"Are you deaf?!" Beatrice snapped. "Or are you trying some new trick to ignore me? I'm talking to you, Seren! Don't make me repeat myself."
Beatrice's voice boomed again from the lobby, even though she didn't reappear. Beatrice was the type of boss whose voice alone was enough to whip Seren into shape.
"Clean the guest room on the second floor immediately! Make sure all the sheets are replaced with the finest silk. I don't want a single strand of your hair left in there. Remember, that room must be perfect for Mark's special guest later!"
Seren gasped. She carefully put down her glass, even though her head felt very heavy.
"Yes, ma'am," she replied softly, even though she knew Beatrice wouldn't care about her answer.
Seren walked toward the stairs. Each step she took felt shaky, as if the marble floor had turned into a swamp ready to swallow her. Her heart was beating irregularly—sometimes too fast that she couldn't breathe, sometimes stopping for a moment that made her dizzy.
He reached the second floor and entered the master bedroom. The room was spacious, cold, and lifeless. During their three years of marriage, this room had rarely been used. Mark spent most of his time in his study or in their master bedroom—and even then, only to sleep, without ever touching Seren.
Seren began pulling the old sheets off the king-size bed. Her strength seemed to drain away with every simple movement. Cold sweat began to pour down her back. She felt as if a thousand-ton weight was pressing down on her shoulders.
Suddenly, her ears rang. A strange rumbling sound, like waves crashing against rocks, began to fill her ears. Seren dropped the sheets she was holding and covered her ears with her hands.
"What's wrong with me..." she moaned softly.
Her vision began to blur. The colors in the room—gold, white, and brown—began to blend into a dizzying whirlpool. Amidst the sensory chaos, Seren saw her reflection in the large mirror in the corner of the room. She saw a young woman who looked withered, her eyes that once shone now dim and sunken.
The woman in the mirror looked like a stranger to her.
She remembered Beatrice's words from earlier. "Your womb is dead, Seren."
The insult hurt more than the physical pain. To the Valerius family, she was nothing more than a failed vessel. A broken machine. She was not loved for who she was, but judged by what she could produce. And because she produced nothing, she was no more valuable than the furniture in this house.
Seren reached into her apron pocket, looking for her cell phone. She wanted to call Mark. She wanted to tell her husband that she felt very unwell, that the medicine Beatrice had given her made her feel as if she had lost herself.
However, when she turned on the phone screen, a text message from Mark that had just come in shattered her intention:
"Don't bother me today. Mom has already arranged everything. Just do what she says if you still want to be recognized as a wife in this house."
Seren's tears fell silently, dampening the cold screen of her phone. Mark didn't even ask how she was after last night's incident. Mark didn't care if his wife was struggling with the pain that was crushing her chest.
Seren went back to work mechanically. She changed the pillowcase, arranged the blanket, and sprayed the room with lavender-scented air freshener, which was supposed to be soothing, but to her, the scent felt like the smell of death.
As she bent down to tidy up the corner of the sheet, a sharp pain suddenly struck her heart. The pain spread upward, choking her throat and making her lungs feel as if they had lost the ability to breathe in oxygen.
Seren staggered backward. She tried to reach for the bedpost to hold on to, but her fingers were limp. She fell and sat down on the hard marble floor.
As her consciousness began to fade, Seren heard the sound of two cars entering the driveway at the same time. The soft sound of an unfamiliar luxury sedan mingled with the roar of a delivery truck—it wasn't Mark's car. Her husband never came home this early.
Beatrice shouted from downstairs in a very enthusiastic tone—a tone she never used when talking to Seren.
"Hurry up and open the door!"
Seren tried to get up. She knew she had to go downstairs. She had to welcome the special guest that her mother-in-law was so proud of. Mark had just told her about it last night, and now the woman was already standing there. But her legs refused to move. Her head drooped to the side, and that was when she saw something under the guest bed that had been hidden all this time.
