna's lips trembled and the tears fell at once.
Tom lowered his voice.
"Maggie Swanson, that's not what she meant."
"Then what did she mean?"
He came to the bedside, saw my cracked lips, dipped a cotton swab in water, and touched it to them.
The motion was very gentle.
Back when I ran a fever, he used to look at me the same way, complaining even as he did it: "Without me, what kind of state would you get yourself into?"
I thought it was sweet then.
Only now do I understand: it was his certainty that I couldn't do without him.
The swab had barely brushed the corner of my lips when Yuna drew in a soft breath.
"Tom, I feel a little dizzy."
Tom's hand stopped.
The next second, he tossed the swab in the trash and turned to steady her.
"Low blood sugar?"
Yuna shook her head.
"It's fine. Your wife just gave birth. Don't mind me."
"Stop trying to tough it out."
He poured a cup of warm water and handed it to her.
My mother said quietly, "Tom, Maggie's lips are all cracked…"
Only then did Tom pour another cup and set it by my pillow.
"Mom, you're right here. How do you not even know to give her water?"
My mother's face went white.
She'd kept vigil outside the operating room all last night, not a wink of sleep, unable to understand a word the doctors said, clutching a translation app, her hands shaking too hard to even type the letters right.
Yet in his mouth she hadn't managed so much as a cup of water.
My father spoke up quickly. "It's my foot that held her mother up."
Tom finally looked at his feet.
"Dad, how did your foot end up like this?"
My mother said, her eyes red, "We couldn't get a car last night, so he ran out in the rain to find help. The road was all gravel, and dark…"
Tom cut her off with a frown. "There's a process for seeing a doctor abroad. Running around like that is dangerous. Dad, you're getting on in years. Don't go doing everything the way you would back home."
The smile froze on my father's face, and he pulled his foot back under the bed.
"Right, right. I don't understand these things."
Yuna hurried to open the gift box.
"Please don't be angry. This is a little gold locket Tom and I picked out for the baby."
A gold locket lay in the box, a card tucked beside it.
An English name: Lucas.
I asked, "Who chose it?"
Yuna said in a small voice, "I mentioned it offhand. Tom said it's a grand name for a boy, and it'll be convenient abroad later."
I looked at Tom.
"The baby's name, and I, his mother, don't need to know?"
He was a little impatient.
"It's just an English name. You have to make an issue of it?"
"My son almost died last night, and you bring her here today to name him?"
Yuna's tears spilled over.
"I only wanted to give the baby a blessing."
Tom's face went cold.
"Maggie, the baby's born now. Do you have to make everyone miserable?"
I pushed the gold locket back into Yuna's hands.
"Take it."
Yuna froze.
I said each word slowly. "My son's first gift is not coming from the person who nearly left him without oxygen."
The ward went silent in an instant.
Tom stared at me, his eyes sinking lower and lower.
"Maggie, I'm only cutting you slack because you just gave birth."
I pressed the call button at the head of the bed.
When the nurse came in, I pointed at the door.
"Please have them leave. The mother needs rest."
Only then did the shock finally show on Tom's face.
I truly did not want to see him.
第2章
The day I was discharged, Tom didn't come.
He only sent a message: [Meeting came up. Driver's downstairs. Don't go around looking miserable, you'll worry your parents.]
By the time we got back to the house, it was already dark.
My mother carried the baby inside.
My father hauled the luggage, his foot still hurt, and with every step the hem of his pant leg dragged against the gauze.
The moment the door opened, my mother froze.
The luggage that had been in the first-floor maid's room was all piled at the basement door.
The old woven bag lay tipped over, my father's pill case had fallen and spilled tablets across the floor.
A sticky note was stuck to the door.
[Sir, ma'am, Yuna's allergies have been acting up lately, so upstairs needs to stay ventilated. The basement is quiet, so it'll be easier for you to rest down there!]
My father bent to pick up the pills.
Tom came down from upstairs, a bowl of the nourishing tonic in his hands.
I glanced at it.
"For me?"
He paused.
"Yuna didn't sleep well last night. Her throat's sore."
Yuna leaned her head out from the second-floor guest room, a pale pink shawl draped over her shoulders.
"Don't get the wrong idea. I wanted to give it to you, but Tom said you just got out of the hospital, so the chicken soup would be better for you first."
Tom frowned.
"Why are you explaining yourself? It's not like she can't understand plain speech."
I looked at the luggage at the basement door.
"Who told you to move my parents' things?"
Yuna bit her lip. "It really is just my allergies."
I asked Tom, "So that means my parents can live in the basement?"
"Maggie, is there any hardship they haven't been through? The basement isn't a pigsty. Don't make it sound so ugly."
