Ethan bent down under the bed and pulled out an old tin box, the kind once used for cookies. He opened it. Inside was a notebook with a dark brown leather cover. The leather was worn at the corners, but carefully preserved. Ethan handed it to me with both hands with a reverent gesture, as if giving me a sacred relic.
“This is what he left,” Ethan said quietly. “He had no one to talk to, so he poured everything in here. In his last days, when his throat hurt so much he couldn’t speak, this pen was his only friend.”
I took the journal. The smell of old paper mixed with disinfectant hit me, a scent of farewell and nostalgia. I opened it, trembling. Daniel’s handwriting, so familiar and painful. The first few lines were neat and firm, typical of the decisive man I knew.
Date. Today, Laura left. The house is empty. I thought I’d feel relieved that I’d set her free. But why does my heart hurt so much? When she walked out the door with her suitcase, I almost ran after her to stop her. I’m a coward, Daniel. The biggest coward in the world. But well, one sharp pain and it’s over. Laura, you have to live well. Don’t remember this bastard husband.
My tears fell onto the page, smudging the blue ink. I remembered the day I left. I walked quickly, my head held high with pride without looking back once. I thought he would be celebrating with his mistress, but it turned out he was tormenting himself in the cold, empty house.
I turned the pages. The entries became more spaced out, but the content focused more and more on my life.
Date. Today, looking through the binoculars, I saw Laura cut her hair. The short hair makes her look younger, but also more rebellious. She must want to make a clean break with the past. She’s lost so much weight. She’s been wearing that beige coat for 3 years. Why doesn’t she buy a new one? It’s so cold and she’s dressed so lightly. Foolish girl. I told her to take the money and spend it. Why is she torturing herself like this? Does she want me to die of a broken heart?
I touched my hair. It was waistlength now, but seven years ago, yes, I had cut it in a fit of rage. I thought no one would care. But it turned out every lock that fell pained him.
I still have that old coat. Not because I didn’t want to buy a new one, but because it was the first birthday present he ever gave me. I wore it to remember a dead love, but for him, it was proof of my misery.
Date. My legs are hurting so much today. It feels like a thousand fire ants are chewing on my bones. I took my medicine, but it’s no use. Lying alone in the dark, I suddenly craved the seafood soup Laura used to make. I always used to complain that it was too salty, and now I can never have it again. I look across the street and see her light is on. What is she doing? Probably working late. Laura, I miss you. I’m so scared. scared of dying and no one will be there to remind you to bundle up. No one to make you dinner. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
The letters were starting to become uneven with ink blotss, perhaps from his tears or the sweat of his pain. Every word I read squeezed my heart. A man facing death, enduring terrible physical pain, yet his biggest concern was still whether his wife was eating and staying warm. He longed for a bowl of soup. Such a simple wish, and yet so unattainable.
I hugged the journal, burying my head in my knees, remorse hitting me like a tsunami. I had blamed him for being callous, unfaithful, but I never once asked how he felt. I was living in the cocoon of my own pain, never knowing that just outside it, a man was using his life to shield me from the storm. These weren’t words. They were the fragments of a heart that loved to the point of desperation, stabbing into my soul a sharp, persistent pain.
I kept turning the pages of the journal. Among the tear-filled entries were pages with dry notations full of numbers and strange names. At first, I didn’t understand, but the more I read, the more my blood ran cold. This wasn’t just a diary. It was a ledger. A list of unwritten rules Daniel had secretly put in place to protect me.
Date. Transfer $5,000 to Dr. Santos at the hospital for Laura’s mother’s thyroid nodule surgery. Make it clear it’s from a financial aid program for lowincome individuals. If my mother-in-law finds out the money is from her son-in-law, she’d rather die than have the surgery. Laura is broke. She can’t get that money.
I was floored. Four years ago, my mother was diagnosed with a tumor. She needed surgery urgently. I scrambled everywhere for money without success. Just as I was about to consider selling a kidney, the hospital informed me that my mother had been selected for a 100% grant. I was overjoyed. I thanked God, the doctors. It turned out God was Daniel, a man who had been dead for 3 years. He had anticipated my family’s health problems and had left a fund for Ethan to manage.
