Passion and Resentment, Long After

My husband, Harry Shaw, lost his memory in a car accident. He didn't forget a single person or a single thing in his life. Except for me.
His best friend teased him, You've got some nerve. Better watch out, or you'll be the star of your own midlife crisis, begging for her back.
Harry's expression was dead serious. "Even with amnesia, I know for a fact I could never fall for a manipulative woman like her. If I really married her, it must have been a marriage of convenience."
"My type has never changed. I love women who are pure and kind."
Outside the door, I stared at the photo on my phone of Harry and a young woman named Lily kissing. I smiled.
It took an accident for me to finally hear what he truly thought.
I immediately called my lawyer. An hour later, I pushed the door open. "Here are the divorce papers. Sign them."

1
My sudden entrance froze the air in the room.
Harry's friend, Michael, coughed awkwardly, trying to smooth things over. "Eleanor, Harry's just had an accident. His head's not on straight. You know how he is. Everyone in Crestwood knows he's completely obsessed with you."
If I hadn't overheard Harry's words just moments before, I might have believed him. I might have still believed that Harry was head-over-heels in love with me.
I let out a soft, humorless laugh, but Harry cut me off. "I don't know why I supposedly loved you for the past decade, but the me of today doesn't remember loving you. I want to correct my past mistake."
His brow was furrowed, his expression grave. "Let's keep our business between us. Don't drag other people into this. They're innocent."
He looked at me as if I were some kind of monster.
I scoffed and slapped the divorce papers onto his chest. "Of course."
"Sign the papers. We'll file tomorrow."
Without looking up, Harry flipped through a couple of pages and signed his name with a flourish. "Well, that's a surprise. I'm shocked a woman like you isn't trying to take me to the cleaners."
His words stopped me in my tracks.
A woman like me? What kind of woman was that?
Before I could ask, Michael, sensing the shift in my expression, jumped in. "Hey, you two, just calm down! Isn't this a little hasty?"
"Filing for divorce tomorrow? Do you even have your marriage certificate with you?"
Michael's intention was to get us to slow down, to talk things through. But his words had the opposite effect.
Harry and I both froze, our eyes meeting for a brief, charged moment. He quickly looked away, his disgust palpable.
Harry and I were childhood sweethearts. We got married the moment we were legally able.
I still remember our wedding day: April 1st, April Fool's Day.
I had said it was an unlucky day for an anniversary and suggested we find a more auspicious date. But Harry had pouted, his face a mask of disappointment. "We promised we'd get married the day after your birthday. I can't wait another second."
He'd cajoled me, "Your birthday and our anniversary, back-to-back. Isn't that the best kind of luck? It's a gift from the heavens!" He'd even wiped away a fake tear.
After we got the certificate, Harry took eight different photos of it from every conceivable angle and posted them all online. Our friends flooded his feed, teasing him for being so smug, warning him that an April Fool's wedding might be a sham.
It was just a joke, but Harry had panicked.
He snatched the certificate from my hand, his expression deadly serious. "It's not a sham." And with a swift rip, he tore it to shreds. He grabbed my shoulders, his voice filled with righteous conviction. "Without a marriage certificate, you can never divorce me!"
The memory was so vivid I could almost see his boyish, innocent smile. But in a flash, it was replaced by the impatient, scowling face of the man before me. The handsome planes of his face were now etched with fine lines. Still handsome, but no longer the Harry I remembered.
I took a deep breath, straightened my shoulders, and walked toward him.
Under his suspicious, wary gaze, I picked up the divorce papers.
"We were so young and foolish," I said with a laugh. "Look at the trouble we've made for ourselves now."
I turned to leave. As I opened the door, I ran into Lily, who was holding a thermal lunch box.
Her tight-fitting dance leotard hugged her slender, youthful frame. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead. The moment she saw me, she flinched and bowed her head. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Shaw."
Her timid demeanor reminded me of when she first accepted my sponsorship. She was as shy as a rabbit. But I knew better now. This was no herbivore.
"Go on in," I said, my voice flat. "He's been waiting for you."
My words startled her. Her shoulders trembled.
Harry's voice, sharp and angry, cut through the air. "Eleanor! Watch your mouth!"

