Chapter 5
Antonio told me after a while that he had come to my workplace early in
the morning.
Right now, he was in the parking lot downstairs of my company.
My offhand lie was quickly exposed, yet I remained unfazed, even going so far as to accuse him coldly. “Antonio, are you that free? Why are you sticking your nose into my business? I’m a grown–up. I don’t need to report to you about everything I do.”
Antonio quickly clarified. “That’s not what I meant. I just wanted to pick. you up… Grace, you must be at Carly’s place. I’ll come and get you right now.”
My workplace was indeed quite close to Carly’s home.
After some thought, I didn’t refuse Antonio’s offer for a ride home.
As the car pulled up, he got out to open the passenger–side door for me.
Shortly after getting in, I realized I had stepped on something.
It was a pair of red–soled women’s high heels.
Antonio, as if facing a dire threat, tossed the shoes onto the car seat and avoided my gaze while explaining, “Valda drank too much last night and was vomiting everywhere. I didn’t notice her shoes left in the car. Grace, please don’t…”
I cut him off, “Antonio, I really don’t care.”
“What?” he asked, taken aback.
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“I don’t care about anything that happens around you, so there’s no need for you to waste your breath explaining,” I said coolly.
He stared at the profile of my face, which was closed in repose.
He knew I wasn’t lying.
Upon arriving home. I took a shower, and when I emerged from the bathroom. Antonio, who never cooked, had already prepared two plates of pasta. He looked expectantly at me, waiting for me to join him at the
table.
In the past. I had always looked forward to Antonio coming home on time. and sitting across from me, enjoying the dishes I had painstakingly prepared to his taste.
But over the years of marriage, not only did he never inform me of his dinner plans, but he also never had a kind word to say about the food I prepared.
o
It was always too salty, too greasy, too awful, or made him want to throw
- up.
When he brought a subordinate back for urgent overtime work, and everyone else praised the food I had cooked, Antonio, with a look of disdain, threw the special midnight snack I had prepared just for him onto the floor for Valda’s pet dog to devour.
After the subordinates left in an awkward silence, he coldly told me, “Disgusting stuff that can’t be served at a decent table. Don’t ever show it again.”
I knew that what truly upset him that night was the love–filled fried egg had prepared and plated with care, which had made Valda tear up.
“Grace, I asked your mom for the recipe for your favorite pasta the other
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day,” Antonio said hopefully. “It’s my first attempt. so it might not be perfect. Give it a try. If it’s not good. I’ll make you another dish.”
“What is this?” I asked.
“Your favorite pasta. Grace.” Antonio replied.
I gasped and tipped the still–steaming plate over his lap, sneering. “Really? My favorite pasta?”
Antonio’s waist and abdomen were scalded, but he didn’t move. He just stared at me. pale–faced and dazed.
Without another word. I turned and went to the study, where I turned on the computer and got to work.
Before long. Antonio, having cleared away the mess, knocked on the slightly ajar door, about to speak when his phone rang.
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