I was a middle child, the black sheep of the family, the unloved one, the loser, the unwanted child, you named it. So, it was not so strange that when I died no one in my family cared about losing me. In fact, deep down, I suspect, that they were actually relieved I had died.
The day that I died was the day when I went home to celebrate The Day of the Death Festival. I was supposed to enjoy the festive atmosphere of the festival with my family, instead, I was burned to death in the old family mansion.
In that final moment of my life, when I arrived at the afterlife, the King of Hell came to see me and made me an offer I could not reject. He wanted to play a game with me.
He said that if I could collect the tears of my closest family members within a month, he would allow me to return to life. However, if I failed, I had to meet the consequences which was for my soul to be scattered and lost forever.
Although there was some doubt in my heart, I thought it would be an easy task to do, so I agreed. He then gave me a pouch to collect the tears of my next of kin. So, I put the pouch across my chest and headed back home. Ready to collect the tears. After all, I just died, okay? Surely, collecting tears from my family members would be easy, right?
However, when my spirit finally drifted back to my family, I found out that there was not a trace of sadness on their faces. They even lived their life as usual as before. In fact, they looked happier.
My sister sent a message to my boyfriend, "Andrea is dead. Now we can finally be together without worry that she will know and make a fuss about this. There is no one that will hinder our love anymore.”
My brother told his friend, “Let's get online and play. Who cares if that unlucky thing died? Ranking up is way more important than to care about her. Let's play!”
My father grumbled at my mother, “This useless girl. If she had to die, couldn't she have picked somewhere else? Why did she have to burn down our old mansion? That building is still nice.”
And my mother, while calmly comforting him, said, “Oh, cheer up, Dear! Don’t you think this is the best outcome? Now, we don’t have to hang our heads in shame because of her disgraceful job. They won't tease up anymore.”
Then I realized that I had made a wrong move. I was too delusional and naive. The task that I originally thought was so easy, was in fact the hardest one. I could not stop myself but to curse, "Damn … how could I forget? I was too careless!"
My family had never loved me. In fact, I was a stranger in their eyes!
——
For as long as I could remember, I knew I did not belong in this family. I felt that I was the odd one there. No one wanted me to be included in anything. They did not care about my well-being or needs.
Maybe it was usual that in a family of three children, the middle child would always get overlooked. I always felt I was a stranger in my own family.
I remembered an incident when we all went to the amusement park as a family of five. At that time, my father carried my sister and my mother held my brother. Meanwhile, I walked behind them. My parents only urged me to keep up with them.
This situation was used by a human trafficker who had been watching us from the shadows. He managed to grab me, cover my mouth and take me away.
If it weren't for our neighbor, Aunt Wanda and her family coincidentally bumping into us at the park entrance, I would be taken somewhere else. Aunt Wanda and her family immediately freed me and took me to my family.
Even after that terrifying ordeal, my parents still did not care. They only scolded and beat me for not keeping up with them. Meanwhile, my sister and brother laughed at my misfortune and no one offered me any comfort.
At six years old, I remember thinking that maybe it would have been better if the trafficker had taken me away at that time.
This was how my life had been for the next twenty-five years.
Then, when I graduated from college, I took a job as a mortician and things had finally changed. They decided to kick me out of the house.
The first day my mother found out I worked as a mortician, she immediately called me. She demanded me to quit my job.
In the background, I could hear my father yell furiously, "I don't have an unlucky daughter like her!"
My brother texted me, "Andrea, you're disgusting,"
And, did you want to know my darling sister's reaction?
She put on her usual performance, pretending to be a thoughtful sister. “Mom, Dad, don’t be upset. It just shows how skilled she is! Imagine, even those mangled, torn-apart corpses are made whole under her hands. People in the village will probably praise us for having such a talented college graduate in the family.”
My mom and dad were prideful people. They were obsessed with how the people perceived them. They were especially terrified and hated to become the village's object of gossip. Having a daughter who became a mortician would not make them the envy of the villagers, instead, my whole family would be criticized by them.
And, so my sister's words had successfully had the desired effect.
On the other end of the line, they cursed me out for what felt like an eternity. Their final words echoed, “If you don’t quit, don’t even think about coming home!”
That’s my family for you.
I had wondered countless times that if I died one day would they actually grieve for me?
However, when I looked at them standing at the scene of my death, the answer was obvious.
This was the first of my death. No one in my family had shed a single tear.
The tears I had collected were zero. Days remaining to gather tears was twenty-nine.
