Love Heals (the Original Work)

He understood her meaning and his lips quirked up slightly, "No, my son left them here."

Son?

For an instant, time halted, the whole world fell silent, and even the sound of the rain outside the car window disappeared. Before her eyes, she replayed the moment his lips curved in a smile—this was the first time she had seen him smile aside from when he was with patients, when he mentioned his son.

She felt as if the skin on her face had frozen, then struggled to crack a few lines across it to keep from appearing so stiff. So she smiled, and she could practically hear the sound of the ice on her skin fracturing, first a single fissure, then more, until she finally chuckled and the ice shattered, breaking into a million pieces.

"Really? How old is he?" she asked, opening a packet of cookies and offering him one first.

He shook his head to indicate he didn't want any, "Four years old."

Four years old, they had been officially divorced for five years—it really hadn't taken him long...

She maintained that same smile, "I've eaten his cookies; won't he be unhappy to find them gone next time he's in the car?"

"He won't," he replied softly, then added, "He left them here for me to eat, actually."

Well, one had to admit, he had raised a good son, who was truly considerate of his father...

She chewed the cookies slowly, using the motion to sort through her feelings, the bitterness definitely present. What was it they said about exes? Knowing you're not doing well is my solace. It's a common psychology; you're still struggling yourself, so as an ex-husband, if you remarry and have children, shouldn't people feel a bit sour?

But after the sourness faded, she thought back—what had been her reasoning when they divorced? To part ways and wish each other happiness.

Back then, that was precisely her thought. She remembered the words she said to him on the day of their divorce, in this very car: "Senior, stop feeling guilty, I've never once regretted marrying you. You always think that by marrying you, I settled for less, but you don't understand, to me, it was my way of fulfilling myself because I truly loved you! You gave me the opportunity to love you, to care for you, to cherish you, and to enjoy being with you. Now that we've reached this point, all I can say is that I've given you all the love I had. I won't be able to continue taking care of you. You need to take good care of yourself, be happy, and I will happily continue on my own path too. We both need to be well, okay?"

Nibbling on the cookie, she went through those words in her mind, one by one, until the sour and bitter feelings inside her gradually subsided.

She smiled once again, this time genuinely. The discomfort she had felt all day had simply been due to their unexpected reunion, not yet knowing how to face it.

"What are you smiling at?" he asked, catching sight of her in the rearview mirror.

She blinked away the remnants of moisture, and in the dim light inside the car, a soft glow enveloped her smile, "I'm just imagining what it's like for a little boy to call you dad."

He too, smiled faintly, "It's not bad, I'm trying my best to be a good father."

She believed he could be a good father, judging by how patiently he had treated her back then, and to see that serene smile in his everyday life was truly wonderful.

"By the way, tell me about your residency training," he changed the subject.

"Sure." Work could always clarify one's thoughts; she picked out the highlights of her surgical rotation to share, "I've been pretty lucky; my mentors have been very good to me and have let me try my hand. Especially in General Surgery, where I was allowed to serve as first assistant and to conduct some minor surgeries on my own—um, I've performed five gastrectomies as the chief surgeon, five partial thyroidectomies, and assisted in nine radical gastrectomies for gastric cancer..."