Chapter 2: Goodbye, Mom

**Chapter One**

I was gravely ill, on the verge of death, when Ethan knelt by my bedside, holding my hand and sobbing.

The late afternoon light slanted through the blinds, striping my bedsheets in gold and shadow. The room smelled faintly of lemon Lysol and hope. I could hear the steady beep of the heart monitor—my only real companion these past weeks. Ethan was right there, on his knees, clutching my cold hand like it was the last rope on a sinking ship.

“Aunt Rachel, this is ginseng tea—the President sent it himself. Please, just try. The doctors say it might help.”

He bit his lip, knuckles white on the mug, like he was holding onto hope with both hands.

He spoke with a trembling earnestness, his face flushed, his hands shaking so hard the tea sloshed dangerously close to my comforter. The mug, a cheap white one with a faded hospital logo, looked out of place in his desperate grip. I imagined the President, or more likely some staffer, signing the card with brisk indifference. Still, the gesture mattered to Ethan.

He brought the white porcelain mug to my lips, but I weakly waved my hand.

“Ethan, don’t waste something so precious.”

“I know my own body.”

I’d had an incurable disease from the start. If not for Ethan’s desperate efforts—sending nutritious broths to my room like clockwork, forcing several doctors to watch over me day and night—I would’ve died long ago.

I remember the endless parade of physicians, the expensive specialists flown in from Boston, New York, even Chicago. Ethan would pace outside the door, fingers drumming on his phone, never looking up from the stack of medical journals he’d been poring over since sunrise.

Getting two extra years felt like winning the lottery. I was already grateful.

With trembling hands, I reached out to touch Ethan’s temples.

His hair was softer than I remembered, the strands damp with sweat from worry or perhaps from the stifling hospital air. He stiffened, just for a heartbeat, then leaned into my palm, his breath hitching like he was eight years old again.

“Ethan, being able to marry into the Shaw family in this lifetime, I’m already very satisfied.”

“Only one thing—you’ve delayed marriage until now. After I die, I won’t have the face to meet your father.”

Ethan looked up, eyes red, lips pressed tight, his gaze full of grief and despair, with a hint of anger hidden deep inside.

“Rachel—”

His voice was hoarse. After choking up for a moment, he turned his face away.

He tried to collect himself, the way you do when you’re about to lose it in front of people who expect you to be strong. His shoulders shook, and I heard the effort it took for him to force down the sobs clawing at his throat.

“Rachel, I will never get married.”

I knew he was angry.

Ethan had always respected me, only ever arguing with me about this issue. Every time I pressured him to settle down, he’d angrily call me by my full name.

There was something almost adolescent in the way he’d square his jaw and refuse to meet my eyes. It was as if saying my name instead of “mom” built a wall between us that neither of us could quite scale. Still, I tried, every time, hoping one day he’d slip and call me “mom” just once.

I pulled the corner of my mouth into a faint smile.

"Look at you—a big-shot judge, still throwing fits at your mom?"

At those words, Ethan’s expression shifted again.

A flash of embarrassment? Or something else—resentment, perhaps, or longing. His dark eyes were like deep pools, filled with emotions I couldn’t understand.

Seeing him like this, I sighed and pleaded:

“Ethan, could you call me 'mom' just once?”

He never could.

I was Ethan’s stepmother, only eight years older than him.

When I first married in, I was seventeen and Ethan was only nine—a pampered young boy.

I could still picture his round cheeks, his habit of kicking off his shoes by the front door, and the way his eyes would light up at the promise of a late-night ice cream run. Back then, he was all knees and elbows, racing through the house with more energy than sense.

Ethan’s mother died in childbirth, and his father was serving overseas. Ethan was raised by his grandmother.

There was a faded photograph of her on the mantle—hair swept back in a tidy bun, lips pressed into a thin line. She ruled the house with an iron will wrapped in soft velvet. Ethan clung to her like a lifeline, but even she couldn’t shield him from the world forever.

Grandma Shaw doted on him, inevitably spoiling him and raising him with a pampered temperament.

He spent his days with the housekeeper, racing his bike through the neighborhood, getting into mischief, refusing to study. If scolded even a little, he’d clutch his head and pretend to be sick.

The neighbors used to joke that you could track Ethan by the trail of flattened flowerbeds he left in his wake. He’d plop onto the couch with a dramatic groan, insisting he was too ill for chores or homework, just as soon as anyone mentioned responsibility.

After I married in, it took a lot of effort to gradually guide him onto the right path.

It wasn’t easy. There were slammed doors, arguments over homework, and tears on both sides. But slowly, the walls between us chipped away, replaced by the quiet routines of daily life—shared meals, late-night talks, the kind of hard-won trust that’s built one small kindness at a time.