2
The tension that had momentarily dissipated returned, thicker than before.
I turned back, a bitter laugh escaping my lips, and met Harry's furious gaze.
"Lily is still a student. She's a very sensitive girl. Were you trying to ruin her with those words?!"
He was so angry he was struggling to breathe, his recently injured body heaving. "Can't you see she's about to cry?"
"Why are you still so malicious?"
My family, the Calloways, was a complicated one. In my younger years, I'd fought tooth and nail with my father's illegitimate son. Harry had been the one to protect me, to help me reclaim what was rightfully mine.
Back then, I had asked him if he thought I was a manipulative, wicked woman.
He'd said, "My Eleanor is just smart. Besides, I'll always be with you."
That promise of "always" had carried us through seven years of marriage. Seven years in which, due to my fragile health, we were never able to have a child of our own. He knew how much I wanted a child, so he suggested we sponsor one.
Lily was the child we sponsored together.
On paper, it was a joint act of charity, but over the years, I was the one who looked after her, who cared for her. I never imagined that when she came to Crestwood for college, she would end up in Harry's bed.
"Mrs. Shaw, I'm so sorry!" Lily's sudden apology, delivered from her knees, broke through my thoughts.
"It was my fault. I got into a fight with my roommate and I shouldn't have called Mr. Shaw to pick me up. Then he wouldn't have been in the accident."
"It's all my fault. I was being presumptuous, thinking I had a home to go to..."
As she spoke, she slapped herself, once, twice. The sight of it was too much for Harry.
"Eleanor! Stop this nonsense! Lily has a performance in two days! Help her up!" He started to get out of bed.
Lily scrambled to his side, helping him, her face streaked with tears. "Mr. Shaw, I'm so sorry..."
Their hands clasped together. Harry's eyes seemed to well up as well. "Don't cry, Lily."
When he turned to look at me again, the pain in his eyes was replaced by disgust. "The accident had nothing to do with Lily. Instead of dealing with the aftermath, you come here to harass her. You have no sense of the bigger picture. So petty!"
I had seen the surveillance footage and the dashcam video from the accident. At the moment of impact, Lily was in the passenger seat, crying and pulling Harry's hand toward her chest, whispering, "Mr. Shaw, my heart hurts."
The police officer watching the video with me had scratched his head in embarrassment, muttering something about a TV drama villain coming to life. I didn't know what "aftermath" Harry expected me to "deal with." Was I supposed to play the fool?
I scoffed. "I guess I don't have the grand perspective of Mr. Shaw's little angel."
I opened the door and kicked the lunch box Lily had dropped out of my way.
As the door closed behind me, I heard Harry's enraged shout: "Eleanor!"
Just after I left the hospital, I received a voice recording from Lily.
In the recording, I heard Harry's deep voice.
"Lily's birthday is coming up. How about Mr. Shaw buys you a house, so you'll have a home of your own?"
"Can I pick it out myself?"
Harry chuckled. "Of course. Whatever Lily likes."
"I like the villa on the west side of town. That's where I first met you."
There was a two-second pause, followed by the sound of heavy breathing and a woman's soft moan.
I slammed my phone shut.
Harry must have loved Lily so much that he had forgotten all about the other woman on the west side of town.
That was our first home, the home we still lived in. Even after I took back control of the Calloway family company and could afford any house I wanted, I never moved. Harry had once asked me why, and I told him it held our memories. He had teared up then, swearing to love me for the rest of his life.
Now, another woman was coveting that house, and all he could remember was that it was where he first met Lily.
My assistant spoke cautiously from the driver's seat. "Ms. Calloway, Mr. Shaw is only like this because of the amnesia..."
I held up a hand to silence her.
How ironic. Harry remembered everything, except how to love me.

