Chapter 2

Mom gave Dad a harsh smack. I intervened right away, but Mom was irrepressible. Now, she began pounding Dad in the chest.

“Where is my daughter? Where have you taken my Jillian?” she raged.

I couldn’t believe the expression on Dad’s face. He even dared to smile as if nothing had happened to him!

“Flora, lead my wife into her room,” he said to the maid, who did so without hesitation.

They forced my mom to leave the room, so I offered to escort her myself. But Dad instantly defied me since we needed to talk about something important.

I nodded awkwardly and followed him to the balcony. Once alone, I asked, “W-what do you want to talk about?”

“How are things in Korea?” he ignored my question.

“Uh, it’s alright,” I said.

He exhaled deeply. “That’s good to know.” Then, he grinned.

I didn’t know what his grin meant. It was a strange one. When he abruptly grabbed both of my hands, I was taken aback. When we had a conversation, Dad was usually formal.

“Jian, do you love us?” I could tell he was unsure.

I nodded right away. “Of course. You’re my family…”

His grasp on my hands became much tighter. “So you’re going to do me a little favor, right?”

“What favor?” I hesitated for a moment. I wasn’t sure what he would ask, but my gut was telling me I would not like it. Still, he didn’t ask me much before, so I saw no reason to refuse.

“Oh, you see… Jillian had an accident and inadvertently murdered the Howards’ heiress. The Howards are a prominent family with many ties. If they discover the tragedy, it’ll be the end of us all…”

“S-so…” I didn’t get where he was leading.

“Pretend to be her, that woman—”

“What?!” I exclaimed, my mouth gaping. I took my hands away from his grip. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Dad—”

His grin abruptly transformed into a little smirk. Was he even thinking correctly? He wanted me to impersonate the woman that Jillian murdered. What for? To deceive the Howards?

“So you’re refusing—”

“Dad, what you ask me makes no sense—”

I didn’t finish my statement when he hit me, and I immediately collapsed on the floor. He slapped me… He’d never done something like this to me before!

“How could you refuse? I am the one who feeds you! The one who paid for your school! The one who provided you with everything!” he raged.

I’d been a member of their family my entire life. It never occurred to me that he would want payment from me.

“Dad…” I said gently.

“Don’t call me that! I’ve never considered you my daughter—”

“Then why didn’t you simply return me to my actual parents the instant you found Jillian?!” I couldn’t help but close my eyes as I screamed at him.

“Parents? Don’t be ridiculous, Jian. Your life is useless! You don’t have parents, and if it weren’t for me, you could have died on the streets!”

All of a sudden, Mom entered the balcony, and Dad interrupted his fiery speech. Perhaps she heard our screams.

“What the hell, Rico?! How dare you treat her like this?!” she screamed.

Dad chuckled and gave her a menacing expression. He approached her and said, “She’s not ours, Ellen!”

I started panicking when he suddenly approached me and yanked me by my hair. My scalp was aching.

“Rico! Let her go!” my mother screamed.

I tried to remove his hand, but he was too strong. But luckily, Steven came to my rescue. He tried to yank Dad’s hand from my hair, but he was also powerless like Mom and me.

Still not releasing my hair, Dad took me down a dark corridor inside the house, with Steven and Mom trailing behind us.

“Uncle, please let go of her!” Steven said.

Dad flung me out as soon as he opened the door. I was sobbing on the floor—my scalp throbbed with pain.

“Just stay here till you change your mind!” he raged before closing the door. “I’ll tell you a secret. Your fucking mother is sick. She has leukemia! Isn’t that enough to persuade you?”

I sprang to my feet, but he had already shut the door before me. It was pitch black here! I was terrified of the dark!

“Dad, please open the door…” I couldn’t help but cry as I tried to open the door.

I could hear their receding footsteps. I cried, clutching my knees and burying my face between my legs.

Why was it necessary for everything in this world to change? Why?

They weren’t the same people I met nineteen years ago.

Back then, I was so envious when other kids were picked from the orphanage. Why weren’t they picking me?

But one day, when I was sitting lonely in the park near the orphanage, I saw a woman. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She smiled at me; she was so lovely. Her aura screamed elegance.

“Are you alone here?” she asked softly.

“Yeah,” I said flatly. “No one wants to adopt me. I’m eleven, and they say I’m too old to be adopted,” I smiled sadly.

“You have a family now,” she chuckled. “I’m going to adopt you.”

“Really?” I asked, my eyes welling up.

She gave me a beautiful smile and extended her hands to me. I embraced her wholeheartedly. I devoted my entire life to her the minute I touched her.

***

“Jian?”

I was reflecting on my past, still trying to figure out why Dad said those things earlier when I heard Steven’s feeble voice.

I put my ear to the door, hoping to hear him. “Steven, please help me…” I implored.

“I want to, but Uncle is so severe that I can’t.”

My shoulders slumped when he said that, and I helplessly leaned against the door.

“Don’t give up, Jian. I have a plan. Just wait here, and— ah, fuck!”

My eyes widened. Was he caught?

“Steven? Are you here, Steven?”

But then, I heard his relieved sigh. “Ah, Auntie, it’s you.” What was she doing here?

She asked Steven about something, and he hastily left. Then I heard her heavy sigh.

“Mom, you shouldn’t be here,” I said, exhausted. “Are you okay? You should be sleeping right now!”

“I know about his horrible favor,” Mom replied. “Sweetie, I’ve had to tell you something… You asked me about this countless times, and I never responded.”

I knew what she was up to.

“Your mother is the finest mother I’ve ever known.”

Did they meet?

“Then you…” I trailed off.

“Yes, I met her. She was the first one who approached me. At first, I was scared when she introduced herself as your mother, and I pushed her away because I thought she would take you away from me, but I was wrong. Very wrong. She wanted to work as a maid, then she promised she wouldn’t go one centimeter close to you, and she just wanted to see you grow because you were her only child. I agreed to her offer…”

At this moment, I felt tears streaming down my cheeks. “So, she stayed by my side the whole time?”

“She was there to guide you, sweetie. Even when you were still in the orphanage, she didn’t introduce herself to you because she was embarrassed by what she did when she left you—”

“If she had been there all that time, she would have known how much I needed her! Isn’t it enough for her to introduce herself to me if she had been there?”

I could hear her sniffling. “I asked the same question, but she refused to respond. I noticed you and her growing close when I hired her, and she broke her vow, so I found a way for you to detest her. I set her up in a scenario where she took my necklace—”

I started crying even more when I realized who she was talking about. “Please tell me! Tell me that what I’m thinking right now is incorrect!”

“I don’t want to lie to my daughter any longer…” She began to cry. “The person you’re thinking about is your birth mother, Jian. Sue is your birth mother…”

“Fuck! Fuck! No! No! You’re lying! Stop! Please stop! How could you do this to me?!”

She was referring to a woman who was killed eleven years ago!

I was there…

I was present when the accident occurred.