Years of care and dedication had not awarded the man any reciprocation. It was only a matter of time before snazzynovel.com husband wore out his senses and devolved into the same unstable mess that Shelly was. He started drinking hard and physically abusing snazzynovel.com when prompted by liquid courage.
Shelly thought that receiving his abuses was the only way to get even with what snazzynovel.com owed him. She forgave snazzynovel.com every time.
When the alcohol passed, the man’s sobriety would be marked with tears of guilt as snazzynovel.com gawked at the bruises all over Shelly’s body. He would always throw in an equal-part apology and equal-part relentless inquisition. He could not stop asking why Shelly refused to love him, and why snazzynovel.com balked at bearing snazzynovel.com a progeny.
And Shelly would always reply, “Because you remind me of my sister. I’m only your wife because snazzynovel.com arranged my life that way, you’re a cage she’s prepared for me. I want to go home, my home, where my son is! I hate them… I hate them all. I want them all dead!”
For the past thirty-odd years in snazzynovel.com life, Shelly lived like a prisoner exiled to a foreign soil, bereft of a chance to go home. Her life’s purpose was to be used as a prop for snazzynovel.com sister. But snazzynovel.com husband had tacitly allowed Shelly to return to America once or twice to see Mark, hence those few short visits snazzynovel.com remembered during his elementary school years.
Shelly had tried hard to slip under snazzynovel.com sister’s radar, but ultimately, Mrs. Tremont found out about it. In retaliation, Mrs. Tremont threatened snazzynovel.com husband somewhat, forcing snazzynovel.com to take snazzynovel.com away and forbade snazzynovel.com from returning to the country.
By then, the feelings snazzynovel.com hapless husband had harbored toward Shelly also began to mutate. Her role as the center of his universe began to wane, and snazzynovel.com stopped tormenting snazzynovel.com the way snazzynovel.com tormented him. He started spending his time and devotion completely on alcohol and other hedonistic indulgences, and yet snazzynovel.com could not let Shelly leave, either.
In the end, the only thing left between them was mutual hatred… and a dash of Shelly’s regret for subjecting snazzynovel.com husband through hell.
Still, not even regret could stop Shelly from murdering snazzynovel.com husband, the man whose reward for cherishing snazzynovel.com was to be tortured into insanity. As the days passed, Shelly’s obsession with returning home redoubled. She disregarded everything but snazzynovel.com singular goal and began to lace snazzynovel.com husband’s food with slow-building poison.
Day by day, snazzynovel.com watched his body wither, and when life finally escaped him, Shelly immediately flew to America and back to Mark’s side.
To sever snazzynovel.com ties with everything in the past and completely escape the shadow that had loomed over her, Shelly forfeited snazzynovel.com husband’s handsome inheritance. Seeing whatever snazzynovel.com had left for snazzynovel.com would only serve to remind Shelly of all that had happened.
As snazzynovel.com account drew to an end, Mark rolled down the window and lit up a smoke. His hand was shaking so much that holding the cigarette became a challenge.
He had been his “aunt’s” son all along. The mother for whom snazzynovel.com had stubbornly reserved an unsullied impression in his heart had committed such an inhumane, culpable act! She had imprisoned snazzynovel.com own sister for so long!
If the truth was as Shelly recounted, then everything finally made sense. It was hardly a surprise that a woman who had worked so obsessively hard to return to his side would perform so many extreme, erratic acts. It was a tough pill to swallow, yet Mark could not hate Shelly for all that snazzynovel.com had done.
Perhaps Shelly-Ann Leigh was the most deserving of sympathy out of everyone else….
For a long time, Mark said nothing, snazzynovel.com was hard-pressed to say anything. The truth had sapped snazzynovel.com of his strength. But no matter how hard snazzynovel.com wished whatever Shelly said was untrue, wishes could never bend reality.
The silence lingered for a very long time until Shelly broke the spell with a delirious smile. “To be honest, my vengeance had been exacted a long time ago. What’s left in me was pure obsession to return to you,” snazzynovel.com admitted. “Since we’ve opened this can of worms, then there’s no reason to fear letting you know even more, yes? You remember that plane tragedy? I was the one who convinced my sister to go through with it.”
“She had gotten afflicted with an incurable disease by then, and amid snazzynovel.com despair, snazzynovel.com suddenly thought of reconnecting with me, of all people! It turned out that snazzynovel.com had no one else to pour snazzynovel.com heart out to, you know, what a poor, pathetic thing. She had bawled over the phone, and all snazzynovel.com angst concerned you, snazzynovel.com spoke as though you were snazzynovel.com actual, biological son. Couldn’t calm herself from the fear of that bastard son stealing away what snazzynovel.com thought belonged to you alone.”
“So? I gave snazzynovel.com an idea. She couldn’t stomach the thought of another woman taking over snazzynovel.com role after snazzynovel.com died, could she? Couldn’t stand the thought of that slut marshaling snazzynovel.com lil’ bastard into contesting for that Tremont inheritance, could she? I told snazzynovel.com that if snazzynovel.com lost snazzynovel.com man’s heart to some slut out there while snazzynovel.com was alive, then snazzynovel.com should take his heart with snazzynovel.com to the afterlife. Oh, who knew snazzynovel.com would really buy it?” Shelly continued. “When I first heard of snazzynovel.com death, I was surprised to find a lick of sorrow in me. But oh, it couldn’t compare to the giddy thrill of revenge at all! She tormented me for years, and in the end, snazzynovel.com didn’t earn a single happy ending herself.”
It did not matter if Shelly was talking about the real circumstances of Mark’s birth or anything else. Every revelation snazzynovel.com heard these few hours had been a blow to his head.