Chapter 4

Mom got up very early the morning after Christmas.

She heard the door creak and thought I had gotten up.

"Hannah, you slut, you finally got up!"

Mom turned around but didn't see me.

She walked to my bedroom door but couldn't open it.

"You dare throw a tantrum with me now? Do you know you got another person killed?"

"Did I raise you all these years just so you could seduce people!"

"If you're going to ignore me, then don't expect to eat today. Better yet, just die in your room!"

But Mom, I'm not in my room.

I died at my brother's gravestone. Will you be a little happier when you find out?

While Mom ate, I crouched beside her hugging myself.

The cemetery floor was too cold. I had been kneeling for so long that my knees were swollen.

Even though it didn't hurt now, I still wanted Mom to kiss them better.

But she was on the phone, ignoring me.

"Why do you care about her? She's been sleeping in her bedroom."

"Care about her? Do you know your precious daughter got that crazy woman's son from the next village killed!"

"Marrying you and giving birth to this slut was truly a sin!"

Ever since my brother died, Mom and Dad fought often.

But Dad was always quiet. It was basically Mom fighting with herself.

Every time they fought, she would call me a "slut."

At first I would cry and say I wasn't, but over time I got used to it.

But I really wasn't a slut. I was very good.

I didn't seduce people, and I certainly didn't harm people.

But Mom would never hear my explanations again.

Angry at me, Mom took all the birthday gifts she'd given me over the years and burned them.

That's when I finally saw the gifts Mom had given my brother.

Mom had preserved all those clothes and toys of various sizes very carefully. They were all stored in individual boxes.

Mine were just in plastic bags.

I watched Mom take out photos of my brother from when he was alive and personally burn my toys and New Year clothes.

Among them was my favorite Barbie doll.

I reached my little hand into the fire to grab it, but couldn't touch anything.

"Mom, please, don't burn my doll..."

"I know I was wrong. Hannah will listen to you from now on. I won't rip my clothes anymore. Mom, please..."

Mom threw item after item into the fire pit.

As the sparks burned, a loving expression appeared on Mom's face.

It was a tenderness I had never seen or experienced.

"Starlight, so many years have passed, and I miss you so much."

"If only you hadn't saved Hannah back then. If only she had died instead. Then you could have grown up healthy..."

My little hand hung helplessly in mid-air.

So Mom had hated me all along.

So she had always wished I had died that year instead.

Every time she called me a slut in front of others, cursed me as trash, it was from her heart, not to train me, correct me, or protect me.