No More Yielding Chapter 10
For the next two months.
Arthur became a wandering ghost on the streets of Boston.
He had spent all his savings and ended up on the streets, surviving by scavenging through garbage and waiting in line for soup kitchen meals.
Just to stay alive long enough to catch a glimpse of us, this former lieutenant-colonel — a man who once had severe germaphobia and would lose his temper over a single wrinkle in his clothes — learned to fight homeless men for sour sandwiches out of trash cans.
Dragging his frostbitten, ulcerated legs, he walked over a dozen kilometers in the freezing wind every day, just to appear on time beneath Isabella’s apartment building.
He hid behind a large tree at the corner of the street.
Watching Julian drive us out every day.
Watching Julian prepare hot milk for Isabella, and watching him gently tie a scarf around my neck.
On weekends, he watched the three of us pushing a shopping cart out of the supermarket.
Julian carried all the heavy bags, while Isabella linked arms with me, laughing so hard she could barely stand straight.
Watching Julian carefully place a cup of hot coffee into my hands, Arthur’s eyes stung with a bitter, aching pain.
He suddenly remembered the day of our tenth wedding anniversary.
I had bustled about in the kitchen all day, waiting for his return with a heart full of joy.
But because of a single phone call from Margaret, he hurried away without eating even a bite of cake, keeping a stern face as he left and scolding me for “lacking a collective mindset.”
Now, the woman whose eyes once held nothing but him was giving her gentlest smiles, completely unreserved, to another man.
It was the kind of companionship that Arthur had never given us in eighteen years.
He, the biological father, had become nothing more than a corpse, only able to watch from behind the glass.
Boston was hit by a blizzard the likes of which hadn’t been seen in a century.
Arthur was freezing under the tree, almost losing all sensation.
On this day, Isabella was returning from the library alone.
Finding strength from nowhere, Arthur rushed out and blocked her path.
In his frostbitten, purple hands, he tightly clutched a cheap bracelet.
It was something he had bought with the money he earned by washing dishes in a restaurant’s back kitchen for three days and three nights straight, washing until his hands were ulcerated and oozing pus.
“Isabella, tomorrow is your twenty-second birthday.
“Dad doesn’t have money to buy an expensive gift, so I’m giving you this bracelet.”
His voice trembled, his eyes filled with the most utterly pathetic, humble pleading.
He thought that as long as he was sincere enough, even if it only earned a single “thank you” from his daughter, his life wouldn’t have been lived in vain.
Isabella stopped in her tracks.
She glanced at the bracelet, then at Arthur’s frostbitten, ulcerated face.
A glimmer of hope ignited in Arthur’s eyes.
But the next second, Isabella pulled a hundred-dollar bill from her bag.
And gently dropped it into the snow at Arthur’s feet.
“Buy yourself a hot coffee, Mr. Homeless Man. Stop following me, or I’ll file for a restraining order.”
After saying that, she didn’t spare the bracelet another glance.
Holding her umbrella, she walked straight past him and into the warm building.
The green banknote lying on the white snow was glaringly harsh.
That hundred-dollar bill was like a giant slap across the face, shattering the last shred of Arthur’s dignity.
It turned out that belated affection and guilt, in the eyes of the victim, were worth less than a pile of dog shit on the side of the road.
He knelt stiffly in the snow, cradling that bracelet, letting out a mournful whimper like a wounded beast before breaking into loud, agonizing sobs.
A few days later.
It was the annual awards ceremony at Harvard’s School of Architecture.
Isabella, as the representative of the most outstanding graduates, went on stage to deliver a speech.
Arthur slipped into a corner in the last row of the auditorium.
Wearing a scavenged, tattered trench coat, he reeked of sour sweat and was shoved aside by several well-dressed parents who covered their noses in disgust.
But he didn’t care.
On stage, Isabella stood radiant.
The host smiled and asked, “Isabella, who is the person you want to thank the most for making it to where you are today?”
Isabella held the microphone, her gaze gently falling on the first row.
Julian and I were sitting there.
“The person I want to thank the most is my mother, Ms. Adhara Vance.
“It was she who, when I was in my darkest moments and nearly suffocated, shattered my chains and gave me the wings to be reborn.
“I also want to thank Mr. Julian Prescott.
“He showed me that a truly profound father’s love is about lifting you up and being by your side, not looking down from above to suppress you.”
Thunderous applause erupted across the hall.
No one mentioned that former lieutenant-colonel, the biological father who once tried to lock her away in the dark.
Arthur stood in the gloomy corner, tears and snot streaming down his face.
He clutched his chest tightly.
His heart felt as if it had been thrown into a meat grinder, shredded into a bloody pulp.
