Chapter 157
James stood at the doorway, his suit jacket draped over his arm, his tie loosened, and his hair disheveled.
His face looked terrible, his eyes bloodshot, his gaze sweeping back and forth between Indigo and me.
"Sophia, Grandma, you've both been lying to me all along." His voice was hoarse as he walked in step by step. "If my guy hadn't seen Sophia coming here and called me, I'd probably still be in the dark."
"Grandma, explain this to me." James sat down in another wicker chair, his eyes locked on me. "Don't you think you owe me an explanation for why you're meeting my 'business partner' behind my back?"
The air in the greenhouse seemed to freeze.
Indigo's expression changed, but she quickly composed herself. "James, you've got it wrong. I just heard your business partner was nice and that you thought highly of her. I was curious, so I asked to meet her."
"Grandma, are you still going to lie to me?"
James smiled, but his face showed such sadness. "No wonder you sent me away today and didn't want me to come. Were you two planning how to keep lying to me, playing me for a fool?"
Indigo looked at James, her lips moving, but finally just closed her eyes wearily. "James, I'm doing this for your own good..."
"For my own good?" James cut her off, his voice suddenly rising. "For my own good, so you hide everything about Sophia from me? For my own good, so I'm tortured every day by those vague, incomplete memories like an idiot?"
He was very agitated, his chest heaving violently.
"James, calm down." Indigo's eyes were full of concern. "The doctor said you can't get worked up right now, you..."
"I've had enough!" James suddenly stood up, knocking over his chair with a harsh clatter.
"I've had enough of this feeling like there's a hole inside me! Had enough of the headaches and panic every time I see her!" He pointed to his heart.
"Rather than being an idiot who knows nothing, I'd rather know the truth."
"Grandma, even if it kills me, I need to know how I'm dying."
He turned to me, his eyes frighteningly red. "Sophia, tell me."
"What exactly is our relationship? What did I do to you? Why does it feel..." He pounded his chest hard, "like being cut with a knife every time I see you?"
I looked at his eyes, so painful they seemed almost crazy, and opened my mouth.
Seeing him like this, my heart felt like it was being pricked by a small needle, over and over. It didn't hurt much, but I couldn't ignore it.
Indigo tried to stop me. "Sophia, don't say anything..."
"Grandma, we can't keep hiding it," I said softly, putting down my cup and standing up, looking calmly at James. "You want to know? Fine, I'll tell you."
"We're married." As I spoke the first sentence, I saw James's pupils contract sharply. "Or rather, we were."
"We were married for several years, but three months ago, we signed divorce papers."
"You lost your memory because you wanted to go abroad to find me. You had an accident on the way to the airport—a car crash that caused it."
James's body swayed, and he grabbed onto a nearby flower stand.
"Why did we divorce?" His voice trembled.
"Because there was no love left." I summed up all the hurt he'd caused me in one brief sentence.
I don't know why I was so calm saying this, without a ripple in my heart.
"You didn't love me, or I didn't love you?"
James had the attitude of someone who wouldn't stop until he got to the bottom of things.
Since I'd already started, there was nothing to hold back. I continued, "The old you took advantage of my love and hurt me countless times. I was in too much pain."
"You always took other people's side and wronged me. Later, I figured it out—I didn't want to do wrong myself anymore. I let go of my love for you. I stopped loving you."
James's face instantly turned deathly pale.
"No... that's impossible..." he murmured. "How could I..."
"You could." I forced myself to continue, tearing open the bloody wound again. "Those years you ignored me but showered Amelia with care and attention."
"You two were always together, like she was your wife."
"You even let her daughter call you dad, while our first child never even got to see this world—killed by Amelia and her daughter."
James shook his head, backing away step by step, knocking over a potted plant, soil spilling everywhere.
"Amelia!" He repeated the name, suddenly clutching his head and letting out a painful groan. "Why don't I remember any of this..."
"James!" Indigo cried out.
Veins bulged on James's forehead, cold sweat soaking his temples.
He stared at me intently, his expression shifting from confusion to shock, then to overwhelming regret and pain. "Sophia, I'm sorry..."
"Those years I wronged you, the baby... I was heartbroken about the baby too, but I didn't know how to express it, I..."
More memory fragments seemed to be flooding back. His face contorted, his whole body trembling.
"Enough, Sophia, stop!" Indigo anxiously tried to stop me.
James looked into my eyes, his lips trembling as he said word by word, "Sophia, I remember now. I wronged you..."
He remembered?
This realization made my whole body tense.
"I'm sorry!" He stumbled toward me, reaching out but not daring to touch me. "Sophia, how could I... how could I treat you that way..."
His voice was broken, his eyes filled with crushing despair.
"I remember now..." He pulled a smile uglier than crying. "I deserve this... I deserve it..."
Before he finished speaking, his body suddenly swayed, and he fell straight backward.
"James!"
"James!"
Indigo and I rushed over at the same time.
His eyes were tightly closed, his face ashen, already unconscious.
The ambulance siren pierced the night sky.
I got in the ambulance with Indigo, watching the paramedics put an oxygen mask on James and monitor his vital signs.
His face was frighteningly pale. Even unconscious, his expression was pained, his brow furrowed.
Indigo gripped his hand tightly, tears streaming down her face. "James, hang in there, Grandma's here..."
I sat in the corner, my hand on my belly, feeling the baby move a few times.
I whispered soothingly, "It's okay, baby. He'll be okay."
I didn't know if I was comforting the baby or myself.
At the hospital, James was rushed into the emergency room. Indigo and I sat on a bench in the hallway waiting, time passing second by second, each second feeling like a year.
After what felt like forever, the emergency room door opened, and a weary-looking doctor came out.
Indigo and I stood up to meet him.