My father straightened up at once.
"It's fine, we can stay anywhere. Maggie just got out of the hospital, don't argue."
My mother tugged at my sleeve too.
"The basement's fine, it's cool down there."
I looked down at the baby in her arms.
Such a tiny bundle, and he hadn't even had a proper crib to sleep in.
And in Yuna's guest room, fresh linens, an aroma diffuser burning, white roses on the windowsill.
I asked, "Tom, where's the baby sleeping?"
"The master bedroom, obviously."
"I just had a C-section. At night I have to feed him, change his diapers. Are you going to get up in the night?"
Tom said nothing.
Yuna spoke up right away. "I can help you. Tom has to see clients tomorrow, he can't stay up all night."
I looked at her.
"Didn't you not sleep well last night?"
Yuna's face went stiff.
Tom set the tonic down on the table.
"Do you have to be this snide about everything?"
I took the baby and turned to go down to the basement.
My mother panicked.
"Maggie, you can't stay down there!"
"If my parents can, why can't I?"
The basement door opened and the damp smell hit me full in the face.
Mold stained the corner of the wall, the window was no bigger than a palm, and mops and a cleaning bucket were heaped beside the folding bed.
My mother stood in the doorway, and the tears came at once.
"We'll stay, we'll stay, you go back up."
I set my bag down by the bed.
"Mom, from today on, wherever you two live, that's where I live."
Tom stood at the top of the stairs, his face dark.
"Maggie, don't use the baby to sulk at me."
"So you do know the baby's in my arms?"
From upstairs, Yuna said softly, "Tom, does she think I've taken her place? Maybe I really should just go."
Tom turned to look at her, and his tone softened instantly.
"No one's telling you to go."
Then he looked at me.
"Stay down there if you want. But when you're cold, don't come crying in the middle of the night for me to carry you back up."
I really had been like that, once.
After we fought I'd stubbornly sleep on the couch, wake up cold in the night, and when he came to hold me I'd lean back into his arms.
The next morning he'd kiss my forehead and say, "See? You can't even sleep right without me."
Back then I thought it was sweet.
Only now does it feel cheap.
In the middle of the night, the baby suddenly spiked a fever.
My mother, sweat beading on her forehead, carried him upstairs at a rush.
"Maggie, where's the thermometer? Where are the fever patches?"
My incision hurt too much to get up, so I could only brace myself against the wall and climb.
My mother had just pushed open the second-floor storage room when Yuna started shrieking.
"Ma'am! Why are you going through my things?"
Tom came out of the master bedroom, his face grim.
My mother flinched back.
"I was looking for the baby's medicine, I didn't know this was hers—"
Yuna clutched her chest, and the tears fell at once.
"I have private things in my bag. Even if you were in a hurry, you can't just go through it without asking."
I gripped the stair rail, my voice shaking.
"The baby has a fever."
Tom came over and touched the baby's forehead.
"He does feel a little warm."
I thought he would finally be alarmed.
The next second, he turned to look at Yuna instead.
"Stop crying. Your allergies aren't better yet, and if you get worked up you'll start wheezing again."
He dug a temperature gun out of the drawer and handed it to me.
"You two take his temperature first. I'll walk Yuna back to her room."
I watched him leave, one arm around Yuna, and it hit me all at once.
It wasn't that he didn't know how to take care of people.
He had just never once put me and the baby first.
第3章
Tom threw a Christmas dinner party.
He said it was an office tradition. The new hires and a few of his business partners would all be there.
I reminded him. "The baby just got out of the hospital, I'm still recovering from the birth, and Dad's foot isn't healed yet."
He kept his head down, fastening his cufflink.
"It's just dinner at home. I'm not asking you to go out and entertain clients."
"Then have a restaurant cater it," I said.
Tom let out a short laugh.
"People here love a taste of a real home-cooked family meal. Your parents know how to fold dumplings, don't they? Perfect chance to show off."
I stared at him.
"My parents aren't here to put on a performance for you."
He looked up at me.
"Maggie, you've gotten really ugly to talk to lately."
Yuna slipped in a soft little line. "He just wants your parents to feel included. Old folks get restless and start overthinking when they've got nothing to do."
My mother's head popped out of the kitchen right away.
"It's fine, we'll fold them. Nice to have a little life in the house when guests come."
That afternoon my mother kneaded dough, chopped filling, and rolled out wrappers.
My father sat on a low stool folding dumplings, his hurt foot propped on a cardboard box.
That evening the guests arrived.
Yuna, in a white dress, stood beside Tom greeting people.
Someone asked if she was Mrs. James.
