The Househusband Strikes Back

After I finished taking care of everything, I did not wait for Nancy to come looking for me. I turned and left the company.

That afternoon, Calvin’s school was holding a parent-child sports day.

No one knew how I had painfully confronted the truth of not being Calvin’s real dad over the past few days, going over every old memory

When I was alone, I kept going through old photographs and videos of him as a baby, looking at them again and again.

I was the one who changed his diaper for the first time after he was born. Night after night, I woke up to his cries, getting up over and over to make formula, feed him, and carry him around the room, gently patting his back to help him burp.

Back then, Nancy could barely take care of herself, let alone a baby. I poured all my energy into taking care of both of them. Between Calvin and me, there were too many memories, too many bonds for me to ever let go.

However, somewhere along the way, things changed.

My son started looking toward the mother who had never cared for him for even a single day, rather than me. He began to resent me, the father who told him to eat his meals and not watch too much TV.

I called Nancy, but she did not pick up.

With no other choice, I went by myself. Traffic was terrible, so I parked the car beside the road and ran all the way to the school.

By the time I got there, the event had already started.

Someone was already standing beside Calvin.

"Joshua." Nancy's face flashed with a hint of unease as she quickly walked over to me. "I thought you were busy, so I asked Gilbert to step in."

For a moment, I felt like my soul had been pulled out of my body. I did not even know how to react.

Suddenly, Calvin squeezed his way over. "Mom, Dad, hurry up. The teacher's calling us!"

He reached out and grabbed Nancy, trying to pull her along.

I watched as he held Nancy's hand with one hand and Gilbert's with the other, smiling brighter than I had seen in a long time.

"Joshua, we already signed up over here. If you're not busy, why don't you head home and cook dinner?"

Gilbert glanced back at me, his eyes full of smug satisfaction.

Nancy called in the evening. She said she was taking Calvin to stay at her parents' place for the night. I said a casual, “Okay,” and did not say anything more.

Just as I thought she was about to hang up, the line suddenly went quiet.

"Joshua, aren't you going to ask me anything? You usually pester me with questions."

A wave of bitterness rose in my throat as my gaze drifted to the wedding photograph by the bed, where Nancy was smiling like she had the whole world in her hands. It was a smile that vanished from my life not long after we got married.

I let out a quiet, mocking laugh, about to speak, but she cut me off first.

"You're not still mad about this afternoon, are you? Or is it because I promoted Gilbert to Vice President?"

Her tone was confident, as if everything were under her control. "You hurt Gilbert. Making him Vice President was just a way to apologize on your behalf."

She let out a soft laugh. "He’s smart and capable. Having him help is a good thing for the Lawson Group."

Then, her voice turned icy. "Stop acting like a victim when you're the one benefiting from all this."

With that, she hung up.

I stayed expressionless as I continued packing up everything in the house that belonged to me.

Nancy had never given me many things, but I always kept her gifts to me carefully, afraid they might get scratched or damaged.

Now, I stuffed all of them into a large plastic bag and threw it into the trash downstairs.

My phone buzzed with a message from Gilbert. It was a photograph of the three of them looking like a happy family, though at the bottom of the frame, you could see the man’s hand resting between the woman’s legs.

[Guess when this was taken.]

My eyes turned icy. I exited the message and dialed a number I did not recognize.

"Is everything ready? I'm heading to the airport now."

Just before passing through security, I received a text from Nancy.

[Joshua, I'm craving egg tarts from Westfield Street. I'll give you one hour to get them. Do it, and I'll forgive you and bring our son home.]

I let out a bitter laugh, pulled out my phone’s SIM card, and dropped it into the trash, knowing I was never going back home.