When my father lay dying, his one regret was that he had no son to perform the last rites.

My fiancé knelt at his bedside, gripping my father's hand, and swore to him:

"Dad, a son-in-law is half a son. I'll arrange the wedding and marry Ada Matthews right away."

"You just focus on cooperating with the doctors and getting well. I'll take care of you in your old age and see you off when the time comes. The best of your good fortune is still ahead of you."

But my father didn't hold on until my wedding day. He let go of this life with Clifford Rowe's name on his lips.

At the very end, having never gotten to see his son-in-law one last time, he simply refused to close his eyes.

Only when Clifford, tears in his eyes, swore he would perform the last rites did my father finally let them shut.

On the day of the funeral, Clifford was nowhere to be found.

I called him. He said:

"Lindsay has cancer. It breaks her heart that there were ten little things I once promised her and never finished. Once I've helped her get through all of them, I'll come back!"

I forced down my grief and rage and reminded him:

"Today is my father's funeral. You promised to perform his last rites. You can't send him off to die with that regret unhealed!"

Through the phone came his childhood sweetheart's violent coughing, and then Clifford said, suddenly impatient:

"How could a dead man's regret matter more than a living person's last wish? Put Dad on ice for now. Marrying you, doing the rites—everything I promised him, I'll make good on it when I'm back!"

1

Clifford's words left me cold all over.

Before I could get a word out, I heard Lindsay Dickerson ask him:

"Cliff, is it really okay that you're not going back? What if Ada gets angry? Your wedding is coming up so soon..."

Clifford cut her off, his voice gentle:

"What does she have to be angry about? The old man has no choice but to wait in the freezer for me to come back. Unless she can somehow give her dead father a real son of his own!"

"Lindy, you're not well. Don't trouble yourself over things you shouldn't. Her father's waiting on me for the rites, and now that she has no family left, she's waiting on me to marry her too. As long as she isn't a fool, she knows what she has to do!"

Clifford was so busy soothing Lindsay that he forgot to hang up.

I couldn't believe those were words the man I'd loved for eight years, the man I was about to marry, could actually say.

The whole funeral takes five hours at most, and the rite of breaking the bowl takes only a few seconds.

Yet Clifford wouldn't even give my father those few seconds.

Then how many of those grand, eternal vows he'd once made to me could he ever be counted on to keep?

With trembling hands, I ended the call.

He was right. I truly couldn't conjure a blood son for my father. But half a son wasn't hard to find.

I lifted my head and looked toward the classmate a little way off who'd been running himself ragged for me all day.

He was bowing low, thanking the friends and relatives who'd come to say goodbye to the body.

This was what Clifford should have been doing. Instead it was Brendan Delgado doing it, without a word of complaint.

Sensing my gaze, Brendan finished thanking the last of them and hurried over.

"Ada, did you get through? When is your fiancé coming?"

"The viewing is over. Next is the breaking of the bowl and lifting of the casket, then we send your father off to be cremated and buried."

I looked at the fine beads of sweat on Brendan's forehead, and at how red-rimmed his eyes were, and said softly:

"Brendan, can you break the bowl? As my father's half a son?"

The hand wiping his sweat went still.

He understood what I was really saying, and there was no joy on his face at all. Instead, anger rose in it.

"Where's Clifford? Your father only agreed to close his eyes because Clifford promised to be his dutiful son and see him off. What is he doing, vanishing now?"

I hadn't said a thing, and yet Brendan was angrier than I was.

My phone buzzed. It was Clifford.

I thought his conscience had woken and he was coming back to break the bowl for my father.

I answered, and Lindsay's frantic voice came through:

"Ada, come to the hospital, quick! Something's happened to Cliff!"

"What's wrong with him?"

"It's all my fault! Cliff was eating mango with me, and now he's having a severe allergic reaction. They're trying to save him!"

I opened Lindsay's feed. Her latest post was an intimate photo of her and Clifford eating mango cheek to cheek.