3
The day Harry was discharged from the hospital arrived quickly.
He and Lily were laughing as she pushed his wheelchair into the living room. I was grooming my cat, Patches.
Lily's shriek startled both me and the cat.
"Eleanor, put the cat in the other room! Lily is allergic to cats."
Harry clumsily maneuvered his wheelchair to shield a pale-faced Lily.
I didn't even look up. "If she's allergic, she can leave. No one's asking her to stay."
A second later, Lily's tearful voice filled the air. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Shaw. I just saw that you weren't here to pick up Mr. Shaw, so I took it upon myself to bring him home. I overstepped."
"I'll leave right now."
Harry grabbed her wrist, his face dark. "You failed to fulfill your duties as a wife. Lily helped you, and you have the audacity to criticize her!"
"And from today on, Lily is living here. You will keep your cat under control, or you'll have me to answer to."
My hand, holding the brush, froze. I looked up at him. "Answer to you? And how will you make me answer?"
Patches had been his eighteenth birthday gift to me.
Back then, I was a Calloway in name only, treated worse than my father's illegitimate child. No one remembered my birthday. Even the maids bullied me.
Harry gave me Patches, a symbol of completeness, and told me that from then on, he and the cat would be my family. I couldn't keep a pet at the Calloway mansion, so he had taken care of him until we got married.
He should have been the one with the deeper bond with Patches, but now, the look in his eyes was ice-cold, as if he were looking at a common, annoying pest.
Harry didn't answer my question. I thought it was just an empty threat.
Until I returned from a week-long business trip and couldn't find Patches anywhere.
Lily emerged from the kitchen when she heard my voice.
She leaned in close, a smile playing on her lips. "Are you looking for that cat?" she whispered.
"Such a pity. He's dead."
The sound was soft, but the smile on her face grew wider. She played a recording.
The sound of Patches' tormented struggles filled the living room. His shrill, piercing cries made my hair stand on end, a bone-deep chill seeping into me.
"What did you do to him?"
"What did you do to him?!"
I grabbed her by the throat, my voice rising with each repetition of the question, my eyes wide with horror.
A cold voice from the top of the stairs broke the moment. "Eleanor, let her go."
"Where is Patches?"
Harry looked down at me, his expression disdainful. "He was just an animal. If he's dead, he's dead. Don't take it out on Lily."
"He caused Lily to have an allergic reaction and end up in the hospital. Death was too good for him."
He announced my cat's death with the same flat, emotionless tone he might use to comment on the weather.
"Today is Lily's birthday. Don't ruin her mood over an animal."
At the mention of Lily's birthday, a smile finally appeared on his face.
"I'm planning to transfer the deed of this house to Lily. Come upstairs and sign the papers."
He turned his wheelchair and started to leave, not giving me a second glance.
I was about to follow him, to argue, but I was stopped by Lily's scream and the sound of a slap.
When Harry turned back, he saw Lily, her cheek red and swollen, clutching her face and sobbing.
"Mrs. Shaw, I didn't want Patches to die either! You're right to hit me!"
She looked at me, tears streaming down her face. "As long as it makes you feel better, you can hit me as many times as you want!"
She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, a willing martyr.
I had to laugh. A masterclass in playing the victim.
"Eleanor, there's a limit to your antics! Do you really think you run this house?!"
The Harry who used to look at me with such tenderness, who used to believe me and defend me without question, was gone. In his place was a man whose eyes were filled with a chilling hatred, as if he wanted to tear me to pieces.
Our eyes met. I let out a cold laugh.
I turned and slapped Lily across the face.
I have never been a pushover. If I could survive the viper's nest of the Calloway family, I could certainly handle this.
"I didn't give you that first slap. But this one," I said, my voice low and dangerous, "you'd better remember it."
Smack!
"This one was from Eleanor Calloway."
Smack!
"This is my house. No one can protect you here. Not even Harry Shaw."

4
As I raised my hand for a third slap, Harry grabbed my wrist.
He shoved me back.
"Eleanor, apologize to Lily," he warned, his voice low and menacing. "Or don't expect me to show you any mercy for old times' sake."
I laughed, a wild, hysterical sound. "Old times' sake?"
"What are you going to do to me? The same thing you did to Patches?!"
Harry just shot me a look of disgust, as if to say I was being ridiculous. Then he turned to Lily, his face filled with concern, and gently examined her cheek. He blew on it softly, like he was comforting a child, whispering, "Pain, pain, go away."
The tender gesture was a cruel echo of the boy I once knew.
They left together, hand in hand. Harry didn't look at me once.
He just threw one last sentence over his shoulder. "We have twenty days left in the mandatory cooling-off period for the divorce. I don't want to see you again during that time."
I slowly sank to the floor.
My assistant rushed in to help me, but her hand came away covered in thick, sticky blood.
"Ms. Calloway! You're hurt!"
A pair of scissors from the kitchen island was embedded in my lower back.
My phone buzzed. A text message.
[Does it hurt? These are the same scissors I used to cut off that animal's tail. ;) ]
I moved out of the villa after that. I kept the scissors, a constant reminder of my hatred.
The day before the cooling-off period ended, I went to the hospital to have my dressing changed. As I was leaving, I saw Harry and Michael.
"You're not even divorced yet, and Lily is two months pregnant. This is an affair!" Michael was berating him.
Harry, however, just smiled gently. "You don't understand. Eleanor and I have reached the end of the road."
"I love Lily."
"It wasn't until I met Lily that I realized how terrifying Eleanor is." The smile on his face faded. "Her father brought his illegitimate son home, paved a golden path for him. But Eleanor managed to cripple the boy and destroy her father's reputation in the company, forcing him to step down. Now he's locked away in a mental institution where no one can see him."
"A woman that manipulative… isn't that terrifying?"
I had never hidden my methods from him. Back then, he had praised me for my intelligence. Now, he was calling me malicious.
As I was leaving the hospital, I received a text from Lily with a picture of her ultrasound.
[Harry says you're a barren hen. ~]
The next day, after Harry and I finalized the divorce, he spoke.
"Eleanor, my memory is back. But I know for sure that I don't love you anymore."
I nodded. "I know."
"You know?"
I smiled. "I also know that you never lost your memory in the first place."

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