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“Don’t think I don’t see through your little game. You’re just jealous because you saw me taking care of Vanessa in the hospital, right?
“I’m here making amends! If it weren’t for me, you’d be in jail for hurting her!
“Keep talking nonsense, and I swear I’ll kick you again! I’ll really break your ribs this time!”
He didn’t believe me, thinking I was just causing a scene. During that time, I lay in the hospital alone, with no one to care for me, while Derek was right above me, looking after Vanessa.
If he had bothered to come home just once during that month, he would have realized I was
in serious trouble.
But he didn’t. After taking Vanessa home, he stayed at her place for another two months When he finally returned to find me lying in bed after being discharged, all he had for me was a cold, disdainful look.
“Look at all this dust! Eva, any man who marries you must have done something terrible in
past life!”
1049 766 100 DOD
He grabbed a couple of changes of clothes and left, not even noticing the obvious X–ray of my broken ribs sitting on the table.
Now, as he looked at the police reports being handed to him, something clicked in his mind.
Is this report real?”
The police responded firmly, “We don’t fabricate evidence. Your wife was hospitalized for three months. As her husband, how could you not know? We’ve checked. You never left the city during that time. Where were you?”
Looking at the dates, Derek stammered, “I was in the hospital.”
He didn’t remember kicking me or my telling him about my broken ribs. But he could clearly remember when Vanessa was admitted and discharged from the hospital, along with her follow–up visits.
You were in the hospital? Then why didn’t you know Eva’s ribs were broken? Are you hiding something?”
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Derek’s face flushed, a flicker of panic and guilt crossing his features.
“I was taking care of a friend… And I honestly didn’t know Eva’s ribs were broken. I thought she was just lying to me…”
Taking care of a friend? What friend?”
Under the police’s questioning, he hesitated and finally said, “My current wife.”
The two officers exchanged glances, realization dawning on them, their eyes now filled with
disdain for him.
Here he was, tending to another woman while his own wife was in the hospital, and now that
woman was his current wife.
As men, they understood his mindset but couldn’t respect him for it.
Yet the interrogation had to continue. /
“We’ve compared the locations and fractures of the deceased’s ribs, and they match Eva’s
exactly.”
Panic and disbelief finally flickered in Derek’s eyes, but he still refused to accept the truth.
“Impossible! How could she be dead? This has to be a coincidence! Didn’t you say the deceased was pregnant? Then it can’t possibly be Eva!”
He was desperately trying to fight back, but as he looked at the shattered pieces of the
photo on the floor, my face was painfully clear in his mind, like a vice gripping his heart.
The police produced another report. “This is the medical examination report. Your ex–wife was three months pregnant before her death.”
The last wall of denial in Derek crumbled the moment he laid eyes on that document.
With tears in his eyes, he stared at the report, suddenly recalling the time when his company
was struggling.
I had held him tightly, promising that everything would turn out okay and that I would surprise him in the future.
That surprise was the child.
