Chapter 1

Just three days before our silver wedding anniversary.

I discovered his secret, a tiny underground room.

From wall to ceiling, it was plastered with countless photos of another woman.

Apparently, from his thirties to his sixties, someone else had occupied his heart.

Those crucial business trips, those exotic decorative pieces.

Everything now made sense, as I gazed at their beaming faces in the photos.

I looked down at my own hands, marked with wrinkles and age spots.

Suddenly, I felt utterly exhausted.

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Garrison was away on a business trip, but his assistant came knocking at our door.

"Mrs. Winters, could you please try to find it? That document is crucial for us," Garrison's assistant said, standing at the doorway and looking at me with utmost respect.

I tried calling three times in a row, but couldn't get through.

"Are you sure it's in the study?" I asked. Garrison's assistant nodded deferentially.

I had no choice but to go upstairs and look for it.

I rarely visited Garrison's study.

He disliked being disturbed when he was working.

As I fumbled around on the desk, after finding the document, a pen holder caught my eye.

It looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place where I'd seen it before.

The assistant was urging me from downstairs.

As I was heading out, I accidentally knocked over the pen holder.

With a thud, I saw a compartment open behind the bookshelf.

I was stunned for a moment, while downstairs the assistant continued to call for me.

I hurried down to hand over the document. Noticing my odd expression, the assistant asked with concern,

"Mrs. Winters, are you alright? Is everything okay?"

I pressed my lips together and shook my head.

After he left, I returned to the study.Looking at this illuminated basement, I fell silent.

My intuition told me not to enter.

Yet, my legs unconsciously stepped inside.

The room was bathed in warm yellow light.

However, as I entered this room, I froze completely.

There was no other reason than the fact that the walls were covered, from floor to ceiling, with photographs of a single person.

Some photos had faded to white, others had lost their color.

It was evident they were from long ago.

But they had all been carefully framed by their owner.

I moved closer, gently touching one of the photos.

There wasn't a speck of dust; clearly, the room's owner treasured these photographs.

The subject in all the photos was the same person.

She looked familiar; I recognized her immediately.

It was Myra, Garrison's first love.

The walls were filled with photos of Myra in her youth.

There she was reading, shopping, eating - captured in many different scenes.

The most recent photo showed her with some gray hair, feeding pigeons.

She wore a blue qipao, proving that time couldn't defeat beauty; she remained as elegant and sophisticated as ever.

She smiled happily at the camera.

Thinking that Garrison might have taken this photo,

I inexplicably felt a pang of sadness.Myra was Garrison's first love, appearing during his lowest point in life.

She left to study abroad without a word.

But her travel expenses were provided by my father.

He gave her the money out of pity, because she was being abused at home.

However, because of this incident,

For a long time after Garrison and I got married,

He treated me coldly.

I endured a lot of unfair treatment for no reason.

Looking closely at these photos,

There are quite a few of the two of them together.

Garrison looks very relaxed in front of the camera.

I rarely see him so carefree.

I looked at my own hands, dull and marked by labor.

I sat quietly in the room, looking at the photos covering the walls.

I thought about many things.

Back then, to be with Garrison, I didn't hesitate to fall out with my parents.

I almost missed the chance to see my father for the last time.

During the three years Garrison studied abroad, I was the one who managed our entire household through ups and downs.

I was the one who cared for his bedridden mother day after day.

Even the money needed for his studies abroad was supplemented by me.I had a period of harmony with him too.

During that time, we had our son, Dashiell.

But back then, Garrison's career was just taking off.

He had no time to deal with things at home.

I took on everything single-handedly.