I soon realized that his hand was still on my waist and felt my face flush with embarrassment. Marcus had caught me in time. Raising my head, I looked at Marcus and thanked him for responding so quickly.
He frowned and immediately retracted his hand. “It was nothing.” Marcus then turned to address Sharon. Coldly, he said, “Let’s go.”
Sally was not usually the type to deliberately seek out conflict, but this time, she was the one who held Sharon back. “You tripped and bumped into someone, yet you’re trying to leave without apologizing?”
Sharon was not happy, yet her arrogance remained undiminished. “Are you implying that a bunch of sl*ts like you are worthy of an apology?”
The slap that followed rang loud and clear.
Sharon looked at Sally in disbelief as she clutched her reddened cheek. “You b*tch! How dare you slap me?”
Sally tried to suppress her anger. In a low voice, she said, “Sharon, I daresay that I’ve never wronged you all these years. You, of all people, should know the exact reason why you and Benjamin drifted apart. I’ve had to swallow my anger and give in to you every step of the way, but I never did it out of fear. I did that because I pitied you. I pitied the fact that you’ve lived out half your life, yet you still don’t know what you’re living for!”
“I don’t care if you’re rude or arrogant towards me, but you shouldn’t behave that way towards a pregnant woman.” Sally pointed towards my belly and carefully enunciated each word. “You can have a tough life, but you cannot forsake your morals and your soul this way.”
“The baby in her belly is seven months old. If not for Marcus’s reflexes, you would have hurt not one but two lives. Do lives matter so little to you, Sharon? Just because your family is one of the bigshots in the city, you can now afford to be so callous about human life?”
Sally’s tone of voice was so loud that it had attracted more onlookers. Some even had their phones out to record the confrontation.
Her heartfelt words had swayed many in the crowd. Now, all the gossip was directed at Sharon.
“Tsk. It’s no wonder she was cast aside by her husband. Why would the Whites want to be associated with someone so vicious?”
“Exactly! That lady was pregnant and still, she had the audacity to act that way!”
“Good god, she’s so f*cking heartless!”
As the gossiping grew louder, some people had stopped trying to hide the fact that they were discussing the incident and instead began to berate Sharon openly.
Throughout the commotion, Marcus remained impassive and silent. As time passed, the remarks became more and more heated. Suddenly, that coldness was gone and was replaced with grim anger. Addressing the crowd directly, Marcus said, “Have you had enough excitement yet? If you had, kindly f*ck off.”
Nobody could take so much disdain and disgust from everyone else, and Sharon was no different. With the number of accusations and insults being hurled at her, she could only hide dejectedly behind Marcus. She bore none of the arrogance or swagger from earlier.
I couldn’t help but sigh. I tugged at Sally’s hand gently and said, “Let’s go, Aunt Sally. It’s getting late.”
Sally took one last look at the pair and decided that she’d had enough. “Let’s go then.”
As soon as we left the cafe, whatever desire we had to continue shopping was no longer there.
After Sally sent me back to the villa, she looked at me and exclaimed, “What a day it was! You’ve had some torture with the shopping and a proper scare. I think a good rest is in order.”
I nodded and got out of the car. “Ashton should be back by now, so why don’t you join us for dinner?”
Sally shook her head and declined politely. “I can’t. Nobody is supervising Benjamin at night, and he sometimes won’t eat properly. I have to go.”
Having heard this, I was stunned. Without saying much, I merely sent her on her way with a smile.
After she left, I lingered outside and looked at the green belt at the side of the road in a daze. Knowing that feelings and affection came in many different forms, I wondered what Benjamin and Sally had.
Soon, I received a call from Macy. “How did you find K City? Do you think you’d get used to it there?”
I glanced at the villa in front of me and took my time following the cobblestone path. “It’s alright! How are you holding up over there? And how was your checkup?”
“It’s all good. There is a hospital downtown that I’ll visit once a week.” For some reason, I could still hear the sounds of her chewing through the receiver. “I never thought my belly was that large, but I’ve recently noticed that it has gotten so much bigger! I’m guessing that I won’t be able to move around so freely in the months to come. You’re due pretty soon, right? I reckon I won’t be able to see you for a while, so you have to take care.”
“I will!” It was still early, and the villa seemed to be empty still. I found a place to sit down in the courtyard and looked around before continuing with the conversation. “When the baby comes, I’ll bring it over for a visit. You’ll be the godmother!”
Macy clicked her tongue. “Godmother? Just call me ‘mom’. It’ll be the same when I have mine as well. I’ll have the child address you as ‘mom’ too, none of that godmother nonsense.”
I could only laugh at her. “Alright, you win.”
“I think Jackson should be returning to K City in a few days. If you’re bored, maybe you can give him a call. Have a chat, go out, do something… After that incident involving his mother, I think he has been stressing over a lot of things and is likely overwhelmed too. He’s also more likely to run into the Kanes in K City, and god knows how uncomfortable he’ll feel if he saw them.”
I nodded and sighed. “I’ll call him and ask when he’ll be arriving then.”
Macy grunted in response. “By the way, please take down his new number. He’d gone ahead and changed his number during his visit to M Country and notified me about the change online.”
