What of Three or Five Springs Gone By

On my wedding day, saving Martin Rowe left me paralyzed.

In the three years after we married, no matter how busy he was, he always made time to take me to physical therapy.

A saleswoman once glanced a beat too long at my legs in the wheelchair, and he had her blacklisted across the entire industry.

His parents pushed him to divorce me, so he didn't set foot in the old family house for three years.

Everyone said he loved me to distraction. Then one day I happened to scroll past a post.

What a man loves is the thrill. His paralyzed wife is still out there waiting in the cold, and he had me up against the door, again and again.

The comment section was one long stream of insults, but the poster didn't seem to care.

The truth is, his wife is paralyzed because I punctured the fuel line of the wedding car. But he never blamed me. He even sent me abroad to study, worried I'd feel guilty, and for two years the gifts never stopped coming.

Staring at the face in her avatarMartin Rowe's secretarymy chest gave a tremor, and I opened her profile.

Not one of her posts showed the man's face straight on. But I could never mistake my own husband's hands.

Rage boiled up in me. That same day I took Lisa Henson and demanded he give me an explanation.

When he came rushing over, what he held up in his hands was my father's urn.

"Sophie, either you let Lisa go, or I scatter this."

1.

I broke. I pressed the knife to Lisa Henson's throat.

The sharp blade cut into her skin, and blood welled up.

He wrenched off the lid and roared at me,

"Sophie Carter, you really think I won't?"

The next second he turned his palm over, and everything inside the urn drifted loose and scattered.

Every last thread of reason snapped. I lunged forward like a madwoman, my body slamming hard against the gravel.

With a heavy thud, the open urn rolled carelessly across the ground, and he scrambled to gather Lisa Henson into his arms.

My nails dug deep into the cracks of dirt as I dragged my useless legs, crawling toward my father with everything I had.

But I struggled on the ground for a long time, until I was covered in mud from head to toe, and still I couldn't move an inch closer.

He stopped in front of me with Lisa Henson in his arms, his voice full of pleading.

"She's innocent. If you have to blame someone, hate someone, take it out on me.

"I'm begging you, Sophie!"

He said my name with such weight, as if three years of swallowed patience had finally found its way out.

My heart clenched, wave after wave, but my eyes stayed fixed on the ashes spinning in the wind.

Frantic, out of options, I threw my arms around his feet, crying as I begged,

"Martin Rowe, my father I was wrong, please"

His steps stalled. Then he spoke to the bodyguard across from us.

"Take Mrs. Rowe home."

As his feet pulled stiffly away, his cold voice came down from above.

"Consider this a lesson. Don't lose your mind like this again."

After that night, Martin Rowe didn't come home for three days straight.

But he still messaged me on time every day, the way he always did, just to report in.

Business dinner tonight. Not coming home.

Out of town. Back tomorrow.

Error in the proposal. Working late. Not coming home.

I looked at the chat box, one message a day, my hands shaking so hard I couldn't even hold my cup.

Before, he would tell me to sleep early, tell me not to wait up, promise exactly when he'd be back the next day.

Words this cold and hard he had never once said to me.

But I had taken his darling and even cut her.

So this time he wouldn't even bother playing the part all the way through.

I opened the divorce agreement lying beside me, already signed.

All I wanted was the property my father left me and a few storefronts.

As for anything belonging to the Rowe family, it had never been mine, and I didn't want it.

There was a sound at the entryway. Martin Rowe walked in.

In that moment, without meaning to, my whole body went tense with fear.

Every move he made set me imagining, madly, the two of them tangled together.

He draped his coat over the sofa and pushed a book across to me.

"Ava Black's bookyou've always loved her, haven't you?

"She happened to be holding a book fair in Tinsley City, so I got you a signed copy."

I looked at the cover. It was the one I'd mentioned to him last week.

He'd been busy heading into a meeting then and only gave a faint nod. I'd assumed he hadn't heard.

My nose stung before I could stop it. Even now, after all this, he'd still brought this book back for me.

