Part 3The Rebirth After My Husband's Suicide for His First Love

I stumbled back to our apartment, my body feeling heavy and weak.

Everything inside was just as Eddy had left it.

We had lived in this apartment for nearly twenty years. I had bought this second-hand place the year after we got married, using the dowry my parents had given me.

The building was over thirty years old, rundown and shabby.

It was less than eight hundred square feet.

At one point, five of us, including my mother-in-law, had been crammed into this tiny space.

For years, I had scrimped and saved. To send Leo and Lily to study abroad, to pay for my mother-in-law’s dialysis treatments for her chronic kidney failure.

I always told myself, things will get better. It will all be okay.

But now I realized I was nothing more than a tool for their family.

My eyes were vacant, lifeless pools as I moved like an automaton, gathering Eddy’s belongings, intending to throw them all out.

As I cleared out his closet, I found a journal tucked away at the very bottom, beneath a pile of old clothes.

Inside, I found a yellowed piece of paper. It was a copy of a property deed.

The owner was Eddy Scott.

I went to the address on the deed. After verifying my ID, a locksmith opened the door for me.

The moment I stepped inside, I was utterly stunned.

This was clearly Eddy and Julianna’s love nest. The walls were covered with photos of them with their children.

The decor was warm and romantic.

The expensive furniture, the luxurious carpets, the crystal chandelier that sparkled even under a layer of dust.

Compared to our cramped, rundown apartment, it was another world entirely.

I moved with heavy steps toward the master bedroom.

The room was enormous, with a walk-in closet, a vanity, a king-sized bed, and a spacious, sunlit bay window. The clothes in the closet were all designer, neatly organized.

Next door was Eddy's study.

The sight that greeted me there was a dagger to the heart. The walls were a chronicle of their family’s happy memories—from the children's elementary school days to their college years, they had traveled the world together.

All the places I had dreamed of going but never dared to spend the money on.

I collapsed into the chair at the desk.

On the desk lay a single sheet of paper with a line of writing: [Julianna, in the two years since you passed away from your illness, I have been living in torment, every day an agony. My duty to my mother is now done, and the children are grown. I have nothing left to tie me to this world. I pray we can be reunited in the afterlife, to continue our love story.]

...

It wasn't an accidental drowning while drunk.

It was a suicide, to be with her.

I tore the note to shreds, a primal scream of rage building in my chest.