I Crawled Through Hell. Turned To Be My Don Husband’s Loyalty Test Chapter 03
I called a realtor.
“List the apartment. Today,” I said. My voice sounded like gravel grinding together—dry, hollow, unrecognizable.
“Do you need time to clear out your belongings, Mrs. Marchetti?”
I looked back.
Six years in these walls. Ultrasound on the fridge. Luca’s height on the doorframe—every inch a prayer.
Praying each inch meant he was getting stronger.
“No,” I whispered. “Toss it all. Burn it if you have to.”
I didn’t need a home. I didn’t have one anymore.
I spent hours scrubbing the scent of the trenches off my skin, but it was useless.
The stench of death is a stain that goes deeper than the dermis.
Then I gave up. I started to sort the paperwork. Halfway through, my phone rang.
The kindergarten.
“Mrs. Marchetti, the graduation ceremony is in this afternoon. Will you be able to make it?”
The teacher’s voice softened into that pitying tone people use for ‘deadbeat’ moms.
“It’s a big moment for Luca. I really think you should show up. For once.”
I closed my eyes. Signal’s always dead out in the war zone. I’d dragged corpses through mud on his birthdays.
Not to mention everything else.
“I’ll be there,” I said.
I went. I shouldn’t have, but a dying part of my heart still wanted to see my son in his tiny cap and gown.
I heard him before I saw him.
A group of kids was whispering near the entrance. “How come your mom never shows up? Is she a ghost?”
Luca lifted his chin, a spark of that stubborn pride I used to love.
“She’s coming today. My mom… my mom is the prettiest mom here.”
My heart stuttered. A flicker of warmth, agonizing and sharp, pierced through the numbness.
He still loves me, I thought. He was just confused this morning.
Then I stepped into the light. “Luca. Mommy’s here.”
I was smiling. I actually thought he would run to me.
But as my hand reached for his, I watched the light in his eyes die. It was replaced by something cold. Something cruel.
“Luca? Is that her? Your mom? She’s so scruffy!” the other kids snickered.
I looked down at myself. I’d tried. I’d worn my only clean jacket, but my hands were still cracked, my nails ruined.
I pulled my sleeves over the scar—but it didn’t matter. I still looked like what I was.
Luca’s hand twitched. He looked at the elegant mothers nearby, then at me. Like I was a monster crawling out of a sewer.
Then Sienna appeared.
She smelled of lilies and expensive silk. She looked like a queen.
Luca yanked his hand away from mine as if I’d burned him. He lunged for Sienna, burying his face in her designer skirt.
“She’s my mom,” he pointed at Sienna. Then, he turned his head and looked at me with pure, unadulterated loathing.
“That woman is disgusting. Go away! I don’t know her!”
Disgusting.
The word hit me harder than any shrapnel ever had.
My hand dropped.
The circle of parents tightened. I could feel their eyes—predators scenting a wound.
“How did security let her in?” someone hissed. “She looks like a vagrant. Look at her bag—she probably stole it.”
“Check her pockets! What if she’s a trafficker?”
Rough hands grabbed my shoulders. Someone yanked my bag—the strap snapped, spilling everything:
work gloves, dull shears, Luca’s lucky charm.
Sienna stepped forward, her face a mask of ‘gentle’ concern.
“Everyone, please! Let’s not make a scene. She… she picks up dead bodies for a living. She’s not well.”
The crowd recoiled. It was instantaneous. They didn’t just hate me now; they feared I was contagious.
“Jesus Christ,” a woman gasped. “No wonder the air feels foul. Get her out of here!”
A water bottle flew past my head. Then a shoe.
I stood there, paralyzed, as the world turned into a blur of screaming faces.
Then, something silver flashed in the light.
A pair of safety scissors. The blunt metal blade sliced across my arm, drawing a thin line of red.
I looked up. My son—my seven-year-old son—was standing there, his face contorted in rage.
He had thrown them.
He was staring at me like I was a stray dog he needed to kill.
In that moment, I couldn’t feel the cut. My breath just stopped.
“Enough!”
Dominic arrived, pushing through the mob.
For a second—one pathetic, delusional second—I thought he was going to claim me.
But he just stepped between us and bowed to the crowd. “I am so sorry, everyone. Please, forgive the disturbance.”
He didn’t look at me. He looked at them.
“She’s a relative of our housekeeper,” he said, his voice smooth and cold.
“She lost her child a few years ago and hasn’t been right since. We tried to be kind, but letting her come was clearly a mistake.”
The room went silent. The pity in their eyes was worse than the rage.
Then he grabbed my arm—not to comfort me, but to drag me out like trash.
Outside the gates, he threw my arm back at me.
“Why the hell did you come here? To embarrass me? To ruin Luca’s big day?”
I looked at him. Then I looked at the blood dripping from my arm onto the white pavement.
“The teacher called,” I whispered.
“I don’t care if God himself called,” Dominic hissed, leaning in, his face the face of a stranger.
“You are a stain on this family, Linnea. Look at you. You’re a ghost. Stay dead.”