The Comments Said My Dead Officer Husband Had Returned Chapter 08

The Comments Said My Dead Officer Husband Had Returned Chapter 08

Days went by.

Elias was still a man of few words, never good at sweet talk.

But every day he came to the tailoring stand and sat for a while. Didn’t say anything. Just sat.

Ava curled up in his arms. Jayden lay across his back. He kept one hand on each of them, and with the other

hand, he handed me scissors and thread.

[A family of four. So nice.]

Several things happened during this time.

First thing.

One day, I went to the market to buy groceries and ran into the neighbor who used to spread rumors about

When she saw me, her face turned red. She lowered her head and tried to walk away.

“Joyce,” I called out.

She stopped. She wouldn’t look at me. “Mrs. Wellington, about before… I was wrong. I shouldn’t have listened

to Celeste…”

“Forget it,” I said. “What’s done is done.”

She looked up, her eyes red. “Mrs. Wellington, you’re really a good person.”

[Madeline is so gracious! All the wrongs from before, now they’ve been set right.]

Second thing.

Elias’s mother came. Divorced for years. No one had heard from her.

She found out somehow that I’d come with the kids. She traveled from her hometown and stood in front of

the tailoring stand, looking at me. “You’re Madeline?”

“Yeah.”

She looked at Ava in my arms, then at Jayden beside me. “The kids are Elias’s?”

Before I could say anything, Jayden spoke up, “Who are you?”

“I’m your grandmother.”

“I don’t have a grandmother,” Jayden said. “Mommy said my grandmother is dead.”

[Jayden is too tough! Good comeback!]

The old woman’s face turned pale at once. She opened her mouth to speak but held back her words She

glanced at me then turned and left.

[Just leaving like that without even an apology?]

I didn’t call after her.

Third thing.

The third thing happened that night when Elias showed up. He stood by the door without stepping inside.

“My mom came by?”

“Yeah.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing.”

He was quiet for a moment. “She won’t come again.”

[Did he talk some sense into his mother, or has she grown too timid to show up anymore?]

I didn’t ask.

He turned to leave.

“Elias.”

He stopped.

“What your mother did has nothing to do with you.”

He stood there for a moment. Then left.

[Madeline is comforting Elias here, isn’t she? She doesn’t want him to think she blames him.]

On Ava’s third birthday, Elias brought home a cake. It wasn’t the plain kind made in the military canteen, but one he’d fetched from the town, decorated with a tiny flower on top of the cream frosting.

Ava clapped her hands in pure delight. “Daddy! Cake!”

[Ava calls him daddy more and more naturally now.]

Jayden looked at the cake and didn’t say anything. Elias crouched down and looked at him. “I got you

something too.”

He pulled out a package from behind his back and handed it to Jayden. Jayden opened it. It was a picture

book. A new one, not the kind you buy from a secondhand stall.

Jayden looked at it for a long time. “Thank you, sir.”

[Jayden still calls him “sir”… When will he change it?]

Elias didn’t say anything. He just patted Jayden’s head.

That night, Ava fell asleep. Jayden was still awake. He sat on the bed, flipping through the picture book. Flipping for a long time.

I walked over and sat next to him. “Jayden, why don’t you call him daddy?”

He didn’t look up. “He didn’t want us before.”

“He just didn’t know before. It’s not that he didn’t want us.”

Jayden was quiet for a long time.

“So he knows now?”

“Yeah.”

Jayden was quiet a little longer. Then he closed the picture book and put it under his pillow. “Then I’ll call him

daddy tomorrow.”

[He’s gonna do it tomorrow!]

The next morning, Elias came.

He stood in the doorway, holding breakfast.

Jayden walked out of the bedroom and looked up at him. “Daddy.”

Elias froze. The breakfast almost fell out of his hands.

[Jayden said it! He finally said it! What’s Elias’s reaction?]

Elias crouched down and looked at Jayden. His eyes got red.

“Yeah,” he said.

Just one word.

[Elias just said “yeah”? Say a little more, would it kill you?]

[But his voice cracked.]

Jayden looked at him, then turned and ran back inside. “Mommy, I said it.”

[Rushing back to tell his mom, so cute.]

I looked at Elias. He was still crouched on the ground, not getting up.

“Come eat.”

He stood up and walked in.

That morning, he ate two bowls of oatmeal.

[Elias ate two bowls of oatmeal. He’s in a good mood, so his appetite is good.]