A bottle of medicine identical to the one she had just taken, but the label was torn in half. On the remaining part, there was very small handwriting, not in the medical language she knew.
Seren reached out her trembling hand, trying to grab the bottle. But just as her fingertips touched the surface of the glass bottle, the guest room door opened roughly.
Mark stood in the doorway. His face was no longer cold like the night before—there were traces of anxiety hidden beneath his anger. He saw Seren lying on the floor with her hand reaching under the bed.
"Seren! What are you doing on the floor? Mom has been looking everywhere for you!"
"Mark... you're home too?"
Mark stepped closer, but he stopped when his eyes caught sight of the medicine bottle Seren was trying to reach. Mark quickly kicked the bottle further under the bed, then grabbed Seren's arm tightly, forcing his wife to stand up.
"Don't touch anything in this room with your dirty hands!" Mark snapped. "Help your mother carry the things! Come with me now and... behave like a sane wife!"
Seren wanted to talk about the bottle, about her pain, about her vision that was starting to fade. However, Mark dragged her out of the room roughly.
Seren was forced to stand upright even though her body was at its lowest point, staring blankly at the wide-open door. However, it was not a woman who stepped inside, but two men in logistics uniforms pushing a giant electric massage chair covered in sheepskin that looked very expensive.
"Careful! Put it in the corner over there!" Beatrice shouted in a sickeningly adoring tone. She ignored Seren, who was nearly fainting. "That's a special chair for Haelyn. Her back mustn't get tired at all while she's carrying my grandchild!"
Behind the chair, there was a pile of international brand boxes containing prenatal spa equipment and a set of shiny silver cutlery under the chandelier. All of it was luxury that Seren had never experienced during her three years of service.
Mark released his grip on Seren's arm with a rough jerk, as if disgusted by having just touched his wife's cold skin.
"Hear that?" Mark whispered coldly, staring at the luxurious items below without a shred of guilt. "All of that belongs to my special woman. Since you can't give Mother what she wants, your job now is to make sure all those things are perfectly arranged in her room."
"Seren! Come down now! Bring the groceries upstairs and clean them one by one! Don't leave any of your fingerprints there!"
After giving the order, Mark and Beatrice turned and left, leaving Seren frozen in a long reverie.
After exhausting all her strength dragging those luxurious items upstairs, Seren let her trembling body collapse in the room, allowing the darkness of the night to swallow what remained of her sanity.
After a day of being forced to prepare everything for the special guests, Seren finally had time to be alone. However, that solitude did not bring her peace.
In the spacious master bathroom lined with Italian white marble, Seren stood frozen in front of the sink, staring at her reflection in the mirror. Her head throbbed, creating a painful rhythm that synchronized with her irregular heartbeat.
Suddenly, an overwhelming feeling of tightness hit her chest. It was as if a giant hand was squeezing her lungs flat. Seren bent over, her hands clenching the edges of the sink so tightly that her nails turned white.
Uhuk! Uhuk!
The cough was dry and sharp, tearing at her already sore throat. Seren covered her mouth with her palm, trying to muffle the sound so it wouldn't reach the bedroom where Mark was. But when she removed her hand, her world seemed to collapse.
On her trembling palm, a thick red stain adorned her pale skin. The liquid was warm, fishy, and thick.
Seren stared at the red liquid with a blank expression. This wasn't the first time she had coughed, but it was the first time her body had given her such a strong warning. Her heart disease—which Beatrice always referred to as acting—was actually eating away at her life.
With her hands still trembling, she turned on the faucet. Cold water flowed rapidly, washing away the red stains until they flowed down the drain. However, a cold fear now spread throughout her body. She felt that death was standing right behind her.
Click.
The bathroom door opened. Mark entered with a leisurely gait, still wearing his white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He appeared to be cleaning his expensive watch with a piece of microfiber cloth. Mark stopped right behind Seren, staring at his wife's reflection in the mirror with a very flat gaze.
