"Babe, can I use your laptop? I got a message from our photographer—he said our wedding pictures are up on their website now. I want to download some to your laptop," Jennifer calls from the living room while I'm in the kitchen.
"Sure, Babe. The password's the same—ASCII of your name," I reply, still focused on drizzling ketchup over my pan and stirring what's in it.
"Where should I save them?" she asks again.
"Just create a new folder in Downloads," I say, transferring the freshly cooked fried rice onto a plate.
After grabbing a glass of pregnancy milk for Jennifer, I head into the living room and sit beside her.
"Your milk, Babe," I say, handing her the glass.
"Thanks, Babe," she murmurs, sipping it without taking her eyes off the screen.
"You look so handsome in a suit," Jennifer says after a moment.
"Hey… are you saying I'm not handsome now?" I tease her.
Jennifer just giggles and leans her head against my shoulder.
"What's that?" she asks, eyes lighting up when she spots the plate in my hand.
"Haven't you already had dinner?" I ask, playfully keeping the plate out of her reach.
"But… I just want a taste…" she pouts and clings to my arm. "Please… just a spoonful," she pleads.
I can't help but laugh. Now that she's entered her third trimester, her appetite has skyrocketed. She eats six to seven times a day. Just earlier, she polished off almost an entire portion of Pad Thai that was meant for two—hence, why I made fried rice for myself. And yet, here she is, eyeing my food again.
Of course, I end up feeding her a spoonful.
"Mmm… that's so good…" she moans, closing her eyes as she savors the bite.
"I'll make it for you tomorrow for breakfast," I promise.
Jennifer grins. "You're my ideal husband," she says, then pecks my oily lips. I chuckle and take a bite myself.
"Are the pictures good?" I ask.
Jennifer nods. "Yeah. I love the candid ones," she says, chuckling as she points to the screen. "Look how tense you were!"
I lean in to see—a close-up of me, about to say my vows. Jennifer clicks the next button and laughs again.
"I'm such a crybaby," she says at the image of her wiping away tears.
"My favorite crybaby," I reply, kissing her lips. "Especially when you're crying during our lovemaking," I whisper seductively in her ear.
Jennifer blushes and pinches my thigh. "Don't tease yourself. You know we can't do it now," she says, a bit sadly.
A few days ago, she found a spot of blood in her underwear, and we rushed to see Dr. Denver. He advised us to reduce our intimacy to a minimum for now. The news hit Jennifer hard.
I laugh softly and kiss her forehead. "I don't mind celibating for the sake of our baby," I tell her gently.
Jennifer nods. "Yes. As long as she's healthy."
I wrap my arm around her shoulders and give her a gentle squeeze. While I finish my fried rice, we continue browsing through our wedding photos together. Every now and then, Jennifer saves one she likes onto the laptop.
Once we're done, I head back to the kitchen to put my plate in the dishwasher.
"Babe… how do you have these?" Jennifer calls out as I'm walking back into the living room.
"What are those?" I ask, curious.
"These," she says, lifting the laptop to show me the screen.
"Ah… those are pictures I saved from your dad's CDs," I say when I recognize them.
"Daddy's CDs?" she repeats.
"Don't you remember? We found 48 CDs in your father's safety box. I bought a CD reader to check them. Turned out, there were thousands of random pictures stored inside," I remind her as I sit beside her again. "I suspected they were hiding a secret message from your father, so I built a program to decrypt them. But the program needs original versions of the images to compare with the altered ones. And I've got no idea where to find the originals."
Jennifer stares at me, eyes wide and mouth slightly open in surprise.
"You won't believe me… but I know where the original pictures are," she says.
-
By 10 AM the next day, we are already on the terrace of Jennifer's parents' house in City M. She told me the pictures on the CDs were part of her mother's collection. Mrs. McCourtney loved photography. She had taken hundreds of thousands of pictures of random places, objects, and people using her analog camera. She was so passionate about it that she even had her own darkroom in the basement.
As soon as we step inside the house, Jennifer leads me downstairs.
The basement is more than just a darkroom—it's a personal gallery. Framed photographs line the walls, and as I scan them, I recognize some that are identical to the ones stored in the CDs.
"These are only a small part of her collection," Jennifer says, gesturing to the displayed photos. "Most of them are kept in photo albums on that bookshelf."
She walks over to an old wooden bookshelf, opens a drawer, and pulls out a photo album before handing it to me.
The moment I open it, I recognize the pictures immediately.
"How many albums are there?" I ask, my excitement growing.
"Hundreds… maybe close to a thousand," Jennifer replies. She chuckles when she sees my eyes practically sparkling like a kid opening his Christmas presents.
Of course, scanning and sorting through all these pictures is a tedious, time-consuming task. Before I can compare them with the images on my laptop using the program I wrote, I have to be meticulous.
At first, the output is a massive disappointment.
All I get is a sequence of numbers. No words. No images. Just numbers that make no sense.
Frustrated, I finally call Thief for help in decrypting the code.
Less than half an hour after I send her two matching pictures, she calls me back.
"You figured it out already?" I ask, my voice laced with desperation.
She laughs at my tone. "I barely had to do anything. I just translated the numbers into letters."
"What? That easy?" I ask in disbelief.
"Yup. Each number is just an ASCII representation of a character. You just need to add 50 to each value to get the correct letters," she explains.
I thank her and hang up.
Excitedly, I tweak my program slightly and run the decryption process with the first set of images. Then, I call Jennifer over so we can read the output together.
As the message appears on the screen, my breath catches in my throat.
"Dear Sophia and Jennifer, the loves of my life,
First of all, congratulations on making it this far. If you're reading this, it means you've cracked the code. I hope the one who figured it out is Jenny's man. But if not, that's okay, Baby. I trust that you'll find the best man for you.
Secondly, I need to apologize—to both of you, but especially to you, Sophia, my love.
I'm sorry I have lied to you all this time…"