Chapter 140: EX 140. Alone
Luke stared at his wife like she’d turned into a stranger right before his eyes. His jaw tightened, voice low and hoarse, as he repeated, "Sandra... what did you do?"
Sandra’s lips quivered. Her shoulders shook as she tried to breathe through the sobs. A hiccup escaped, sharp and ugly, and then another. Tears ran unchecked down her cheeks, and in that moment, it was painfully clear where Eden had inherited his fragility, his helpless, and a soft heart.
"I—I thought it would help him..." she choked, words catching on every syllable. "I didn’t know... I didn’t think it would lead to this."
Luke’s eyes darkened. His voice, once controlled, cracked like thunder.
"Woman!" he snapped. "Tell me what you did!"
The sharpness in his tone made Sandra flinch, like a child struck by lightning. He had never raised his voice at her, not once. Luke had always been patient, calm, warm. The kind of man who kissed her forehead after long days and treated her and Rebecca as his own. But this wasn’t a normal day. And what she had done wasn’t something love could cushion.
Still, she didn’t blame him. She couldn’t. She had made a choice, and now their son was the one lying unconscious.
’Let all the blame fall on me,’ Sandra thought, swallowing hard. ’Not him. Never him.’
’But how would Luke bear it, knowing the son he’d praised as a prodigy had never lived up to the legend in his mind? Knowing that pride had been built on a lie?’
She wiped at her eyes, drew a shaky breath, and finally forced the words out.
"I... I altered our son’s memory."
The words landed like a blade driven into silence. The clinic room froze.