Evelyn touched her cheek instinctively and asked, "Thin? Are you sure?" Recently, she had begun wondering if she had gained weight, because every time she dined with Sheffield, he would fill her bowl with heaps of food. He kept feeding her until she couldn't eat anymore.
"I'm sure! Your chin has become pointed. You should have more flesh on your face," Sheffield insisted.
"During my pregnancy, although I did yoga every day, my face became so round. My parents kept me nourished all the time. My figure remained the same, but my face plumped up!" Evelyn had refused to look in the mirror the whole time she was pregnant.
The mention of her pregnancy made Sheffield feel guilty. He put down his chopsticks, and the playful look on his face disappeared. "Evelyn, it must have been very hard for you during your pregnancy."
"Well, my parents had a harder time than I did. I suffered from morning sickness. They were so tired taking care of me. Considering what had happened during my first pregnancy, they were very cautious. They demanded I stay in bed most of the time, and looked after me personally until I gave birth to Gwyn. Oh and, it was a C-section." Considering her health condition, natural delivery was risky. So, she had chosen to have a C-section.
"You had the scars removed?" Sheffield asked, realizing that he had not seen any scars from the operation on her body. And the sex was as wonderful as ever. Nothing had changed.
"Yes, I received a cosmetic surgery after," Evelyn confessed with a smile. The operation had been very successful, and the subsequent care was so excellent that there was no trace of the scar by the time they had gotten intimate after Sheffield's return.
Sheffield held her hand in his. "I'm sorry, Eve. I wish I had been there for you. I wish I could have held your hand while you gave birth to our baby girl."
He wasn't by her side when she had gone through the failed pregnancy the first time; he didn't even know about it until recently. And he had left her without even knowing that she was pregnant with their second child. He thought he was a terrible boyfriend; he was an asshole. He could never make up for the pain Evelyn had experienced because of his absence.
"It's all right, Sheffield. That's all in the past. Besides, I'm fine now. You don't have to feel guilty." Evelyn didn't blame him. She didn't tell him about the pregnancies in the first place. There was no way he could have known, and she was absolutely sure that if he had known, Sheffield would never have left her side. In fact, he would have been annoyingly close to her at all times.
Sheffield held her close. "Next time, I will stay with you every day during your pregnancy and never leave you alone!" he promised, just as she had expected.
Evelyn patted his hand and said shyly, "I never said I wanted a third child with you. Now, eat your food."
To distract herself from the topic, she picked up a termite mushroom and put it into her mouth after taking a deep breath. At the beginning, she didn't feel the spice.
However, it became spicier as she continued to chew.
Sheffield watched her brave the spice and told her, "Don't forget that we never use any protection. Who knows, maybe we are already having our third baby." He sounded pretty complacent.
She knew that he wasn't using condoms. He had told her that so many times in the middle of the night but had sex with her all the same.
Although the food was spicy, Evelyn didn't show any discomfort on her face. She picked up another termite mushroom and placed it to his lips. "Eat."
Sheffield opened his mouth and ate it like it wasn't spicy at all.
By the end of the dinner, Evelyn's lips were so red that it looked as if she had put on a new layer of lipstick. And just like last time, Sheffield kissed her deeply under the pretext of making the spicy aftertaste go away.
After the meal, they walked hand in hand in the streets. They wanted to visit all the places they had been to last time.
When they passed by an alley, Evelyn saw a woman in plain clothes with a boy of two or three years old. The child was thin and small, and his face was covered in dirt.
They were being scolded by a man. "Bitch! How dare you still go around seducing men? You haven't learned your lesson, have you?" He hit the woman across the face.
Evelyn's heart trembled at the sound of the slap. 'How cruel!'
The little boy began to cry. He grabbed the man's clothes and begged, "Stop! Don't hit my mother!"
"Bastard! Go away!" The man shoved the child, and he fell to the ground.
The woman covered her swollen face and silently ran to help the child to his feet. She didn't care about the disdainful stares from the people around them and said to the man, "We are divorced. Why are you still here?"
"So what? Whose fault was it? If you hadn't been cheating on me with that man, we could have still been together! You lying bitch!" By now, the on-lookers understood what was going on.
"You should leave. I have work to do." The woman held back her tears and tried to get back to washing her clothes.
But the man had no intention of leaving. He hurried over and knocked over her bucket of clothes. The clothes were scattered all over the ground.
The neighbors pointed at her and echoed the man's sentiment. "She should just die already. How could she cheat on her husband and still stay here?"
"Right. And she had the nerve to give birth to the bastard!"
"No wonder he abandoned her. She cheated on him and gave birth to someone else's child. Who would want a wife like that?"
The remarks were diabolical, like poisoned daggers.
Sheffield never cared for gossips around him, and this was none of his business. He took Evelyn's hand in his and was about to pass through. However, just then, the man slapped the woman hard across the face again.
The woman fell at Evelyn's feet. Although the woman's face was black and blue and blood was oozing from the corner of her mouth, she never begged for mercy.
The man grabbed her by the hair and beat her again. Sheffield couldn't watch anymore. He released Evelyn's hand and asked her to stand aside before he walked over.
"Be careful," Evelyn warned, seeing how barbaric the other man was. She didn't want to get involved in this matter either. After all, they were just passing by, and this seemed to be a family affair.
But the man had gone too far. She couldn't tolerate him anymore.
Sheffield walked towards the man and grabbed his arm just as he was about to hit the woman again. He looked at the man coldly, and asked with contempt in his voice, "What kind of man beats a woman?"
The man looked him up and down, then asked the woman on the ground, "Do you know this man?"
The woman looked up at Sheffield and shook her head.
The man scoffed, "This is none of your business. Everyone in this town knows that this bitch cheated on me! Let go of me, damn it!" The man tried to squeeze out of Sheffield's grip, but in vain.
"You are divorced, aren't you?"
"So? She cheated on me! She owes me as long as she lives!" the man barked. "Three years ago, she slept with a man in that fancy guesthouse! I would never have known about it! But she got pregnant because I had damaged all the condoms in that guesthouse!"
His last sentence caught Sheffield's attention. "You damaged the condoms in the guesthouse?" 'That's why Evelyn got pregnant!' he finally figured.
"Yes, that's right!" The man pulled back his hand, which hurt because of Sheffield's tight grip. He contemptuously said, "That guesthouse over there, the Rainbow Guesthouse. I heard that a man bought it recently and gave it to his wife as a gift. What a joke!"
"The condoms you damaged—are you talking about the free ones that were in the machine?" Sheffield asked.
"Yeah! My friend and I did it! He kept watch while I damaged the condoms. I didn't think that it would actually help me find that this whore was having an affair! Fuck!"