Date. Give $1,000 to Officer Riley. Laura’s motorcycle accident today was the other guy’s fault, but he’s a thug. Laura is alone. She can’t handle him. I need Riley to apply some pressure so she gets a fair settlement. They can’t take advantage of my wife. That old bike is a death trap, and I can’t buy her a car anymore.
I remembered the accident. A tattooed guy going the wrong way hit me. He was aggressive at first, but soon after the police arrived and sorted everything out quickly. The guy’s attitude changed. He apologized and paid me a generous sum. I boasted to my friends about my good luck, about how justice had been served. I didn’t know that justice had been bought with my late husband’s money and connections.
“You see,” Ethan said, sitting across from me, his voice quiet, but his eyes full of pain. “You thought you were strong and lucky, that you overcame everything without needing Daniel’s money. But you were wrong, Laura. This society is cruel. The unwritten rule is that the weak always get crushed.”
He pointed to the notebook. The times you got a well-paying side job, the times the landlord let you postpone the rent, the times you ran into people who helped you, it was all planned by Daniel before he died or executed by me according to his last wishes. He used the interest from other investments to buy your peace of mind. He didn’t want you to see the dark side of society. He wanted you to keep believing in kindness, in decent people.
I closed the notebook, trembling, feeling my entire sense of self-confidence crumble. My strength and independence, of which I was so proud, were an illusion. I was like a child in a glass bubble, believing she was flying free, when in reality an invisible hand was holding me up. I had never truly grown up. I was still living off his money under his protection, just in a more subtle way.
“Why?” I asked, a lump in my throat. “Ethan, why did he do that? He had already given me the 2 million.”
“Out of fear,” Ethan replied, his voice fading. “He was afraid that if you used the 2 million too soon, you would become dependent. You wouldn’t mature. But he was also afraid that if he didn’t help you in difficult moments, life would crush you. you’d lose faith. He wanted you to suffer just enough to grow, but to be lucky enough not to fall. A contradictory, painful calculation that only someone who loves to the point of madness would come up with.”
I looked at Ethan, then at the dilapidated apartment. In the darkness of solitude and imminent death, Daniel had mapped out a perfect plan to protect me for seven years. He used his money to bend the cruel, unwritten rules. He used his contacts to smooth my path. I lived in that artificial luck while the creator of that luck was slowly consumed by pain. The feeling of debt added to the guilt, making my chest feel like it would explode.
I opened the journal again, stopping at a page more crumpled than the others. The writing was pressed deep into the paper, marking the other side, proof that it was written in a state of great agitation. The date corresponded to a cold winter day 6 years ago. A day I remembered well because of a small incident.
Date. It’s drizzling today. The street is slippery. Looking through the binoculars, I saw Laura slip and fall at the bus stop. My heart stopped. I tried to run to the door, but my legs gave out from the pain. Then I saw a guy, an intellectual type with glasses, run to help her up. He dusted off her coat, even bent down to pick up her bag. They talked about something and Laura smiled. She smiled at him.
I remembered that man, just a kind stranger who saw me fall and helped me. We exchanged a few words, and I smiled out of courtesy. But in Daniel’s eyes, that smile was a knife to his pride and his possessive love.
My blood boiled, Daniel continued writing. I wanted to run out there and punch him, to scream, “Get your filthy hands off my wife.” But then I looked at myself, a a skeleton waiting for death. What right do I have to be jealous? What right do I have to forbid her from smiling at others? I was the one who threw her out.
I read those tormented lines with a mixture of sorrow and tenderness, jealous of a stranger, with a fierce jealousy like that of a child whose toy is taken away. But then he retreated into his shell of self-pity. His love was both noble and mundane, generous and selfish in a moving way.
He seemed like a good guy. The next paragraph was written in a clumsier script, as if he were forcing himself to accept reality. If he’s a good person, if he can take care of Laura in my place, I should be happy. I’m about to die. Laura needs a shoulder to lean on. But why does my heart hurt so much?
Daniel, you’re a coward. You say you want her to be happy, but you can’t stand to see her happy with someone else. You’re selfish. You deserve to die.
I broke down, sobbing, my tears soaking the page. Daniel, you fool. So childish, jealous of the whole world, but you didn’t dare to be jealous of your own fate.
