Charging My Wife by the Hour Chapter 09
After the routine checkup was over, I flew back to the north with Victor once again. Victor was discovered to have an extraordinary talent for painting. Hence, I hired a teacher to nurture his skills.
I collected every single one of his artworks and carefully preserved them. I even registered a social media account just for him and uploaded scanned copies of his paintings. Before long, he accumulated quite a
number of followers.
When Victor was 13, he had already achieved a certain level of fame. I organized an art exhibition for him back home. To my surprise, the number of visitors at the venue far surpassed all my expectations.
After that exhibition, Victor’s confidence soared, and inspiration came to him endlessly. His paintings also began fetching high prices online.
He urged me to put his earlier paintings up for sale. I refused, but I did not stop him from selling his
newer works.
When Victor turned 17, he went viral again because of the sale price of one of his paintings. I took him back home and opened an art gallery for him so that even if he no longer wanted to paint in the future, he would still have another path to take.
Riding on the wave of his fame, Victor began to hold art exhibitions frequently.
One day, while he was helping a fan look for a lost bag, he suddenly pointed at a figure on the surveillance footage and said, “Dad, this person comes the earliest every day and leaves the latest. But she never comes to ask me for a photo or an autograph. What is she trying to do? She can’t be here to steal a painting, right?”
As I looked at that blurry figure on the footage, my chest tightened. We hadn’t seen each other in over a decade, but I never expected that I could still recognize her at a single glance.
I smiled. “Maybe she’s just an older die-hard fan of yours.”
Victor looked rather pleased with himself. “Perhaps she’s that mysterious buyer who keeps purchasing my paintings at those insanely high prices! Honestly, I really have to thank them. I mean, I know I’m good, but I’m not oblivious; there’s no way my early work should have sold for that much.
“Some even claim I hired someone to hype me up. It would be nice if that mysterious buyer could come forward and vouch for me to prove we have nothing to do with each other.”
I instantly became nervous, and a bad feeling rose in my chest. “You’re not thinking of contacting this buyer, are you?”
Victor shook his head. “If she wanted to contact me, she would have done so a long time ago. Besides, art needs a little bit of mystery.”
Another decade flew by. Victor wasn’t creating new work as often anymore, and he held far fewer exhibitions as well. He began to shift his focus toward art appraisal and collecting. Yet, one day, he received a strange commission.
He came to find me, holding up the transaction notification. “Dad, the amount this person sent is so specific. Besides, if a painting actually has collectible value, I should be the one paying. Plus, my usual booking fee isn’t anywhere near this high. It’s so weird.
“If my schedule isn’t completely packed that day, I might go check it out. But honestly, I’m kind of scared it’s a scam. You don’t think they’d kidnap me, do you?”
The bad feeling in my chest grew stronger and stronger. Victor ended up refunding that sum of money.
That very afternoon, I received a phone call. The person on the other end spoke very politely. “Hello, am I speaking to Mr. Carrington?”
I didn’t make a sound until the voice on the other end continued, “I’m Ms. Crowell’s assistant. She’s
currently battling terminal cancer, and she hopes to see you and Victor one last time.”
In the end, I went alone. When I arrived at the door, Vivian’s assistant politely stepped out.
The emaciated figure on the hospital bed lit up the instant her eyes met mine. Summoning every ounce of her remaining strength, she strained to look past my shoulder.
I closed the door behind me. “Victor returned your deposit. He isn’t coming.”
The light in her eyes completely died out. “Vincent… I’m sorry.”
I looked around her room. It was filled with Victor’s paintings from recent years. Sure enough, she was
that buyer.
On the wall right opposite her sickbed hung Victor’s earliest painting, titled Home. There were only two people in the painting-Victor and me.
However, right next to his left side, there was an empty space. That was exactly where Vivian should have been; it was the spot she used to hold in the family portrait back in our foyer.
Without saying a word, I left a recent photo of Victor by her bedside. I heard that Vivian breathed her last that very night after I left. In the end, she passed away with a smile on her face, with Victor’s photograph pressed tightly against her chest.
All of her remaining assets were donated to help families of children with heart disease. I turned off the news and smiled as I listened to Victor share his recent adventures. All the love and hatred I held for Vivian had long been washed away by the passage of time.