Chapter 2The fire that had consumed my body brought everyone in the village together. It did not take long for them to find my body. When they discovered my remains, they had become charred, blackened and shriveled.
Seeing my pitiful state after death, a few of the aunties from neighboring homes, who had watched me grow up, couldn't bear it. Tears welled up in their eyes.
“What a shame. She is such a good girl and now she's just gone.”
“I heard she worked as a mortician in the city. Honestly, it's no wonder something bad happened. People who deal with dead people all the time will take the dead people's bad luck.”
…
The crowd buzzed with whispers, many of them filled with disdain for the work I had chosen.
My parents clearly heard the murmurs. Their faces darkened with anger and shame.
My father spat on the ground, then turned to my mother and complained to her, “What a cursed girl, even in death she brings shame to us.”
At that moment, Aunt Wanda couldn’t stand it any longer. As she wiped away her tears, she stepped forward and said, “Andrea is gone now. Let's watch our tongues,” she said. Her voice was trembling with sorrow.
She then turned to my father, her expression turned softened, but firm. “Mr. Adam Lopez, look at her … she didn’t leave in a dignified way. I’ve heard morticians can do wonders. They can repair bodies damaged by accidents so the deceased can leave this world with dignity. Shouldn’t we do the same for Andrea?”
Warmth filled my heart when I heard Aunt Wanda’s words.
Throughout the cold, lonely years of my twenty-seven years of life, she was the only one who ever made me feel cared for. She was more like family than my family ever was.
When my parents bought cotton candy for my sister and brother but forgot to buy it for me, Aunt Wanda handed me the one she bought for her daughter.
When my sister secretly slandered me and made the other children refuse to play with me, Aunt Wanda invited me to her house to play with her daughter.
When my brother pushed me and made me suffer some injuries, my parents turned a blind eye, it was Aunt Wanda who took me to her house and tended my wounds.
I never imagined that, even after I died, she would still be the only one who cared about giving me some dignity.
However, my father, as if he had just heard a joke, scoffed, “It’s enough if I buy her an urn to put her ashes in. Why would we hire a mortician? Wasn’t she one herself? If she thought she didn’t die with dignity, she can get up and fix herself.”
His harsh words hung in the air. Aunt Wanda, her face clouded with sadness, said nothing more. She cast one last glance at my body before shaking her head and walking away.
Only I, who was standing silently behind, could hear her whisper, “Poor girl.…”
Chapter 3Yes, I really was a poor girl.
The morning after my death, my sister and brother left for the city at the break of dawn.
My mother, as if it were a trivial task, found an old, torn mat from the neighbor’s chicken coop, wrapped my body in it and tossed it aside without a second thought.
My father, too worried I would dirty his beloved car, rented a beat-up truck instead. Together, they roughly threw me onto the back of that broken-down vehicle and swiftly drove me to the crematorium.
They did not even bother buying a proper urn. My ashes were carelessly stuffed into an old plastic container they had emptied of sweet potato starch. They didn’t even clean it.
If you looked closely, you could still see traces of white starch mixed in with my ashes.
And yet, my parents still felt I had wasted their time. To them, I had always been someone who did not matter.
I could never understand the reason, despite being their child, I was treated so differently from my sister and brother.
I had even suspected, at times, that I wasn’t their biological daughter. So much so, that I secretly had a DNA test done behind their backs, I was hoping I was not their biological child.
The day I received the results, I actually wished I was not related to them by blood. I thought maybe that would help me find peace.
However, when I saw the words “Confirmed biological relationship,” all my hopes shattered.
Ironically, on a quiet night not long after, I overheard my parents talking and learned the real truth, that it was my sister who was the one who had been adopted.
At that time my parents had not had a child even though they had been married for so many years. Finally, they decided to adopt a girl in hopes of "summoning" a younger brother. That’s how my sister came to our family.
After my sister arrived, my father’s business flourished. We soon became the first family in the village to have a fortune of fifteen hundred dollars
My father believed my sister was his lucky charm. Because of that, he showered her with endless love and attention.
And my sister did not disappoint them. Soon after, my parents were expecting their first biological child. The shady clinic they visited assured them that this time it would definitely be a boy.
They were overjoyed and dreamed day and night of their son's arrival. However, the boy they were promised turned out to be me instead.
To make things worse, on the day I was born, my father suffered a major financial loss.
The double blow led to me being labeled a “misfortune” from the moment I entered the world. From then on, I was the unwanted child, unloved and unnoticed.
Seeing how my family handled my death, I lost any desire to come back to life. What was the point? No one cared when I was alive and no one cared now that I was gone. I might as well disappear completely.
