“The old lady smiled as she received the money, but then spat on her hand in disgust. She counted the bills carefully three times to make sure the amount was correct before wrapping them up in a vintage floral handkerchief and tucking it into her coat pocket.
As soon as she left, George slammed the rusty door shut with a loud bang with an unmistakable air of anger. Sean glanced at his parents and suddenly understood something, sighing quietly without leaving any trace.
They had just moved into their new home and there were still many things to sort out and buy anew. The walls would get damp in winter so they needed to clean off the moss; there were also some disgusting yellow puddles on the floor that looked like they could have been caused by human or feline urine – either way, Malaya almost threw up at the sight of it when she caught a whiff of its pungent odor.
Although their two-bedroom apartment wasn’t small by any means, it was so empty that there was only one bed inside without even a sofa for them to sit on. They would have to spend money buying new furniture, which made George feel extremely anxious whenever he thought about it.
He looked up at his son who now towered over him by half a head’s length with some resentment building inside him. His impatient lips felt dry as he spoke hesitantly in an unsteady voice, “Why don’t you quit school, Sean? You can help out around here instead.”
Malaya immediately shouted him down, “Absolutely not! Sean is our family’s hope – we can’t let poverty ruin our child’s future! He must continue his education no matter what!”
But George knew full well that their son had no talent for studying whatsoever. In previous classrooms where only thirty students attended class together with Sean, he always ranked near last place.
If not for those bribes though, Sean wouldn’t even be able to enter through school gates based solely on academic merit alone! As for taking over his father’s business someday? Forget about it – Sean couldn’t even tell cost from profit margins, let alone run anything himself! Oh wait… George didn’t even have any business left anymore anyway…
So if he wanted to earn money now, then manual labor seemed like his only option! He tried hard persuading Malaya into giving up this idea of letting their son continue schooling.:
“But our family’s situation right now is so difficult that we can’t even afford the money for a school uniform, let alone anything else.”
Sean was attending a private elite school where even one school uniform cost over ten thousand dollars. They couldn’t afford it.
Malaya had given up on Nora completely. That ungrateful girl didn’t appreciate anything they did for her.
“Maybe we could use the money we saved for Nora’s dowry in the foreign bank account to pay for Sean’s education,” Malaya suggested.
Sean knew his own worth and wasn’t particularly interested in studying either way. He was about to agree with his father when he heard his mother speak up and was shocked by what she said.
“We have money overseas?” he exclaimed loudly enough that Malaya immediately stepped forward and covered his mouth with her hand, afraid someone might be eavesdropping from outside the walls.
“Hush… lower your voice,” she whispered as she looked around to make sure no one was listening before explaining everything to them both in hushed tones.
“Yes, there is some money. I saved it from selling Cheyenne’s mother’s jewelry. Since it had markings on it that made people here too scared to buy it, the bank advised me to sell it abroad instead so I entrusted my brother who lives there with selling it off to an aristocrat from Europe.”
“That money has been sitting in an overseas bank under my brother’s name for almost ten years now and has earned quite a bit of interest.”
“I planned on using this as Nora’s dowry but since she has disappointed me so much lately, I’ve decided instead to take out this money early and give it all towards Sean.”
They still had some hidden wealth!
This news felt like timely rain falling down upon them while they were stranded within the desert of poverty all along! After days of worrying about how they’d manage financially, Sean smiled again after hearing this news!
The jewelry left behind by Selah must be worth quite a lot. Even if only one million dollars were saved away back then, interest alone would still amount significantly! And now he wouldn’t need to drop out anymore!
However, George couldn’t help but feel wary towards Malaya after hearing all this sudden good fortune being revealed…
After all these years of marriage, she had hidden such a large sum of money from him without him noticing. How many more secrets was she keeping from him? George felt deceived and unhappy as he asked her, “Did you really sell that jewelry set?”
“You even put the money in your older brother’s name. Are you afraid I’ll find out?”
“We’re family. I trusted you with everything before, and yet you still did this.”
But Malaya didn’t feel guilty at all; instead, she replied smugly, “If I hadn’t been selfish and sold that jewelry set back then, do you think we’d be living so comfortably now?”
“Don’t give me any high-minded reasons. You also bought a $30 million villa for Jane behind my back,” Malaya said.
“Now look what happened: the villa is hers now. Did she even leave a doghouse for you? At least my money was for our child’s future. What about yours?”
Malaya started crying in sadness and frustration while punching George’s shoulder with her fist. “You go get that villa back! I don’t want to live in this dump!”
George rubbed his temples irritably as if his head was about to explode.
He had put the villa under Jane’s name when he heard she was pregnant; he even signed over the ownership contract to her.
Now it seemed impossible to get it back since there was no way Jane would willingly give it up.
Just thinking about that despicable woman made him want to kill her and drink her blood!
Suddenly there came a faint sound from outside the door which caught Malaya’s attention; she stopped throwing tantrums and turned nervously towards it.
“Who is it?”
“I’ll go check,” Sean said as he walked towards the door. When he opened it, his body shuddered at seeing that face full of cold mockery staring right at him.