The next morning, I woke up with a big, satisfied smile on my face. It was as if everything would work out as long as I had my mother by my side. A servant of the Goldsteins was already waiting for us when my mother and I walked out of the hotel. “Madam, I was ordered to take you back home.”
Refusing to let my mother go, I immediately grabbed her by the hand. “Can’t you live with me?”
“I’m a Goldstein now. Of course, I have to stay at the Goldstein residence, silly,” answered my mother with a warm smile as she ran her fingers through my messy hair.
She made me realize that I had acted selfishly, so I loosened my grip. “Can I go visit you then? Mr. Goldstein isn’t against that, is he?”
“You can come to visit me anytime. It’s just that I’m afraid he might be upset that I didn’t go home yesterday night, so wait for my call, okay? Be good, Eve.”
I tried my best to control my emotions as I watched Isabelle leave. It was six in the morning when I reached home, and sitting on the couch in the living room was Christopher with a stony expression on his face. It was only after I saw Christopher in person that I remembered I had not contacted the man since I met my mother the day before.
“Chris!” I called out to the man, but he chose to ignore me.
Obviously, Christopher was mad at me, just like Mark was after my mother’s disappearing act. After setting up the table, I asked Christopher what he would like for breakfast, but still, he would not talk to me. Like an upset overgrown child, Christopher pouted and gave me the cold shoulder, which I found to be slightly amusing.
I then scooped up a spoonful of oatmeal and tried to feed the man-child with an apologetic smile. “Open up. I know you want some. Come on, don’t be mad at me. I just got a little too excited yesterday, that’s all. I know it was wrong of me to forget to call you.”
“Hmph!” Christopher turned his head sideways, then picked up a random book on the table and pretended like he was reading. “As you can see, I’m quite busy now.”
“About that… your book is upside down,” I reminded the pouting man by pointing at his book cover. After realizing that I was right, Christopher decided to toss the book aside and turned on the TV, continuing to pretend like he could not be bothered with me.
“It’s a shame that no one wants this bowl of oatmeal. I would’ve eaten it myself if it wasn’t meant for someone special. Heck, I even queued all morning so that that special someone could have a nutritious meal. Not to mention I didn’t get any sleep at all last night.”
With that, Christopher immediately turned around. “What? Why didn’t you sleep? Doesn’t your mother care about your health?”
“Oh, so you do care?” I quickly covered up my mouth to stop myself from laughing while Christopher’s face hardened even more. Seeing that, I inched closer with a sweet smile.
“It seems to me like all you need is your mother. I’m surprised that you still remember you have a husband,” huffed Christopher.
“Well, I’m back, aren’t I?” I set the spoon down and embraced Christopher. “I finally got to see my mother again. I think you can understand why I needed to give her my full attention, right?”
“If you have to do this again, at least give me a call next time.”
“I promise. No matter where I go, you’ll get a full report from me.” I then wagged my phone in front of my husband. “It’s dead. I didn’t ghost you on purpose, okay? Hey, you know what would be a great idea? You should install a tracking device on my phone so that you’ll always know where I am. How does that sound?”
“You think I haven’t done that already? Why else did you think I was waiting at home?” sneered Christopher condescendingly at me as if I was a complete idiot.
In response, I stared at the man in disbelief and wondered when he managed to install the device without my knowledge.
