But the smile on Mrs. Zhu's face vanished in an instant. She stared at Rachel and asked seriously, "Miss Shen, where's your husband? You have never introduced him to us."
Hearing the word "husband" made Rachel lose her appetite. She answered in a low voice, "We broke up before I could even find out that I'm pregnant, so I have decided to raise my baby alone."
When she noticed that Mrs. Zhu still wanted to say something, she put down her chopsticks, picked up her plate, and stood up. "Mrs. Zhu, I'm finished. I'm going back first. Enjoy the rest of your meal."
As days passed, Rachel's belly would grow bigger and bigger. She couldn't hide it from everyone anymore. However, she always avoided the topic about Jack. She didn't want to talk about him now or even in the future. Perhaps she also wouldn't tell her child about him.
Jack had been lying in bed for more than one hour now, but sleep seemed to be so elusive. He opened his eyes and stared at the dark ceiling. He couldn't remember a single night that he had gotten a good sleep since Rachel left him.
He could only sleep longer if he drowned himself in alcohol.
In the past, he was always reluctant to get up because he didn't want to leave Rachel. But now, he was all alone in the bed.
After tossing and turning in bed for a long time, he felt a little sore all over his body. He sat up, took his mobile phone, and looked through the photos in the album.
Since Mr. Chen had threatened Jack that he would take revenge by hurting Rachel, Jack arranged two men to watch over her secretly. He also instructed them to take photos of her from time to time and send them to him.
He had saved all those photos on his phone. When he couldn't sleep at night, he would look through them again and again.
There were pictures of her standing on the platform while teaching her students passionately, sitting alone in the dining room having dinner, and feeding stray dogs and cats on the street with her leftovers.
Every picture made Jack long for her more.
Michael and Marcus had actually asked him many times why he hadn't taken Rachel back yet.
He badly wanted to, but how? There were still thorns in Rachel's heart, and Jack was sure that she wouldn't come back to him willingly. He wasn't that selfish to force her to love him again.
If there was someone who had to concede in the end, it should be him.
Jonathan and Tracy were so worried upon seeing that Jack's mental state was worsening, so they asked him to move back home.
Jonathan was outside Jack's room, contemplating. As he looked at the faint yellow light coming out from the ajar door, sadness flashed through his turbid eyes.
He was full of regrets. He couldn't help thinking that he might have done something wrong from the very beginning. If he had only known that things would end up like this, he should agree with Jack marrying Celine.
Who would have thought that a great family like theirs would become like this?
When Tracy got up to go to the bathroom, she found that Jonathan was not in bed. She went outside to look for him, and she saw him standing outside Jack's door. She heaved a sigh of relief, but at the same time, she also felt depressed.
She walked up to him and gently put a coat over his shoulders. She then said in a low voice, "Jonathan, there's nothing we can do now. We can only wait for our son to figure it out by himself."
"You're right." Jonathan sighed slightly. The hand on his walking stick trembled. "I know that only time can heal the wounds.
But I don't know when Rachel will learn to forgive us. Supposedly, our children have nothing to do with our grudges in the past."
Regret was written all over Tracy's face. She held Jonathan's shoulder with one hand and slowly walked him back to their room. "If we didn't hide it from Rachel and made everything clear to her from the very start, would things be different now?"
Jonathan couldn't answer her question.
Actually, no one could.
Rachel took a half-day leave to go to the hospital. She had taken some diagnostic tests two days ago, and her doctor suddenly called her today and asked her to see him immediately.
As a doctor, she already knew what that phone call meant.
She stood at the side of the road and waited for a taxi. Her hands were subconsciously trembling.
In the past, it was her job to call over patients and pronounce results to them. She would even comfort them not to be nervous nor afraid. But now that the situation was different, she realized that those comforting words were useless. She couldn't help shutting her eyes and taking a deep breath. Rachel went directly to the doctor's office as soon as she arrived at the hospital. Trying to make her smile less weighty, she knocked on the door and opened it. "Dr. Wang, you called me earlier and asked me to come here for the results of my tests."
"Oh, hi Rachel!"
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: My Darling, My Dearest