Chapter 2

2

Perhaps heaven took pity on me. When I woke up, the agonizing pain was completely gone.

My body was strangely light, floating silently in midair.

I knew right away what this meant. I was dead.

A mysterious force pulled my soul through the night, guiding me straight to my mother's side.

It was already past midnight. After the ugly fight with my father, she had returned to her newly bought suburban house.

She had bought this place specifically to raise her adopted daughter, Tinsley. Though it was modest, the interior was decorated warmly.

I saw Tinsley sitting on the edge of the bed in fluffy bear pajamas. My mother, usually so proud and cold, was kneeling gently on the floor, washing the little girl's feet.

I stared in stunned silence, my spectral eyes stinging with grief.

In my memories, my mother had never washed my feet. She would fly into a rage if my fingers even brushed against her clothes.

At Grandma Evelyn's birthday dinner last year, I tripped on oversized hand-me-down shoes after Tinsley stuck her foot out.

To keep my balance, I instinctively grabbed my mother's sleeve. She shoved me away violently and struck my face with a loud slap.

She looked down at me in disgust, crushing what little dignity I had left under her heels.

"Who gave you permission to touch me? Your father sleeps around with filthy tramps every day. Who knows what kind of diseases you are carrying!"

I had stood frozen in the dining room, holding back tears.

Grandma Evelyn had sighed and gently wiped my face, telling me my mother was just a germaphobe.

Deep down, I knew that was a lie. My mother only despised me. She never pushed Tinsley away.

Even when Tinsley came inside with mud and melted chocolate all over her hands, my mother never flinched. She would gently hold Tinsley's small hands, washing away every speck of dirt with warm water.

That was a level of tenderness I had never dared to dream of.

After drying Tinsley's feet, my mother tucked her in and pulled out a worn bedtime storybook.

The pages were soft and bent from being read night after night.

While I was starving for a kind word, my mother had spent every single evening reading to Tinsley.

She read patiently for over an hour, answering every silly, childish question with endless warmth.

Watching them, my heart ached with unbearable envy.

I had spent my whole life believing my mother hated talking.

Whenever I tried to say a few extra words, she would snap at me to shut up, even threatening to sew my mouth shut with needle and thread.

Now I finally understood. She didn't hate talking. She just hated talking to me.

Once Tinsley fell asleep, my mother tied on an apron and headed into the kitchen, working quietly into the late hours.

When a delicate strawberry-frosted cake took shape on the counter, I realized it was Tinsley's birthday.

Watching my mother hang colorful banners and arrange wrapped presents, a wave of bitter sorrow washed over me.

So a birthday could actually mean homemade cake and loving gifts.

Yet I was her biological daughter.

Why was it that on my birthdays, she gave me nothing but cold glares? Why did she throw the birthday cake Grandma Evelyn bought me straight into the trash for stray dogs rather than let me take a single bite?

Simply because I carried my father's blood, she believed I was unworthy.

I didn't deserve birthdays, cake, or even the right to smile or cry.

Whenever I fell short of her impossible demands, she would strike me with a heavy iron rod until my bones cracked.

Out of the ten short years of my life, seven of them were spent under that brutal shadow.