He finally realized with absolute clarity.
In this world, there was no longer any place for him to belong.
Due to an expired visa and long-term vagrancy.
Arthur was deported back to his home country by the US police.
The day of his return was Christmas Eve.
The weather in Toronto was unusually freezing.
Arthur dragged his terminally ill body through the streets.
The doctor had said that his prolonged homelessness had caused a severe lung infection; coupled with physical and mental exhaustion and organ failure, he didn’t have long to live.
While passing by a filthy, chaotic street.
He heard harsh, piercing curses.
Turning his head, he saw Margaret and Isla.
Margaret, who had been beaten in prison and left with a limp, was sitting on the ground throwing a tantrum.
Isla, wearing a tattered, blackened puffer jacket with a sallow complexion, was fighting Margaret for half a loaf of bread.
To snatch that mud-stained half-loaf, Isla viciously slapped Margaret across the face.
“If you hadn’t thrown a fit back then demanding that early decision admission slot, would we have ended up in this miserable state!”
Margaret clutched her face, sitting in the muddy water and wailing loudly.
“If it weren’t for you, would I have gone to prison?!
“If you want to blame someone, blame that idiot Arthur!
“If it weren’t for his self-righteousness, how could we have fallen this low!”
Arthur stood in the blizzard, watching the mother and daughter tear at each other like maggots.
A muffled chuckle, like a broken bellows, escaped his throat until tears streamed down his face.
These were the people he had once protected at the cost of destroying his own biological daughter, all for the sake of some so-called “military brotherhood obligation.”
How ridiculous.
An absolute, utter joke.
For two selfish, vicious leeches, he had personally shattered his own priceless treasure.
He withdrew his gaze and dragged his heavy legs back to his dilapidated rental room.
The room was as cold as an ice cellar; the windows leaked air, and the bitter wind blew snowflakes onto his thin bedding.
He didn’t even have the money to buy heating coal lumps.
He could only lean against the corner of the wall, wrapped in a worn-out overcoat, shivering uncontrollably.
Arthur tremblingly turned on the secondhand TV.
A special program on an overseas channel was broadcasting.
On the screen, the streets of Boston were decorated with festive lights.
The camera flashed by, capturing a breathtakingly beautiful face.
Isabella was holding Julian’s arm, and I nestled against Julian’s shoulder.
Fireworks bloomed across the night sky.
Isabella faced the camera, her smile radiant and bright.
“Merry Christmas!”
Her lips mouthed.
The glow of the TV illuminated Arthur’s withered, deathly pale face.
He shakily reached out a skeletal hand, wanting to touch Isabella’s smiling face on the screen.
But the moment his fingertips brushed the cold screen.
A violent fit of coughing surged up his throat.
Arthur suddenly coughed up a large mouthful of blood, dyeing the screen red and obscuring Isabella’s face.
He fell backward onto the freezing concrete floor, blood trickling down the corner of his mouth.
His vision began to blur.
Memories flashed by like a vintage film reel; he seemed to see Adhara from eighteen years ago, wearing a white dress and shyly telling him,
“Arthur, we’re going to have a family.”
He seemed to see the ten-year-old Isabella, holding an architectural model and calling him “Dad” in a crisp, clear voice.
That once-warm home had been smashed to pieces, brick by brick, by his own hands.
The next second, the illusion shattered.
Only the cheerful sounds from the TV remained in his ears.
Arthur’s cloudy eyes widened as tears slid into his temples.
“I’m sorry… Adhara… Isabella…”
On this joyous Christmas Eve.
Amidst extreme cold, loneliness, and remorse, he took his last breath.
He died with his eyes wide open, unable to find peace.
Meanwhile, in Boston.
The snow had stopped.
The firelight danced in the fireplace, crackling with a warm, comforting sound.
I looked at my brilliant daughter beside me, and my gentle, attentive husband.
Julian picked up two glasses of red wine, handed one to me, and gently clinked his glass against the rim of mine.
“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Prescott.”
I chuckled softly and downed the red wine in my glass.
Isabella ran over excitedly, holding the skyscraper blueprints she had just designed.
“Mom, Uncle Julian, look at the sketches I just revised!”
She pointed at the unique light and shadow design, a universe of stars shining in her eyes.
“For the lighting in this exhibition hall, I designed it to bring in natural light from all angles, all day long.
“I want every child who walks in here to never have to fear the dark.”
I walked over and hugged my daughter tightly.
Tears pricked my eyes, but my heart was full of pride.
“To freedom.”
“To new beginnings.”
All the past has turned to ashes.
Under this sky forever filled with light and free of shadows, our lives have only just begun.