Chapter 2

2.

It wasn't the first time Chloe's name had invaded my life with Ryan.

At first, Ryan mentioned her as the brilliant new marketing director at his company.

Later, she became his "strategic mastermind," the one whose ideas sparked "amazing chemistry" with his every business concept.

I felt a vague unease back then but chose to trust Ryan. After all, he owed me his life.

The night Caleb was born, I fought a battle with death at Stanford Hospital. When I struggled out of the anesthesia, I saw Ryan clutching my hand, his eyes filled with tears.

"Emily, thank God you're back. I owe you for the rest of my life."

He was so focused on me that he didn't even pay much attention to his newborn son.

Back then, his eyes only saw me, his wife who had survived.

Would a man like that betray me?

After giving birth, I looked at the pale woman in the mirror, her stomach covered in stretch marks, and felt like a stranger. I once joked, "Look, I'm a standard-issue housewife now. How can I compete with those glamorous career women out there?"

But Ryan just took a warm towel and gently wiped my face, his gaze tender. "Then I'll try to become a balding Silicon Valley uncle to match you, how about that?"

"Let them have the outside world. We're the ones who are going to walk this life together."

However, my body recovered slowly. Ryan strongly urged me to quit my job as a researcher at Google and become a full-time mom.

I refused, until Caleb’s immune system, weakened by the difficult birth, led to frequent emergency room visits. At one year old, he was diagnosed with a fatal peanut allergy.

The pediatrician's warning was seared into my memory. "Mrs. Miller, this is a matter of life and death. An EpiPen must be with him at all times, and you must ensure that every single person who cares for him knows how to use it. A delay of a few seconds can be the difference between life and death."

My world shrank.

I became a paranoid guardian.

I had to meticulously read the fine print on every product at the grocery store, checking for any trace of peanuts or cross-contamination.

I had to demonstrate how to use an EpiPen to every school, every babysitter.

I had to awkwardly but firmly refuse seemingly harmless snacks at every social gathering.

I had to constantly communicate with the school to establish a detailed "504 Plan," ensuring Caleb was in a safety net every minute he was there.

It was a job with no time off and zero margin for error.

For my son, and for my own exhausted self, I compromised. I believed Ryan's promise to "provide for the family."

At first, he was a model husband. He would take over with Caleb after work to give me a break. Compared to men who used overtime as an excuse, I thought I was lucky.

But gradually, things changed. He stopped answering my calls right away, stopped sharing his work frustrations with me, and the light in his eyes when he looked at me slowly dimmed.

Until the night he was brought home, completely drunk.

His body was on the sofa, but his soul was somewhere else.

The first thing he saw was me, and he mumbled deliriously, "Chloe? How did you... get so... much like my wife, with nothing in your eyes but chores and the kid?"

"Chloe, don't change... you have to stay sharp, stay full of life..."

Then he tried to hug me.

In that moment, standing under the cold living room lights, I didn't feel a sharp pain. I felt a surreal, bitter irony.

So, in his mind, the woman who had stood by his side, who had risked her life to give him a son, was now synonymous with "tired" and "boring."

But Ryan, you forgot. I was once the pride of Stanford, a respected researcher on my team at Google. My intellect and my fire never went out; they were just redirected to a much harsher battlefield.

How dare you... compare the peace of the home I sacrificed everything to build with the "vibrancy" of another woman's career?

When he sobered up, Ryan looked at my swollen eyes and lowered his head in guilt. Seeing my silence, he tugged at his hair in frustration.

He got on his knees and swore it was just the alcohol talking. He admitted he and Chloe had gotten "a little close," enjoying the intellectual connection, but insisted there was nothing physical. He promised to keep his distance, to adjust their working relationship.

"Emily, you're the most important thing. We are a family..." He repeated this over and over, whether to convince me or himself, I couldn't tell.

I chose to forgive him. But he didn't know I was waiting.

Because I realized I still had some love left, and withdrawal takes time. I was waiting for that love to burn out completely, for the disappointments to build into a dam of resolve.

Tearing it away while love still existed would be too painful. It was better to let it die a natural death.