Chapter 1

"To you, Pete! The hard times are over. You finally dumped that frumpy old housewife, and now your second spring is here!"

On the brand-new leather sofa, Jessica Lane lounged in silk pajamas, swirling half a glass of red wine. She leaned in with those bright red lips and planted a loud kiss on Gary Peterson's cheek.

Gary's face was flushed, the color of alcohol mixed with wild excitement. He looked at the woman in front of him, a full twenty-four years younger than he was, then at the three-bedroom apartment with its newly installed fingerprint lock, now his and his alone. He had never felt this good in his whole life.

Just two hours earlier, Gloria Peterson, the woman who had lived with him for thirty years, had picked up a ratty woven bag and been driven out the door by him like a stray dog. She walked away with nothing. Not a single cent. She hadn't even dared to make a peep.

"That stupid woman," Gary said, his arm around Jessica's waist, laughing so hard the fat on his body jiggled. "Half her life with me, and in the end I still pushed her around however I liked. This apartment, the savings, it's all ours now!"

Just as his laughter hit its most smug, his phone rang.

Gary picked up, listened for a couple of seconds, muttered "lunatic," and hung up. But right after that, the screen lit up and a message popped up.

Gary glanced at it carelessly.

That one glance was all it took. The smile on his face died instantly, frozen in place as if sealed in cement. Then the hand holding his wine glass began to shake violently, so hard the wine sloshed all over him, and he didn't even notice.

All his life, Gary had believed in one saying above all others: a man is the sky, a woman is the ground, and the ground has to let the sky walk on it. Only then does life run smoothly.

He had laid down that rule thirty years ago.

It was 1994. The wave of factory layoffs had everyone on edge, and countless couples who had both worked at the factory ended up selling odds and ends on the street. Gary had been quick-witted back then and knew how to work people, and he managed to hang on to his secure job in the sales department.

That night he'd had a few drinks and stumbled home to their run-down tenement walk-up. Gloria, eight months pregnant, was crouched beside the little coal stove, warming up his dinner.

"Gloria! Get some water! I want to soak my feet!" Gary kicked off his leather shoes, flopped onto the creaky wooden bed, and crossed his legs.

Gloria had only been in her early twenties then. There was still some flesh on her face, not like later, when it shriveled up like tree bark. She braced her lower back and struggled to her feet, poured hot water from the thermos, mixed it to a warm temperature, and carried the basin to the bed.

"Gary, the water's ready. You can do it your..."

"Do it my what?" Gary glared, the liquor kicking in. "Can't you see I've been working my ass off all day? What kind of wife are you? Take my socks off!"

Gloria froze for a moment. She had come from the countryside, and even though that kind of thing belonged to the bad old days, looking at her husband's face, puffed up with arrogance because he'd "kept his job," she bit her lip and slowly crouched down anyway.

That night, Gloria knelt on the floor, holding Gary's stinking feet in her hands and scrubbing them. Gary squinted and hummed a little tune. In that moment, he felt this was exactly the kind of life a real man ought to live.

From then on, it became the "house rule" of the Peterson family.

Thirty years went by in a flash.

In the fall of 2023, Gary turned fifty-six. He was long past being a lowly salesman. Now he was "Manager Peterson," about to retire from the state-owned company. His belly had tripled in size and half his hair was gone, but his "real man" arrogance had only climbed higher with age.

That day was Gary's birthday.

On the old dining table they'd used for more than ten years sat six dishes. Pork roast, honey-glazed fish, garlic-butter shrimp... all hearty dishes, and all Gary's favorites.

Gloria, wearing an apron washed so many times it had faded to white, came out of the kitchen carrying the last dish, a vegetable soup.

Time had cut into Gloria especially cruelly. She was only fifty-five but looked sixty-five. Her back was a little hunched, and a large patch of her hair had gone gray. She couldn't bring herself to spend money dyeing it, so she just tied it back with a black hair tie. The floral blouse she wore had been bought five years ago for her son's wedding, and the cuffs were frayed.

"Gary, Benny, dinner's ready." Gloria set down the soup and wiped her hands on her apron, her voice as faint as a mosquito's whine.

Gary was on the sofa, scrolling through short videos on his phone, a few pretty girls in miniskirts swaying their hips. Hearing her call, he impatiently slapped the phone face-down on the coffee table.

"What are you yelling for? Calling the dead?"

He got up, swaggered over to the table, and started poking through the plate of pork.

"Why is this meat so fatty? Don't you know I have high cholesterol? Trying to send me to an early grave, is that it?" Gary slammed down his fork, his face pulling long.

"It... it's pork shoulder. I didn't think it was that fatty..." Gloria said quietly in her defense.

"You dare talk back to me?" Gary's eyes bulged. "If you don't want to eat, don't eat! Can we live like this or not? If not, get the hell out!"

Their son, Ben Peterson, sat beside them holding his bowl, head down, not daring to make a sound. Ever since he was little, Gary's temper had frightened him. He took after Gloria; you couldn't beat a word out of him.

"Dad, it's your birthday. Mom spent the whole afternoon cooking..." It took Ben a long while to squeeze out that one sentence.

"Cooking? What did she do?" Gary pointed right at Gloria's nose. "Isn't waiting on people all she's done her whole life? The food, the clothes, the roof over her head, what part of it didn't I earn? Without me, she'd still be out on some farm slopping hogs!"

Gloria said nothing. She quietly picked up the fork he had slammed on the table, went to the kitchen for a rag, and wiped up the splattered sauce.

Her movements were slow and practiced, so practiced it made your heart ache.

In that moment, looking at this woman who took everything without a word, Gary felt not a shred of pity. Only an indescribable disgust.

It was like looking at a worn-out rag. Dirty, and an eyesore.

Gary's "second spring" began to sprout half a month later, that weekend.

It was a reunion of a few old army buddies, held at a newly opened upscale teahouse in the city called The Orchid Pavilion Tea Lounge.

Gary put on the Ralph Lauren polo shirt he'd bought for a wedding banquet, combed his last few strands of hair until they gleamed with oil, tucked a clutch bag under his arm, and strutted in.

"Oh my, you must be Manager Peterson! I've heard Lee talk about you so often. He says you're quite the big shot in your circle."

A woman came walking toward him.

She was in her early thirties, wearing a form-fitting dress with a slit cut just right, her waist swaying as she walked. Her makeup was flawless, her bright red lips like two flames, and her perfume went straight up his nose.