It was this simple kindness of his that made me, before I could even blame him, first have to reach into my own heart and ask whether I had the right.

For a moment I honestly couldn't tell whether this was just habit, or whether he truly meant some of it.

But how can one person love two women at the same time?

Except whether he loved me or not no longer mattered. What haunted me in the dead of night was only the urn that had been knocked over that day.

I pressed down the surging emotions and still pushed the divorce agreement across to him.

"Sign it!"

His eyes settled on the words on the cover. Divorce agreement.

He flipped through it page by page, and stopped at the signature line.

"Give me a reason."

"You're in love with Lisa Henson. Isn't that reason enough?"

He froze, then a laugh forced its way out between his teeth.

"So that's what this is."

I didn't understand what he meant.

His gaze dropped to me, and then he tore open the buttons of his shirt.

He lifted me up, and in a spin of the room I landed in the soft bedding.

His face loomed over mine, his kiss trailing down from the tip of my ear.

"Martin Rowe, get off me!"

He pinned my wrists to my sides, his voice thick and rough.

"You want a divorce because of this, don't you?

"Now that I'm giving it to you, what are you putting on an act for?"

It was autumn, and yet I felt cold all over.

Was I that cheap in his eyes?

Three years, and I had never once wronged him. What gave him the right to look down on me like this?

I bit down hard into his shoulder, the taste of rust spreading through my mouth.

He stilled for a moment, then grew only more frenzied.

A long time later, he pressed a cup of warm water into my hand, pulled the curtains open, and stood quietly looking out the window.

The warm water went down my throat, but it tasted bitter, hard to swallow.

Tears the size of beans fell, and quickly blurred my vision.

The ringing of his phone broke the dead silence. The moment he answered, his voice softened.

"Don't move. I'll be right there."

He grabbed his coat and strode toward the door, then stopped halfway, as if only then remembering me.

"I'll have Abigail Fox come up."

Abigail dressed me and helped me into the wheelchair.

I looked over at the spot where Martin had stood, and had her push me toward it.

The balcony had a wide view. From there you could see the coffee shop across the street in a single glance.

Soon Martin appeared, and Lisa came out of the shop and took his arm, in a bright dress, vivid and bold.

I found myself looking down at my own legs. Stay long enough with someone like me, and even the strongest person is bound to get sick, aren't they?

Thinking that, I almost didn't hate him so much anymore.

I picked up the divorce agreement from the table, the one he had flipped through so carelessly, leaving not a single mark on it.

Something inside me was crumbling, bit by bit, until the pain hunched my back without my meaning to.

The past played through my mind scene by scene like an old almanac, and only then did it dawn on me that for three years, it was only I who thought he loved me.

I didn't even like pearls, yet he had gone to any length to buy a royal pearl necklace set and give it to me.

The smell of fish made me want to throw up, yet he was always having his assistant send it over, saying it was good for me.

I had always wanted a child with him. I finally worked out the right timing, and yet every single time he had some reason to put it off.

I wiped the damp from my cheeks, swallowed down the ache, and sent a text.

Mom, I want to divorce Martin Rowe.

Soon several business cards were pushed over, followed by a message from my mother-in-law.

The Rowe family will give you all the compensation you're owed.

From here, someone will be assigned to handle things with you.

The Rowe family had been unhappy with me, their paralyzed daughter-in-law, for a long time. When I asked for a divorce, my in-laws were the happiest of all.

But to keep from damaging their relationship with their son, the condition was that Martin must never know they'd had a hand in it.

Half an hour later, the private investigator sent the first message.

It was a photo of Martin and Lisa at the hospital. When I saw the words obstetrics and gynecology, my heart still twisted hard.

The screen flickered, and the next message came through.

Lisa Henson is pregnant.

I stared at that message for a long time, unable to move.

"Ma'am! Ma'am!"

Abigail's voice pulled me back. She draped a cashmere shawl over my shoulders.

"It's turned cold."

By evening my phone had filled up with photos.