However, the King of Hell had other plans. A restriction was placed on my soul. Until the game was over, for the next seven days, I would be confined to a fifty-meter radius around my closest relatives. I couldn’t leave, no matter how much I wanted to.
This was the second day of my death. I had witnessed my hasty cremation and was still waiting for a single tear to be shed in my honor. So far, I have collected zero tears.
Twenty-eight more days until this game ended.
Chapter 4After they returned from the crematorium, my mother and father spent the rest of the day meticulously searching through the rubble of the old house that had burned down, looking for something to salvage.
Then, after they finished, they acted as if nothing had happened. They left the house and went to the next-door neighbor to play chess.
On the morning of the third day, I followed them back to our home in town.
When they arrived and opened the door, I immediately saw my boyfriend, Peter Warren sitting on the couch with his hand wrapped around my sister’s shoulder. They looked so harmonious sitting there.
I was appalled by their audacity. I wondered when all of these had started. How long had they been together? I had not even noticed the signs.
Judging by the way they were so relax, I supposed my death had lifted the burden of secrecy from them and now they could openly flaunt their affair.
Yet surely, when my parents saw Peter, their daughter’s boyfriend, in a relationship with both sisters, they would be outraged, right?
As I thought this, I was immediately slapped hard in the face by reality.
"Peter, you're here!" My mother beamed. Her face lighted up with a happy smile. "You and Isabella sit tight. You stay here for lunch, okay? I'll have your uncle buy your favorite dishes and Auntie will cook for you."
When my father heard that, he immediately hopped onto his electric scooter, ready to head out to buy the groceries.
“Dad, don’t mess up the order this time!” My sister, Isabella, called out from behind him as he rode the bike.
“Don’t worry, Isabella. Peter has been coming here enough times. How could I forget what he likes to eat?” my father responded confidently.
Just then, my younger brother, Carlos Lopez, walked in from outside. In his hand, he was holding a basketball. When he saw Peter, he eagerly approached him.
"Brother-in-law! You're here! Thanks for the sneakers you had my sister give me. I love them!”
The moment those words "Brother-in-law" came out so easily of his mouth, I finally understood. He was addressing Peter as Isabella’s boyfriend. He had never once called Peter that while we were together. For him, I was the mistress.
In fact, he had never even called me “sister.” Growing up, he only referred to me by my full name, without any hint of sibling affection.
It was now clear to me that my own parents and dear younger brother had known about Peter’s two-timing me all along.
The most laughable part? They had willingly disregarded me, his rightful girlfriend, as if I had never existed.
However, it all made sense I suppose. After all, the moment they discovered Peter came from a wealthy family, they did not hesitate to tell me that I was not the right woman for him. I did not have the profile of a rich man’s woman. According to them, my older sister was worthier than me.
Chapter 5After exchanging pleasantries in the living room, my older sister led Peter into her bedroom. The same bedroom had once been mine.
When I left for college, my sister complained to our parents that her room was too small. My father, ever indulgent of her whims, immediately knocked down the wall between our rooms to give her the combined space she wanted. He did not even consider to ask for my opinion.
He then shoved all my belongings into the storage room.
At that moment, in the place where I once slept, they eagerly tumbled into each other’s arms and started to kiss.
I had no choice but to become a witness to this live display of betrayal.
Afterward, my sister lay on Peter’s chest and with her soft and sweet voice, she asked, "Peter, are you sad that Andrea died?"
"Sad, why do I feel sad? Dear Isabella, what are you talking about? Who would care about that kind of woman? She is a slut! Get real." Peter scoffed, his tone dripping with disdain. "I'm so thankful, Carlos told me what kind of woman, she really was. Otherwise, I’d have been fooled by that woman who would sleep with anyone for the rest of my life."
Ha, it seemed my sister had used the same old trick again. Well, a tiger never changed its stripes. She had always been so skilled at slandering me behind my back.
Ever since I was a child, if any boy showed interest in me, my brother, under my sister’s direction, would spread rumors about me. He would tell them I had a messy personal life, that I always hung out with questionable guys and that I had long since lost my innocence. The slanders were so believable that whether they wanted or not, they finally believed the accusation.
Thanks to their meticulous slander, I became notorious for being a “bad girl.” No one wanted to be friends with me and I was left to navigate life on my own. I became an outsider and a freak.
Of course, this reputation attracted unwanted attention from boys with ill intentions. So, I had to be cautious everywhere.
