Her Secret Wish

My name is Alex Clark. I have been married to Melissa Sue for exactly eight years. Over these past eight years, I've brought up the topic of having children countless times. Every time, Melissa Sue would just shake her head. She said she was afraid of the pain and the risks involved with childbirth. I tried to reassure her, saying that with today's medical advances, there's less to worry about. But she was firm; she simply wouldn't agree. Then last month, she suddenly told me to go get sterilized. She said that way, we'd never have to think about kids again and could enjoy a relaxed life just the two of us. I was stunned for a long time. It's not that I hadn't thought about sterilization before, but only if we both agreed on not wanting children. But I really wanted us to have a child. I just couldn't resist hearing Melissa Sue whisper in my ear every day. She said she had looked into it and that male sterilization surgery was simple and the recovery quick. She also said that if I went through with the surgery, she would love me even more, and our life would be happier. I was moved. I thought that maybe, with that reassurance, Melissa Sue could let go of her fear of childbirth. Even if we didn't have a child for now, as long as our relationship stayed strong, there might still be room to reconsider it later. I agreed, and we scheduled the surgery for the weekend. The afternoon before the surgery, Melissa Sue's assistant, Harper, came to the house to deliver something. These are some parenting books that Melissa Sue said she wanted to read. I was a bit puzzled; hadn't she always been afraid of having children? Why would she be reading parenting books? Harper smiled and said that Director Sue had been talking about parenting a lot in the office lately and mentioned that these books contained a lot of practical information. I didn't ask any further and just took the books, thanking her. After Harper left, I casually flipped through one of the books. When I reached the middle, a pink wish card slipped out. I bent down to pick it up. The handwriting on the card was very neat and elegant—it was Melissa Sue's writing. It read: "May the baby Jonathan and I are expecting be born healthy, and may the three of us live peacefully together year after year." My mind went "buzz," completely blank. Jonathan? Yes, Jonathan Yip. He's a partner of Melissa Sue's company—I've met him a few times. Every time they met, Melissa looked at him differently, but at the time I didn't think much of it. I thought it was just normal business communication. So it wasn't that she was afraid of the pain. She doesn't not want to have children. She just doesn't want to have children with me. She wants to have a child with Jonathan Yip. Then what does it mean when she asked me to get sterilized? Is it that you want to cut off every chance of me having a child, so you can be at peace with Jonathan Yip? I held that wish card, my hands trembling uncontrollably. Eight years of marriage, in that moment, felt like a cruel joke. I sat on the sofa, watching the sky outside grow dark. It felt like something was choking my chest, and I couldn't catch my breath. So all that tenderness, all those promises, were lies. She had been lying to me all along.