Episode 3

Chapter 3: The Enemy Within

Jessy's question didn't get an immediate answer.

For two days, the words trailed Liana everywhere. While she washed glasses in the Phua house. While she passed the door of the small room that had once been Dede's. While Albert came home late and looked at her as though she were a minor inconvenience he'd soon dispose of.

Are you really sure Dede went missing that day because you were careless?

Liana wasn't sure.

What she did know was that for twenty years, Kim Hwa had always been quicker to lash out than to answer whenever Dede's name came up. Liana had once assumed it was because the old woman shared her grief. Now, after watching how Albert could lie for eleven years with a perfectly composed face, she was beginning to understand something painful.

In this house, people could keep secrets while sitting at the same table with her.

On the third day after that night, another secret arrived with the sound of wheels on the front porch.

Liana was tidying a kitchen drawer when Albert's car pulled up outside. The door opened. His voice carried louder than usual, forced into calm.

"Careful, Mother."

Liana stepped into the living room.

Kim Hwa stood in the doorway, one hand gripping a cane, the other braced against Albert. Her face was pale, but her eyes were sharp as small blades. Behind them, the nursing home driver set down a bag of clothes and a sack of medication.

Liana stared at the bag.

"You brought her home?"

Albert slipped off his shoes. "Mother wanted to talk."

"No one told me."

"This is her house too," Albert said curtly.

Kim Hwa struck her cane against the floor. "Why? Do I need your permission to enter my own son's house?"

Liana drew a breath. Two days ago, that voice could still make her body go rigid on instinct. Today it still hurt, but it no longer made her retreat.

"Have a seat," Liana said.

"I intend to." Kim Hwa moved toward the main sofa, then surveyed the living room like a judge entering a courtroom. "Call Jason. Call Tiara too. A disgrace like this needs to be settled in front of the family."

Albert didn't object.

Of course he didn't. This was his plan.

Half an hour later, Jason arrived with a haggard face, still in his office shirt. Tiara came in a few steps behind him. The young woman's gaze went straight to Liana. Brief, just a glance. But in that glance, Liana caught the worry she was holding back.

"Sit," Kim Hwa ordered.

Jason sat beside Albert. Tiara chose the chair farthest to the side, not too close to anyone.

The arrangement said everything.

Kim Hwa rested both hands on her cane. "Liana, I hear you're still being stubborn about this divorce."

"That's right."

Jason turned sharply. "Mom--"

Kim Hwa raised a hand, silencing her grandson. "I'm speaking." Then she fixed her gaze on Liana again. "A decent woman doesn't destroy her own marriage. A wife stands by her husband. If a husband makes mistakes, a wife's duty is to cover the family's shame--not throw open the door and walk out."

Liana met the old woman's eyes. "If a husband has another woman for eleven years, is it still the wife's duty to cover the family's shame?"

Kim Hwa scoffed. "Men face temptation outside the home. That's just how it is. What's unusual is a fifty-year-old wife suddenly deciding she's the only one in the right."

Albert said nothing. The kind of silence Liana knew well. The kind that meant he agreed, so long as the words served his interests.

"I don't think I'm the only one in the right," Liana said. "I just don't want to be treated like a servant who can be thrown away."

"A servant?" Kim Hwa laughed harshly. "You live in this house. You eat off my son's money. You carry the Phua name. Without Albert, what would you be?"

Liana looked at Kim Hwa's hands on the cane. Hands she had once spooned medicine into. Hands that had shoved away a bowl of congee just because it was too thin. Hands that now pointed at her as though she were a parasite.

"I'd be the woman who gave up her life for this family," Liana said.

Kim Hwa narrowed her eyes. "Don't exaggerate."

"I came into this house with jewelry from my own family. Some of it was sold to help Albert when he was starting his career. I dropped out of college because you said a daughter-in-law should know her place. I took care of you for ten years when half your body couldn't move. I raised Jason. I cooked, cleaned, managed every family event, kept track of every medication, every doctor's appointment, every installment payment--even the birthdays of people who never once remembered mine."

The living room went silent.

Jason lowered his head briefly. Tiara bit her lip.

Kim Hwa opened her mouth, but Liana wasn't finished.

"And when Dede disappeared, not one of you asked what it did to me. You just pointed at me as the mother who failed."

"Because you were the one who had him that day!" Kim Hwa snapped.

Liana held her gaze. "I had him. But I wasn't the only adult in that house."

Kim Hwa's cane trembled slightly.

Albert finally spoke. "Enough. Don't drag up the past to justify your behavior now."

