Her Bargain Rental Favor

“I heard this place belongs to you? You’re awfully young to be this selfish. Your wife already gave us the apartment to live in, and you still have the nerve to ask for three hundred dollars?”

I turned and shoved Claire away with all my strength.

So that was how she wanted to play it.

She was the one who had rented out the apartment, but she had told them I was the one asking for rent.

She got to look generous, while I became the petty one.

“Noah, let’s go home first. Once we’re home, I’ll tell you everything from start to finish.”

Claire clutched my wrist tightly, her eyes full of pleading.

But was she pleading for her own dignity, or for Mark?

When she saw my expression grow colder and colder, she made up her mind and tried to drag me out first.

Instead, I suddenly kicked over the umbrella stand by the entrance.

Then I pointed at the blue employee badge hanging on the wall, my voice trembling.

“You gave him my job too?

“So this is what you meant when you said he didn’t have a job?

“Claire, how much have you lied to me about?”

For that job, I had kept working remotely even while I was in the hospital recovering from surgery.

The moment I was discharged, I went straight back to work. I took care of Daisy while handling my job at the same time.

I had practically worked myself to death to rise from an entry-level position to associate director.

But three years ago, over dinner, Claire suddenly told me the company was cutting staff.

I was one of the people being let go.

She had apologized to me with red eyes, saying that although she was the HR director, she had no power over the board’s decision.

I felt sorry that she was caught in the middle. Even though I was deeply reluctant to leave, I comforted her instead.

“It’s okay, honey. This way, I can stay home and focus on taking care of Daisy.”

Over the next few years, I thought more than once that once Daisy started elementary school, I would go out and find a job again.

But today, I saw the employee badge that should have belonged to me, now bearing Mark’s name.

Judging by the employee number, his start date was two months after Emily died.

It was the very same month I left.

She had lied to me again.

The company had never laid me off.

She had wanted to give my position to Mark.

Now that she could no longer hide this either, Claire lowered her voice.

“Honey, I’m begging you. Let’s go home first...”

But I stood there without moving.

At this hour, she wasn’t at work because of Mark’s call.

And Mark wasn’t at work either.

Why?

At the thought, I let out a cold laugh.

“Claire, this is an associate director position in the creative department, and you actually dared to let him hold the title and collect a salary without showing up?”

“When I was working there, I was sick and asked you for leave, and you wouldn’t even approve it.”

Maybe my voice sounded too desolate, because Mark walked over.

The moment he opened his mouth, he sighed, his face twisted with distress.

“Noah, don’t blame Claire. She just felt that after Emily passed away, it wasn’t easy for me to raise two kids on my own. Besides, men and women are different. She did it for me, for Lily...”

I couldn’t bear another word and cut him off.

“Mark, you take more than twenty thousand a month for doing nothing, pay three hundred dollars to move your whole family of six into a place like this, and have my wife come over to help with every big and small thing.

“Exactly which part of your life is hard?”

“Noah!” Seeing Mark’s face turn pale, Claire grabbed me hard and dragged me out without caring how it looked.

She didn’t let go until we reached the entrance of the complex.

Then she put on that pleading expression again.

“Honey, please listen to me. I had no choice.

“After Emily died, Mark was devastated. He kept threatening to kill himself. I did all this to keep him stable.”

I stared straight at her until the look in my eyes made her skin crawl.

“When Emily died, you and your mother fell apart. I was the one who handled the entire funeral.

“I know better than you what state he was in.”

A man who had truly been devastated by the loss of his wife would not have taken his six-month-old daughter to trendy cafés for check-in photos.

If he had truly wanted to kill himself, he would not have slept until late morning while I was so exhausted I nearly collapsed, then pretended to wipe away a tear and say, “Noah, you’ve worked hard.”

Even now, she was still lying to me.

Today marked the eighth year of our marriage. Our daughter was six and a half.

And yet, for the first time, I looked at her seriously.

I wondered what exactly was going on inside the heart of this woman I had once loved so sincerely.

At that point, Claire seemed to deflate.

She lowered her head, kicked a stone by the curb, and gave up pretending.