"Why are you taking so long in here?" Mark asked. His tone contained no concern, only a hint of impatience. "What's that fishy smell?"
Seren quickly wiped the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand, hiding any traces of blood that might have been left behind. She turned slowly, trying to regulate her breathing so she wouldn't sound out of breath.
"Nothing, Mark. I'm just washing my face," Seren replied softly. Her voice sounded very fragile.
Mark narrowed his eyes. He smelled a sharp coppery scent in the air, but he quickly dismissed the thought. To him, Seren was a source of endless problems and complaints. Since they got married, he felt like his house had turned into a hospital because of Seren's physical condition, which always seemed weak.
"You always look sick when I'm home," Mark commented sarcastically. He returned his focus to wiping his watch. "Mom said you worked too slowly today. Even though you were just changing the sheets. Does your barren womb also make your hands paralyzed?"
Seren closed her eyes. The insult cut deeper into her heart than the physical pain. She took a step forward, approaching her husband. At this moment, she didn't need money, she didn't need status, and she didn't need this luxury. She just needed someone to reassure her that she was still alive. That she was still valuable.
"Mark..." Seren whispered.
Without warning, Seren threw herself into Mark's chest. She wrapped her thin arms around her husband's waist, resting her throbbing head on Mark's stiff shirt. She could smell Mark's expensive sandalwood perfume, a scent she had always adored as a symbol of protection.
She hugged Mark as if he were the only lifeline in the midst of a raging ocean. She wanted to cry, she wanted to tell him that she had just coughed up blood, she wanted to beg Mark to take her to a real hospital, not Beatrice's shadow hospital.
But Mark's body remained stiff. No hand returned her embrace. Not even a stroke on her head. Mark stood like an untouched ice sculpture.
"What are you doing, Seren?"
"Please... hold me for a moment, Mark," Seren sobbed into his chest. "Just for a moment. I don't feel well. My heart... my heart hurts so much."
Mark snorted roughly. He placed his watch on the sink counter with a loud clang. With a strong, emotionless movement, Mark grabbed Seren's shoulders and pushed his wife away.
The push wasn't hard, but for Seren, whose body had already lost its balance, she staggered backward until her back hit the cold marble wall.
Thud!
"Enough, Seren!" Mark said sharply. He stared at Seren with a flash of anger in his eyes. "Stop this cheap act. I'm sick of seeing you use illness as an excuse every time you want my attention."
"I'm not acting, Mark... I really—"
"Really what? Want me to carry you? Want me to cancel all my work just to sit by your bedside?" Mark interrupted with a tone full of hatred. "You know, it's behavior like this that makes me increasingly unable to stand being in the same room with you. You don't look pitiful, you look disgusting."
Mark took his watch back, put it on with a rough movement, then smoothed out his shirt, which was slightly wrinkled from Seren's earlier embrace.
"Mom was right. You're using your heart condition as a weapon to avoid your responsibilities as a wife. Haelyn, she's even pregnant and she never complains once. Meanwhile, you? You only know how to cling to me like a parasite."
Mark walked toward the bathroom door, but he paused for a moment and stared at the sink where there were still a few splashes of water mixed with a faint pink color.
"Next time, if you want to vomit or whatever, clean it up properly. I hate seeing mess in my room," Mark added coldly before stepping out and slamming the bathroom door.
Seren slumped to the cold marble floor. She clutched her chest, the pain there now feeling as if a knife were being twisted inside her heart muscle. She stared at the closed door with tears streaming down her face.
Mark didn't believe her. Mark didn't care. To Mark, the blood she was bleeding was just a mess that ruined the view.
Seren crawled toward the sink, trying to stand up again with what little strength she had left. She had to clean up the remaining water before Mark got really angry. But when she saw her reflection in the mirror again, she saw fresh blood beginning to flow from her nose.