"The past?" Liana turned to him. "Dede is my son, Albert. Losing him isn't some minor footnote you can fold up and file away."

Jason raised his head. "Mom, Dad's had it hard too."

The sentence landed harder than any of Kim Hwa's outbursts.

Liana looked at the child she had raised from infancy. She was the one who had pressed cool cloths to Jason's forehead when he ran a fever. The one who had waited outside his exam rooms. The one who had patched his school trousers, set aside the best portions for him, covered for his teenage mistakes so Albert wouldn't find out.

"Hard how, Jason?"

Jason looked uneasy, but pressed on. "Dad works hard for this family. If he made a mistake, maybe you should try seeing things from his side too. Don't just jump to divorce. This is going to humiliate everyone."

Something in Liana's chest cracked, finer than before.

"So what you're afraid of is the embarrassment?"

"I'm just saying, don't be selfish."

Tiara stared at Jason in disbelief. "Jason--"

"Stay out of this," he cut her off.

Tiara fell silent at once, but her eyes moved to Liana. There was apology in them. There was helplessness.

In her lap, Tiara's fingers twisted together until her knuckles turned white. She looked as though she wanted to speak but was afraid of making things worse. Liana noticed the small movement. In a living room where nearly everything pressed against her, Tiara's silent sympathy felt like a thin sliver of light beneath a closed door.

Liana gave a small nod--not to Jason, but to herself. Fine. She filed away one more truth tonight.

The child she had raised might not stand by her side.

Albert's phone rang.

Everyone turned.

Albert glanced at the screen, and his face went tense. He moved to reject the call, but Kim Hwa was faster at reading his hesitation.

"Who is it?"

"Nobody important."

But Jason had already seen the name. "Yuni?"

The air in the room stopped moving.

Liana looked at Albert. "Answer it."

Albert gripped the phone tighter. "There's no need."

"Answer it," Liana repeated. "The family's all here, isn't it? Let everyone hear the family member you've been hiding."

Albert's jaw hardened. Perhaps he wanted to refuse, but the phone kept buzzing. Finally--out of panic or frustration, Liana couldn't tell--he hit accept. A woman's voice spilled out immediately; the phone had switched to speaker.

"Albert? Are you home? Jayden's asking again. He says you promised to come this weekend."

Kim Hwa went white. Jason froze. Tiara covered her mouth.

Albert rushed to say, "I'll call you back."

But Yuni had already sensed the atmosphere. "Is Liana there?"

Liana stood motionless.

Yuni gave a soft laugh--sweet, but laced with venom. "Liana, if you can hear me, I just want to say--don't make this harder than it needs to be. Albert's been exhausted for a long time. At your age, it's better to part on good terms than to keep clinging to a man whose heart left home a long time ago."

Jason's face shifted with discomfort. Kim Hwa clutched her cane--not out of anger at Yuni, Liana realized, but because the scandal was now laid too bare.

Liana moved closer to the table and looked down at Albert's phone.

"Yuni," she said calmly.

On the other end, the laughter paused. Perhaps Yuni hadn't expected Liana to respond with such composure.

"Yes?"

"Enjoy your time with him. A man who can lie to his wife for eleven years can just as easily lie to the next woman."

Yuni went quiet.

Albert snapped, "Liana!"

Liana didn't turn. "And one more thing. Don't lecture me about parting on good terms until you've learned how to enter someone else's life on good terms."

Tiara ducked her head, but Liana noticed her shoulders shaking faintly. Not from tears. More like she was holding something in--a small satisfaction she didn't dare show.

Albert ended the call.

"You humiliated me," he said.

Liana looked at him. "You did that yourself."

Kim Hwa suddenly struck the floor with her cane. "Enough! Shameless woman! You think because you have a little evidence, you can win? You think you know everything?"

Liana turned.

Kim Hwa had lost control. Her breath came fast; her face was flushed with rage.

"You don't know anything. Even when Dede--"

The sentence broke off.

The room froze.

Kim Hwa clamped her own mouth shut. Too late.

The blood in Liana's veins seemed to stop. Every sound vanished. All that remained was the name.

Dede.

Slowly, Liana stepped closer to the sofa.

"When Dede what?" she asked.

Kim Hwa turned her face away. "Nothing."

"You just said I don't know anything."

"I was angry. I was talking out of anger."

"No." Liana's voice dropped, colder than before. "You were about to say something."

Albert rose to his feet. "Liana, don't start this again."

Liana didn't look at him. Her eyes stayed on Kim Hwa.

"Kim Hwa," she said, each syllable deliberate and clear. "When Dede--what? Say it plainly."

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