11
That night, Dad came back.
He scolded Mom for teaching a small child like me to say such things.
Mom listened quietly, offering no explanation.
After Dad stopped talking, she smiled and asked him, “You must like me too, right? If you didn’t, how could you have shared a bed with me for so long?”
“Even if I look like her, after all this time, you must be able to tell the difference, right?”
“Julian, can’t you truly like me, just a little bit?”
She spoke with a smile, but her eyes were constantly weeping.
Dad said, “Don’t think I don’t know you put something in my drink to get pregnant with Lily.”
“You thought you could control me with a child. You were wrong.”
“You, to me, were nothing more than a physical convenience.”
After Dad said that last sentence, Mom stopped smiling, and she stopped crying.
She just stood motionless, looking at Dad, like that beautiful porcelain doll in my toy box.
Finally, she said to Dad, word by word, “I won’t divorce you. Not even if I die.”
***