The caption:

【The first little thing he did for me: eating ten pounds of mango together!】

Clifford had liked it and commented:

【Eating your favorite mango with you, feeling your fear of death as my own—that's my promise to you!】

In that moment my heart was like a plum steeped in ice water, sour and bitter all at once.

Clifford was the type who couldn't so much as touch a mango.

Yet now, for his childhood sweetheart, he'd staked his very life to keep a promise.

So he didn't even care about his own life. How could he ever have cared about my father's regret?

"Ada, I'm so sorry. Yell at me, hit me, whatever you want. Just please don't blame Cliff, okay?"

"I know these past weeks he's been at the hospital for me and not for your dad. But before he passed out, the only name on his lips was yours!"

My whole body went rigid. I ignored the taunt in her voice and kept my tone flat.

"I don't blame you. Take good care of him."

"But Ada, I don't know how to take care of anyone. I'm a sickly thing who can't even lift a finger. How am I supposed to look after him?"

She couldn't lift a finger, no. But she could make Clifford use my father as an excuse to sit with her, right under my nose.

One casual mention of some regret from her, and Clifford would drop my father in a heartbeat.

Which one mattered more had been settled long ago.

Every time Clifford put down his work to come sit with my father, my father would push him to put his career first, would tell me to be more understanding of him. Remembering those scenes made my nose sting.

The joke was on us. He'd played my father and me for fools, and we'd thought him a man of deep feeling and loyalty.

"I'm busy. I don't have time for your games."

"How can you be this cold? No wonder Cliff would rather stay with me than go back and perform the rites for your father!"

I ignored the smugness and hung up. I looked at Brendan.

"Brendan..."

Before I could finish, he said, firm:

"I'll perform the rites for Dad."

I turned my head away and wiped at the tears that came without permission.

Brendan fumbled to get me a tissue.

"Don't cry. He's not worth it. No worthless man is."

I shook my head and gave a bitter smile.

"I'm not crying over him. I'm crying because my father deserved better."

I was with Clifford for eight years, and for eight years he enjoyed my father's care.

Four years of tuition and support through college, an internship arranged at Southport's top firm after graduation. All of it was my father helping him.

Last year he wanted to start his own company. I emptied out every cent of my savings and it still wasn't enough.

It was my father who quietly took out the money he'd set aside for his own funeral, who told him to just go for it, that they'd have his back no matter what.

It wasn't until this last illness, when my father couldn't stop worrying about me, that he used his own regret over having no son to perform the rites to ask Clifford for a single promise.

His vows, and the patience of dropping his work to come to the hospital every day, had put my father and me completely at ease.

It never once occurred to us that all of it was a performance.

And that some promises are nothing but empty checks.

Just like how, year after year, he said he would marry me, and year after year found a different reason to put it off.

The first year after graduation, we were still young, no rush.

The second year, he was busy with work, no time to plan a wedding.

The third year I had everything ready, and he said he wanted to start his company, that he'd make me the envied Mrs. Rowe once he'd made his name.

The fourth year, with my father critically ill, he finally agreed to marry me.

But my father was gone now, and so was my love.

And I finally understood: he never married me for one simple reason. He didn't want to.

The pain of losing my father had left me numb to the loss of Clifford entirely.

Brendan held me for a moment, gently, then turned to go organize the procession.

Someone asked me,

"Ada, where's your fiancé? Without him to perform the rites, we can't move the casket!"

I stepped up to Brendan's side and told them all, calm:

"He isn't coming. From now on, Brendan is my father's son-in-law."

They weren't fools. No one asked anything more.

But the way they looked at me was full of pity and ache.

The funeral ended in a downpour. Soaked through and worn down by grief, I fainted at the cemetery.

Brendan hurried me to the hospital on his back.

After the doctor saw me, Brendan went to pay and pick up the medicine, and I headed for the restroom.

And there I collided with someone.

"Ah!"

The woman stumbled and dropped to the floor.

The impact sent me down too, the back of my head cracking hard against the fire hydrant beside me.

Warmth spilled out, and my vision blurred.

