The Substitute Bride

Sheryl held Charles' foot in her hands, gently massaging it while she kept talking to him. Although Charles did not respond to her, she spoke to him as if he was awake and relaxing with his eyes closed.

"Charles, I know you miss the kids very much. They miss you too. They ask me all the time when you will come to see them. I lie to them that you are on a business trip. When you come back from the trip, you will bring them a lot of presents. Charles, are you listening to me? Let's buy gifts for them when you wake up. Okay?" Sheryl moved her hands slowly up Charles' leg, applying slow and soft pressure as she massaged him. She wanted to press a little further, but since there was a monitor there, she stopped and continued to press on the other leg.

Sheryl's eyes were fixed on her hands, and how they moved, to give a relaxing massage to Charles' legs. As a result, she was completely oblivious about Charles' instinctive reaction.

By the time, Sheryl reached the other foot, Charles' breath became a little heavier.

Sheryl's hands started moving up slowly, pressing softly and moving back and forth around his calf muscles. Drops of sweat started appearing on Charles' forehead. Sheryl did not take notice of that. She just focused on massaging. And she kept talking. She told him about Melissa and the kids, and many other things related to their family. Then all of a sudden, her monologue was interrupted as her mobile phone started ringing inside her pocket.

She took out the phone from her pocket immediately and, tapping on it, muted the sound. She glanced over at Charles' face to check if the sound of her phone disturbed him. Every time she entered the ward, she took particular care to switch the phone off to make sure not to disturb Charles' rest.

Sheryl was rather startled to get a call at this time. She looked at the screen and found…

it was a call from Melissa.

"Mom, what's up?" Sheryl asked in a suppressed voice, cautious not to make noise in the ICU.

She cast a glance at Charles and found that he was resting in his undeterred and long sleep.

"Sher, Clark is missing from the kindergarten. Just now, Nancy was about to pick up the children when I received a call from the teacher saying that Clark had suddenly gone missing." Melissa's voice was trembling as she spoke over the phone.

Sheryl was dumbfounded for a moment. She couldn't believe what she had heard. How could Clark go missing?

She gathered herself an

the video surveillance room is running normally, but in fact, it might have been altered deliberately by someone."

"Mrs. Lu, I don't know much about what you said. Maybe I can ask an expert to check it. But it still needs some time. My suggestion is that we should call the police as soon as possible and report about the incident." The principal thought for a while and came up with a proper suggestion.

Sheryl agreed with him. Earlier she was worried that the kindergarten would prevent the parents from calling the police for the sake of its reputation. However, now it seemed that the principal was a reasonable person and wanted to cooperate with them wholeheartedly.

"Okay, I'll just call the police." Sheryl immediately took out her phone and dialed 911.

Ten minutes later, two policemen reached the kindergarten.

Sheryl and the principal helped the police to get a detailed record. The police left after assuring them that they would follow up with the case as soon as possible.

Sheryl was anxious, but Melissa was more anxious than her. So she had to comfort Melissa first.

At the moment, the one thing that crossed her mind was that if someone could hold her tightly to give her the courage she needed. She badly needed someone to give her a shoulder to lean on. A familiar face flashed in her mind. That was the face of the person who epitomized support and security for Sheryl. But at the moment, that person was still lying on the hospital bed, unconscious.

Sheryl was on the verge of collapsing. But she knew that she had to remain strong. She held Shirley's hand and Melissa's arm and walked towards their home.