Chapter 1

The day my husband carried a three-year-old boy home, my mother-in-law knelt down in front of me.

She said he was the only flesh and blood her younger son had left in the world.

"The boy's mother is unreliable. If you don't raise him, he'll truly become an orphan."

My heart softened, and I took the child in.

For seven years I was busy caring for him, and I put off my own plans to have a baby again and again.

Lloyd always said:

"We already have Alvin, so what does it matter whether he's our biological child or not?"

"Either way, he's family."

I felt guilty for a long time because of those words.

It wasn't until the year Alvin turned ten that he suddenly came down with appendicitis.

When I got to the ward, I heard my mother-in-law say this.

"She can't have children, but she's had Alvin by her side all these years, so it's not like she's lost out."

"If she ever finds out Alvin is your biological son, how would this family go on?"

Lloyd said nothing.

That night, I took Alvin's toothbrush and a strand of Lloyd's hair to the DNA testing center.

The final line of the results met my eyes, and my whole body went stiff.

So the orphan I'd spent seven years raising for my dead brother-in-law.

Had been my husband's biological son all along.

Seven years ago, I was the one who brought that child through our door.

Seven years later, I walked out of this house alone.

......

By the time I got back to the hospital, it was already past four in the morning.

Alvin's fever had just broken, and Lloyd sat at the bedside giving him water to sip.

He stood up the moment I came in.

"Where did you go? You weren't answering your phone."

His face was worn out with exhaustion.

Yesterday, that would have made my heart ache.

Now I only felt that the man in front of me was a complete stranger.

I looked at the little face on the bed, so much like his.

So it wasn't that the nephew looked like the uncle. It was that the son looked like his father.

Alvin reached out to me.

"Mommy."

My steps stopped.

I'd heard him call me that for more than two thousand days and nights.

For seven years, he'd wanted me to hold him when he had a fever, wanted me beside him when he couldn't sleep.

But now it drove into my chest like a nail, and the pain made even my breathing shake.

Lloyd noticed the look on my face.

"Cynthia?"

I walked over and tucked the blanket up around Alvin.

"It's nothing, my stomach's upset."

Lauren woke up in the visitor's chair.

The first thing she said when she saw me was.

"You're finally back. Alvin just had surgery, he can't be left alone."

"You're his mother, and instead of staying with your child you go running off."

I looked at her.

Seven years ago, she said that every time she closed her eyes she saw her dead younger son.

She said Alvin had Matthews blood in his veins, and she couldn't stand to see the boy suffer under an irresponsible woman.

Her crying softened my heart, and I took Alvin home.

When he was first brought back, he couldn't settle in the strange bed at night, cried until he could barely breathe, and I carried him around and around the living room.

When his fever ran high, I sat up with him until four in the morning.

The first parent-teacher meeting at his preschool, I was the one who went.

When his baby tooth fell out, I was the one who tucked it into a little box.

The first time he called me Mommy, Lloyd's eyes even went red.

I quit my job for him and took care of him day and night.

Everyone told me that even though Alvin wasn't my biological child, once you've raised a child long enough he becomes your own.

And I lied to myself that way for seven years.

I looked into her eyes.

"Mom, once Alvin's better, let's take him to visit James."

"He's ten now. It's time he formally kowtowed to his father."

Lauren's expression visibly froze, and Lloyd looked up at me too.

I went on:

"And while we're at it, let's get a notarized kinship record done."

"For household registration, inheritance, all that down the line — it'll come in handy."

Lauren immediately waved her hand.

"James has been dead for years. Why stir all that up?"

"And that test of yours — is there anyone who'd refuse to acknowledge Alvin?"

I twisted the corner of my mouth.

"True enough."

Lloyd kept watching me.

"Cynthia, what's gotten into you today?"

I hitched the bag up onto my shoulder.

"Nothing. You stay with him. I'll go home and get a change of clothes."

When I walked out of the inpatient wing, the sky was just turning pale.

At the pharmacy next to the hospital, I bought a pregnancy test.

My period was more than forty days late. With Alvin in the hospital these past days, I hadn't had a moment to think about it.

Back home, I sat in the bathroom.

Three minutes later, two clear red lines slowly appeared.

Staring at them, my tears suddenly spilled over.

At thirty-six, I finally had a child of my own.

And it happened to be on the very day I found out my husband had a biological son.

Just then my phone lit up.

It was Lloyd.

He'd sent me a picture of Alvin asleep.

And below it, one line.

Don't let your mind run wild. Once Alvin's discharged, the three of us will have a good life together.

I looked down and touched my flat stomach.

For the first time, those four words — a family of three — felt so bitterly ironic.