But not enough to keep me from seeing Clifford leap off the hospital bed and rush straight at me.

On instinct, I reached out to him.

He stepped right past me and lifted the woman off the ground, his face full of tenderness.

"Lindy, are you all right? Did it hurt?"

Then, without so much as a glance back, he snapped at me coldly.

"Are you blind, or in some hurry to get yourself killed—"

I drew my hand back and let out a small laugh at myself.

At how much I'd flattered myself.

Clifford went rigid, turned, and saw it was me, and his face darkened at once.

"Ada? It's you?"

Lindsay leaned against his chest, fighting back tears.

"Cliff, don't blame Ada. She cursed at me, she pushed me, and I deserve it. It's my fault you nearly died!"

With that, she slapped herself hard across the face and apologized to me.

"Ada, you're right. I deserve to die!"

I hadn't said a word, and already she was putting on her show.

And of course Clifford believed her.

He couldn't see my white face, couldn't see that I'd fallen too, and certainly didn't see the blood soaking into my black mourning dress.

He only raised his hand and slapped me.

"When Lindy said you refused to come to the hospital to be with me, that you cursed at her, I didn't believe her! But I never imagined you could be this vicious. You actually came all the way here just to pick a fight with her!"

"Do you have any idea that the smallest injury could kill her right now?"

"Are you taking your father's death out on her?"

"If you're angry, come at me. Why torment Lindy?"

His three questions, one after another, made me want to laugh. Laugh at eight years of devotion given to the wrong man.

"Don't laugh! Say something!"

I opened my mouth and only then tasted the rust filling it.

My throat hurt like I was swallowing razor blades, and I couldn't force out a single word.

Clifford took my silence for admission.

He grabbed me by the collar and forced me down.

"Apologize to Lindy! Or don't blame me for refusing to perform the rites at your father's funeral!"

Brendan came back with the medicine and saw me forced to my knees on the floor.

His eyes went wild as he shoved Clifford away and tried to lift me up.

Then his hand found the blood on my back.

Both his face and Clifford's changed, and the two of them moved at the same time to hold me.

Lindsay suddenly clutched her head, gagging without stop.

"Cliff... my head hurts..."

Clifford instantly pulled his hand back and scooped up the already unconscious Lindsay.

But Brendan had already lifted me first and was rushing me toward the emergency room.

"Doctor, quick, help her!"

Before the doctor could even examine me, Clifford pushed his way into the room carrying Lindsay, roaring, his eyes red.

"Doctor, see her first! She has late-stage brain cancer. Someone deliberately shoved her down, and now she's gagging and her head hurts and she's passed out!"

The doctor looked at the unconscious Lindsay and quickly took over.

But he still found a moment to call an intern to clean my wound and stop the bleeding first.

The intern took us to the room next door, and the moment she saw the gash on the back of my head, deep enough to show bone, she flinched on instinct.

"I can't handle a wound like this. I'll go get you another doctor!"

The one who came was Dr. Lambert, the same doctor who'd written up my medicine earlier.

He knew I was allergic to anesthetic, and he looked at me with some difficulty.

"I'll use acupuncture anesthesia to dull the pain, but it may still hurt a lot. Can you bear it?"

I nodded hard.

Even braced for it, when the needle and thread passed through the skin at the back of my head, the pain left my whole body trembling.

Dr. Lambert couldn't work, so he had Brendan hold me tight.

By the time the twenty-four stitches were done, my face had no color left in it from the pain.

Dr. Lambert told Brendan, "Take good care of your wife. Don't let her step out the door and come back hurt again!"

Clifford walked in just in time to hear that.

The worry on his face vanished in an instant.

His expression black, he strode over and yanked hard at me, trying to pull me out of Brendan's arms.

But no matter how he pulled, I wouldn't budge.

Watching me cling to Brendan with everything I had, he felt a fire scorching in his chest.

"Ada, your father isn't even cold in the ground, and you've got time to throw yourself at another man? What do you take me for?!"

"Or is this your way of goading me into going back and performing the rites at your father's funeral?"