Erica dissolved into tears. The pent up emotions in her heart seemed to find an outlet. Erica threw herself into her husband's arms and cried bitterly.
Matthew took off his overcoat and wrapped it around her. He inhaled her scent and kissed her long hair gently. "Honey, don't cry," he said, trying to comfort her.
'You won't die without my permission!
If the King of Hell wants you, he'll have to defeat me first!' Matthew thought to himself.
Erica didn't say anything and kept crying.
They just stood by the river, holding each other tightly. The woman choked with sobs, while the man reassuring her.
Occasionally, when someone came near, they couldn't help but take a look at them. The sadness of the two people was replaced by warmth and happiness.
Ten minutes later, Matthew suddenly said, "You still have your test results with you? Let me see them again."
With swollen red eyes, Erica took out the crumpled piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to him.
Matthew straightened the paper out so he could read it. On top it said that it was the electronic endoscopy examination report of Y City First General Hospital. He was not in a hurry to read it. Instead, he asked her a question first, "Did they give you anesthetic before the exam?"
"Anesthetic?" The woman was confused.
"Yes!"
Erica thought for a while and answered, "No." They never gave her anything for the pain, nor did they sedate her. Nothing.
Matthew held her in his arms and asked in a trembling voice, "Silly girl, why didn't you opt for the anesthetic?" Usually, these kinds of procedures involve knocking the patient out using some sort of anesthetic. A tube with a camera is inserted in the throat so the doctors can look around the stomach. It's generally painful even when sedated.
Erica didn't know what was going on. They never offered her anything. She hugged him and said sadly, "It doesn't matter. They'll have to use it when I go under the knife!"
Sighing silently, Matthew continued to read the results.
There was a long paragraph in the middle consisting professional medical instructions. He could understand most of them. "Did the doctor say how you might have developed cancer?"
The woman in his arms shook her head. "I was too sad to ask." "
Why not?" Never mind. He would take her to do the examination again. Do it right this time, ask questions. No matter what the result was, they would face it together.
Erica was still drowning in sorrow, and couldn't find a lifeline. Matthew suddenly raised his voice and said, "Erica Li!"
The atmosphere changed abruptly. Things felt different somehow.
"What?" She raised her head and looked at him, her eyes red and swollen from crying.
Matthew stood there, staring at her, a weird expression on his face. Erica couldn't describe it to save her life.
Anyway, he glanced down at the examination results in his hand, and then shifted his gaze to her again. Finally, he asked, "So your name's Erika Li now?"
Confused, Erica asked, "Are you out of your mind?" Who was she if she weren't Erica Li?
Matthew clenched his fists and closed his eyes in despair. When he opened his eyes again, he gritted his teeth and asked, "I'm out of my mind? I think that describes you better than me. How carefully did you check that report? Think hard before you answer."
The woman nodded like a chicken pecking rice. "I looked at every line. Why?" She kept reading the line "stage III cancer" over and over. It seemed like she'd read it thousands of times.
"Then why did you cry after you'd checked it so carefully?" He really wanted to strangle the woman in front of him right now.
"I have cancer! Why can't I cry? Want me to laugh instead?" She suddenly let go of the man, feeling that he was insane.
"So your name is Erika Li? When did that happen?" Since when did she change her name? Did she get Wesley's permission before doing that?
Erica was a little angry and she spat, "Are you insane?" How could he still tease her like that now she was deathly ill?
"You're not sick!"
She thought what Matthew said was a rhetorical remark, so she retorted angrily, "Maybe not! But you are! Stop it!"
Matthew was gobsmacked. He lifted the test results to eye level, pulled out his phone, and turned on the LED light. The exam report was all lit up. "Open your eyes wide and look carefully! You're not sick!"
"Are you crazy? Stop it Matthew, please. I'm not in the mood." Hands on her hips, Erica was now arguing with her husband.
Matthew was tired of going round and round. He felt she was deliberately being obtuse. He put the report in front of her eyes, pointed at the name printed on the paper and gritted his teeth. "Check it out!"
"Erika Li? So the doctor typed my name wrong. It's not my fault... Wait a minute!" Erica's eyes widened.
She grabbed the exam results and thought she finally got what he was trying to tell her. She was too excited to say much.
"I...I'm not...Erika Li. My name is Erica Li. These are not my test results!" She started laughing hysterically. She was so excited that she was about to cry.
Suppressing the complex emotions in his heart, Matthew asked her again calmly, "Look at the procedure. Did they jam a camera down your throat?"
"A camera...down my throat?" Erica silently lowered her head and took out her cell phone. She looked up what it was, checking Baidu to make sure Matthew's description was accurate.
She wiped her tears and screamed excitedly, holding Matthew in her arms. "They didn't do anything like that to me. These results aren't mine at all. I don't have cancer. Hahaha!"
Matthew rolled his eyes. After a long while, he gritted his teeth and squeezed out, "Know what I think? I think you lied to me so I'd confess to you."
He wondered how she got hold of such a thing.
"No, I didn't. I really had a stomachache when I went to the hospital. Look at you! You didn't care about me at all. And now you start flinging crazy accusations at me..." Erica's voice faded away in the man's disgusted eyes.
At last, she pulled a long face and said, "So you aren't happy that I don't have cancer?"
Seeing her like this, Matthew felt a dull pain in his temples. He picked her up and left the river bank.
In the following days, Matthew forced Erica to go to another private hospital, one owned by ZL Group. After a short exam, the doctor consulted with Matthew. "I think it was just a garden-variety stomachache. She ate a star fruit, and those things are high in acid. So it gave her a sour stomach for a few days.
She should be alright now."
In the ward
With a cold face, Matthew asked the woman in the bed who was having an infusion, "Where did you get the star fruit anyway?"
Realizing that she was in the wrong, the woman tried to make herself as small as possible. "I went to a farmer's market and bought it from an old woman..." She ate it all. It was the size of a baby's fist and tasted sweet and sour.
But it was not her fault. The old lady said the fruit was fresh.
When he heard that, Matthew was really pissed off. His tone became colder and colder. "Don't we have enough fruit at home?"
The walk-in fridge at home was always full since Erica and their four sons were living in the villa together. They had no end of food, including twenty or thirty kinds of fruits.
"All right, all right. It's all my fault. I like to eat. Don't get mad at me!" Fortunately, she got what she wanted. She was trying hard to control her emotions and stop herself from laughing out loud.
The man's sleeves were half rolled up, and he stood by the bed with his hands on his waist. It was obvious that he wanted to settle accounts with her to the end. "Seriously? You're laughing now!" he snapped.
"Can't help it. Sorry?" she said in a weak voice.
Matthew didn't know how to respond. 'What do I do? I can't stay mad at her forever. She's my wife, and I love her more than life itself!' he told himself.
"I need you to write a list of your faults. No less than a thousand words. Don't go to bed until you finish it!" he ordered.
'What?' She hadn't written something like that in more than ten years. Pitifully, she raised her left hand, which an IV needle was taped to, and said, "How about not?"