Martin's eyes had lingered on those soft little baby clothes, so tender they could have brimmed over.

It wasn't that he disliked children. He only disliked a child that was mine.

The doorbell rang, and a line of people filed in.

Trays of glittering jewelry were spread out one by one in front of me.

"Ma'am, the master picked these out for you."

I lowered my head, scooped up a spoonful of soup, and said calmly, "No need. Send them back. I'll tell Martin myself."

Martin never grudged me money. But jewelry and cash were nothing to him, a flick of the hand.

What I truly wanted, he hadn't wanted to give me before, and now he'd already given it to another woman.

Outside the window the autumn rain fell without end, and the light of a turn signal flickered in and out through it.

After a while, Abigail's voice came again. "The master's back!"

I felt him draw near, and I spoke first.

"You don't need to send me those things. I hardly use them anyway."

But the next second my whole body was yanked up.

My lower half hung in the air, and I had to lean into him to keep my balance, humiliation crawling over every inch of me at once.

The veins in his neck stood out, and his eyes churned like a storm at sea.

"Didn't I tell you, if you want revenge, come at me?"

He threw me down hard. With a thud I dropped into the carpet.

His hand braced behind me as he leaned over, holding his phone screen down in front of my face.

Dozens of photos, every one of them evidence pointing at me.

Chicken blood all over the ground outside Lisa's door and the word slut scrawled on the wall, a testimony from some woman at the mall, and even an accusation from an OB-GYN.

"Sophie, how could you be this vicious?

"If she really had gone tumbling down those stairs, were you trying to kill her and the baby both?

"You even wanted her to never come off the operating table!"

My head was a blank fog, but I didn't need to think to know this was my mother-in-law's doing.

She didn't like me, but there was no way she liked Lisa either.

He was breathing hard, his eyes red, as if forcing himself not to lose control.

"Sophie, if anything happens to the child she's carrying"

He swallowed, then went on.

"I'll make you pay."

I watched his retreating back and let out a bitter laugh.

"You care about her child that much?"

I gripped the armrest to prop myself up in the chair, and the words jammed in my chest came out on their own.

"And if I told you I once had a child too?"

His back went rigid, then in a few strides he crouched down in front of me.

"When? What gave you the right not to tell me?"

"What would telling you have done? Would you have come back?

"You were busy in Scandinavia with Lisa. If I'd said something, would you have dropped her and come home?"

He craned his neck to look at me.

"So you got rid of our child?"

He bowed his head and laughed, but the laugh grated like a wheezing bellows.

Seeing how wretched I looked on the floor, Martin still lifted me into the wheelchair, yet the words out of his mouth cut colder than the weather outside.

"You're right. Even if I'd known, I couldn't have come back.

"It was just a puddle of blood. Gone is gone. What's that next to her?"

The door slammed shut, but his voice kept echoing in my head long after.

I'd thought that since he loved children this much, he would at least have grieved a little for mine.

I sat back in the wheelchair, hurting so badly all over that I could hardly breathe.

The first time I'd felt this was when I lost the baby, when Martin was away on a monthlong trip in Scandinavia.

Back then I worried his work was too much, I didn't want him fretting over me, and I got through the depression after the miscarriage alone.

I thought two years had passed and I'd healed.

But a few words from him knocked me right back into the past.

After a while, with a trembling hand, I dialed my mother-in-law.

"Mom, I can't wait anymore.

"I can't face Martin calmly any longer.

"I hate him. I truly hate him."

She agreed to my request. At the soonest, I could leave within a week.

I went to my parents' grave. Father's plot had been restored to the way it was before.

I leaned against the headstone and talked through how hard these years had been, the rain coming down harder and harder, just enough to let me cry my heart out.

But partway through, someone cut in, and before I could make out who it was, I fell into darkness.

When I woke again, I was in a damp, dim, abandoned glass factory.

"Sophie, I'm warning youMartin won't let you get away with this."

I turned toward the voice. Lisa Henson was tied to a chair, just like me.

What part of her brain had worked out that I was the one who'd tied her up?