She waved a hand, blushing. "Oh, no. The boss's wife is in the back."
The man glanced toward the kitchen.
I was holding the baby, my mother was carrying out the dumplings, and my father was hauling a basin of dipping sauce.
The man smiled and pressed a bill into my father's hand.
He must have taken him for the hired help.
My father didn't understand and took it, stunned.
Yuna covered her mouth and laughed.
"Sir, he thinks you're one of the staff they hired for the house."
A few people in the living room laughed along.
My father's face went red. He hurried to hand the bill back, but he didn't know how to explain, and could only look awkwardly at Tom.
I looked at Tom too.
I thought he would at least say one thing. This is my father-in-law.
But he only gave a faint smile.
"They do help look after the baby. The house owes them a lot."
He didn't deny it, and he didn't confirm it.
As if my parents really were just two people working here for free.
The hand holding the dumplings gave a single tremble, hot broth splashing across the web of her thumb, and she didn't make a sound.
I handed the baby to my mother and walked up to Tom.
"Introduce them."
Tom frowned.
"What?"
"Tell them who these two people are."
The living room went quiet.
Yuna grabbed my arm at once.
"Please, it was just a joke, don't take it so seriously."
I shook her off.
"You. Shut up."
Yuna's eyes went red instantly.
Tom's face darkened.
"Maggie, in front of the guests, you have to make a scene?"
"I'm making a scene?"
I pointed at the bill in my father's hand.
"Your father-in-law gets tipped like a servant and you don't say a word. My mother gets burned and you don't even notice. And now I'm the one making a scene?"
Tom held his temper down.
"They're outsiders here, they don't understand how our family works. Do you really have to blow it up like this?"
My father hurried to shove the bill onto the table.
"It's fine, it's fine, it doesn't bother me."
The more he said that, the worse I felt.
Yuna sniffled quietly.
"Tom, did I cause you trouble again? I should never have translated that line."
Tom turned to her at once.
"It's not your fault."
Then he turned back to me.
"Apologize to Yuna."
I almost thought I'd misheard.
"What did you say?"
"She was only helping translate, and you just yelled at her."
I laughed.
"Tom, when your parents get mistaken for the help, are you going to make me apologize to someone else first then too?"
His face changed.
"Don't drag my parents into this."
"Why can't I? Because you know your parents are precious, and mine deserve it?"
Tom clamped a hand around my wrist.
"Maggie, that's enough!"
I wasn't far out from the C-section, and when he yanked me the incision flared with a sharp pain.
Cold sweat broke out at once.
My mother screamed. "Maggie!"
Tom froze for a second and let go on reflex.
But Yuna suddenly clutched her chest and swayed on her feet.
"Tom, I can't breathe…"
Tom spun around at once to hold her up.
I braced myself against the table to stay standing and watched him scoop Yuna up and head upstairs.
As Yuna passed me, she said, in a voice only I could hear, "See? Even after you gave him a child, he still holds me first."
I didn't fire anything back.
Because in that moment, something in me went completely calm.
After the guests left, my mother crouched on the floor picking up the pieces of a broken bowl.
My father sat in a chair, still clutching that bill that had been handed back.
He looked at it for a long time, then asked me quietly, "Maggie, did we embarrass you?"
My tears came all at once.
"You didn't."
But he slowly crushed the bill into a ball.
"It's just, standing here, I feel like a joke."
That night, I reached out to a lawyer I could speak with in my own language.
【I want a divorce.】
The reply came. 【The baby was just born. Do you have birth records, missed-call logs, photos of your living conditions? These will affect custody arrangements.】
Upstairs, Tom was still soothing Yuna.
"Don't cry. She's in a bad way after the birth, it's not aimed at you."
Yuna asked through her tears, "Then would you make me leave, for her sake?"
Tom said in a low voice, "No."
I switched off the recording.
This time, he'd made the decision for me, in his own words.
第4章
The day I decided to leave, the baby ran a low fever again.
The doctor said premature babies had weak immune systems. He couldn't be kept in damp air, couldn't stay long in a basement.
When I got home with the diagnosis slip, Tom was standing by the window with the baby in his arms.
The little one was whimpering against his chest.
He bent his head and patted the small back, his voice, for once, gone gentle.
"Don't give your mom a hard time. She's hurting."
My steps stopped.
For that one second, I almost believed he had finally seen my pain.
Then Yuna came down from upstairs, holding a scarf.
"Tom, I can't tie this."
Tom handed the baby back into my arms.
The motion was easy.
As easy as if the tender thing he'd just said had been nothing more than a piece of candy tossed my way.
He took the scarf, looped it around Yuna's neck, then pulled the hair caught underneath it back out.
Yuna smiled. "Tom, when you have a daughter someday, you'll take such good care of her."
Tom smiled too.
"My son can be my practice for now."
I held the feverish baby and set the diagnosis slip on the table.
"The doctor says he can't live in the basement anymore."
Tom gave it a glance.
"Then move back into the master bedroom."
"And my parents?"
He was silent for a second.
"They can stay downstairs. The baby doesn't sleep with them anyway."
I looked at him.
"Tom, do you really not understand, or are you pretending?"
His face darkened.
"Don't start again."
My father came up the stairs, holding the railing.
The wound on his foot had split open, blood seeping through the gauze.
He set a pair of freshly washed baby socks down by the sofa and said, quietly,
"Tom, the basement's damp, the baby's clothes won't dry down there. Could we hang them upstairs during the day and take them back down at night?"
Yuna covered her nose at once.
"Sir, I'm sorry, I've been a little sensitive to the smell of detergent lately."
My father's hand froze.
"I rinsed them out several extra times with clean water. There's no smell."
Tom pressed at his brow.
"Dad, stop making trouble."
The color drained clean from my father's face.
Making trouble.
I held the baby tighter.
"You apologize to my dad."
Tom seemed to have reached his limit, and let out a short laugh.
"Maggie, is that the only line you know?"
"Apologize."
"Fine, I'm wrong, okay?"
He spread his hands, his tone flippant.
It wasn't an apology.
He was turning my father's humiliation into me making an unreasonable scene.
Yuna's tears fell again.
"You don't have to push Tom like this. I'll go. I'll go right now. I'm the guilty one here anyway."
Saying it, she rushed for the door.
She'd just reached it when her body suddenly went limp.
Tom's face changed. He was there in an instant, catching her.
"Yuna!"
At that same moment the baby was crying and shaking in my arms, his forehead frighteningly hot.
Blood dripped from my father's foot onto the floor.
My mother's voice cracked with panic.
"Maggie, get the baby to the hospital, now!"
I looked at Tom.
This was the last chance I was giving him.
"The baby has a fever, and my dad's foot is split open. Let go of her now and come to the hospital with me, and I'll take it that you still know who your family is."
Tom stood holding Yuna, his throat working.
He looked at the baby once, then down at Yuna in his arms.
Her eyes were half open, her hand weakly gripping the front of his shirt.
"Tom, am I going to die..."
Tom closed his eyes.
"I'll take her to the ER first. I'll leave the driver. You go on your own."
My mother cried out to him, "Tom! The baby has a fever too!"
Tom carried Yuna toward the door. His step paused only once.
"Maggie, be reasonable. The baby has the three of you. She only has me."
But the last thing left in me shattered for good.
I didn't cry again.
I called the lawyer.
"I'm leaving now."
"Good. A car will be there in ten minutes, and a volunteer will bring an infant carrier. Ms. Swanson, from this moment on, all communication goes through his lawyer."
I hung up and wrapped the baby snugly in his little blanket.
At one in the morning, we left that little white house.
I took none of the jewelry Tom had bought me.
I left only the divorce papers on the dining table, a copy of the critical-condition notice, and my wedding ring.
Near dawn, Tom came back.
He pushed the door open and called out of habit, "Maggie, has the baby's fever gone down?"
No one answered.
He ran upstairs. The master bedroom was empty, the living room empty, the kitchen empty.
At last he saw the envelope on the dining table.
On the final page of the divorce papers, my name was written clearly.
Beside it lay the hospital's critical-condition notice.
The black print stared out at him.
【Risk of intrauterine fetal hypoxia.】
【Risk of maternal hemorrhage.】
Tom reached out to touch it, but his fingertips shook badly.
His phone suddenly rang. An unknown number.
He answered almost instantly.
"Maggie!"
On the other end was the lawyer's calm voice.
"Mr. James, Ms. Swanson has retained me to handle the divorce, custody, and subsequent visitation matters."
Tom's breath caught.
"What did you say?"
"Also, on the paperwork for the child's return home, Ms. Swanson has tentatively set his Chinese name as Godfrey Swanson, taking the mother's surname. The father's information will be confirmed later through both parties' lawyers."
Tom's eyes shot to the copy on the table.
The mother's line read Maggie Swanson.
The child's name: Godfrey Swanson.
He called me like a madman, called my parents.
Phones off.
He called the driver.
The driver said, "Mr. James, your wife didn't cry when she left. She only said, drive faster, the baby's still running a fever."
Tom dropped into the chair.
His gaze fell to the paper beneath the wedding ring.
On it was a single line.
【Tom, I don't love you anymore.】