Before I could gather my thoughts, Martin came rushing in.

Several masked men in black cut him off.

"Mr. Rowe. Long time no see. Pick one."

He looked at me, his mouth twisting into an ugly line.

"Sophie, it's you, isn't it?

"What game are you playing this time?

"You want to see who matters more to meyou or Lisa?"

The man burst out laughing.

"Miss Carter, five years apart and things have already soured this badly between you two?

"He doesn't trust you even this much. You really did take that knife for nothing back then."

Something flashed through my mind at lightning speed, and I turned to Martin in a panic.

"It's Luke, Martin. He's Luke Fox."

Five years ago, the man in charge of a Rowe development project had cut corners, and Martin had fired him.

But half a month later, his father, gravely ill in the hospital, jumped from a window and killed himself.

He blamed Martin for it, and the scar on my back was from the knife I'd taken for Martin back then.

And Martin had sent Luke to prison for four years over it.

Luke gripped my jaw.

"Miss Carter, all these years, and you still can't forget me?

"How about thisyou kill him, and come with me."

A thud. Martin threw off his jacket and made to charge at Luke.

"You animal. You've got a problem, take it out on me."

"What's the rush?"

Luke made a gesture. Cracking sounds rose one after another, and in seconds the floor was covered in shattered glass.

"Crawl over here, and I'll let one of them go."

"Luke, you"

The man swung his hand. A sharp slap, and a clear handprint bloomed across Lisa's face.

"Let her go and I'll kneel."

By the time Martin crawled to Lisa, the legs of his trousers were soaked through with blood.

But he only cupped Lisa's face in his hands, soothing her and wiping away her tears.

"It's okay, it's okay. I'll take you home."

I stared at the two of them and asked him hoarsely,

"And me? Are you giving me up?"

His gaze stayed on me for a few seconds, then he set his jaw and pulled Lisa into his arms.

"I'll come back for you. Even if it means my life for yours."

He carried Lisa away, step by step, and never once looked back at me.

He knew what would happen to me here, given the grudge Luke had held all these years, and he still left me behind.

Luke sat down in front of me and spoke as if amused.

"Want to know why I let him take that woman away?"

He rose, moved behind me, and began working the ropes loose bit by bit, his voice low and sinister.

"Death is nothing. Heartbreak is the greatest punishment.

"I want him to regret today's choice every time he wakes in the dead of night."

My body was lifted off the ground, and with a great crash I was shoved down into the glass covering the floor.

The slightest movement drove the sharp shards into my skin, and my cries of pain filled the whole storeroom.

The air was thick with the smell of blood. I could no longer tell what was mine and what Martin had left behind.

The man seized my wrist, picked up a shard, and dragged it across in one hard stroke. Blood gushed out at once.

"Rest easy, Miss Carter. From now on, every day and night, our Mr. Rowe will never forget you again."

I collapsed weakly into the broken glass, so drained that even the pain had faded to numbness.

The man's figure grew blurrier and blurrier, and the whole world dissolved before my eyes, piece by piece.

At Lisa's bedside, Martin's right eye kept twitching, his mind a tangle. Several times he wanted to leave, and each time Lisa held him back.

"You want to go find her? Then why didn't you choose her from the start?"

Looking at the tears in the woman's eyes, he swallowed the urge to go.

He'd already sent people over. They were more than enough to get Sophie out.

Besides, Sophie had been fully dressed, neat from head to toenothing about it looked like Luke had kidnapped her.

It looked less like an abduction than a show she and Luke had staged together.

Luke had spent four years locked up. To come straight out and go rushing toward his own death made no sense.

Unless it was for money. But the Rowes didn't lack money, and neither did Sophie.

Thinking this way, his rattled heart settled a good deal.

Half an hour later, his assistant called. Martin spoke first.

"Once she's out, take her back to the villa. I've already arranged for the best doctor. She can't stand the smell of hospitals."

After a long pause, his assistant's voice came through, stammering.

"The storeroom burnedit burned down. We only found one charred body."