Meanwhile, those who had once shown kindness to me quickly fell for my sister’s charms and inevitably they ended up wrapped around her finger.
All of these kept on happening to me until I moved to college and met Peter.
The man was gentle and attentive and for the first time, I thought I had found my salvation. I believed he was different, that he would be the one to pull me out of this lonely, loveless existence. That he would be strong enough to brave life with me.
However, just like everyone before him, he too eventually fell victim to my sister and brother’s old tricks.
It seemed no matter where I went, I could never escape the shadow of my sister and brother. They would always be there, the stumbling block of my life, ready to destroy anything good in my existance.
Chapter 6Before long, the lavish meal that my parents prepared was served on the table. They sat around the table with Peter and my older sister. They were laughing and chatting. This kind of lively atmosphere had never happened when I was around.
They were so happy that they did not notice that the neighbor’s dog, Bandit came in. It crept toward the plastic container that was holding ashes and sniffed around because it was intrigued by the scent.
Perhaps it was the smell of my bones that caught its attention. Its eyes gleamed with excitement as it grabbed the container in its mouth and bolted down the stairs.
Meanwhile, the family inside sipped on their drinks, still oblivious about what had happened.
"Woof! Woof!"
Bandit trotted over to the neighbor’s five-year-old daughter, Emma. It carried my ash container in its mouth in a proud manner.
With her child innocent, Emma snatched my urn from Bandit. She then popped open the lid and began pouring my ashes onto the ground for the dog.
Bandit wagged its tail in glee. It quickly licked my remains with gusto, leaving almost nothing on the ground.
When I glanced at the plastic container, it was already empty, except for a few traces of what was once my body.
As the sky darkened and storm clouds gathered, Emma pulled Bandit along heading toward their home. On her way out, she accidentally kicked over the container and spilled what little was left of my ashes.
Whoosh.
A torrential downpour began, washing away the last remnants of my physical form from this world.
It seemed even the heavens had no mercy for me.
This was the third day after my death. I had witnessed my body being completely erased from existence. My tally of tears from loved ones remained at zero and there were still twenty-seven days left until the game was over.
The fourth day after my death was Sunday and it was also a Mother's Day celebration.
Early in the morning, both of my sister and brother left the house. My mother was full of excitement. It was very unusual for her to be in a cheerful mood like this.
Recently, my sister asked her to choose from a series of photos of gold bracelets and pick which one she liked the best. My brother had also inquired about what women her age usually preferred. Clearly, they were planning something special for her.
With a light heart, she hummed to herself as she did the housework. She was eagerly anticipating the gifts that my older sister and brother were surely preparing. As noon approached, she finished cooking a lavish meal, convinced that today would bring her a wonderful surprise.
However, just before lunchtime, my sister informed her that she had something urgent to attend to and could not come back home for lunch. Then, not long after that, my brother called her with the same excuse.
“These two... they must be planning something big, that it's taking so much time!” my mother murmured to herself, still smiling with anticipation.
Feeling optimistic, she packed away the meal she had prepared, saving it for later and settled for a modest lunch of plain rice by herself. It wasn’t what she’d hoped for, but she was certain that an even bigger surprise was coming.
Hours passed and as night approached, she waited eagerly, expecting her children to return home any moment. However, instead, she received another round of heartache. Both my sister and brother called to tell her that they wouldn’t be coming home tonight either.
Just as her excitement began to fade into disappointment, the doorbell rang. In her rush, she ran to the door, thinking her children were finally back.
"Isabella, Daniel, are you two trying to surprise me? Mom …."
However, the moment she opened the door, her voice came to an abrupt end.
Standing there was not my sister or brother, but my best friend, Lizbeth Sanford.
Chapter 7On the previous Sunday morning, I had gone to Lizbeth's shop to pick a bouquet of flowers for my mother. I even dragged her to accompany me to pick out the best knee massager for my mother. Since the company had scheduled me to attend a training session on Mother's Day, I had to make sure to prepare everything in advance. I left the gift to Lizbeth and asked her to deliver it for me.
Lizbeth was not too keen on my idea. She thought I was completely foolish for even bothering to make my mother happy.
As Aunt Wanda's daughter and my only true friend, Lizbeth was the one person with whom I could share everything. She knew all too well about my situation at home, how I had always been treated like an outsider. She had often told me that my family didn’t deserve my loyalty or affection. She did not understand why I still cared for them.
“They don’t care about you. Why do you keep putting yourself through this?” she’d ask me over and over.
However, I was stubborn. I refused to believe that all hope was lost. I had always clung to the belief that if I just loved them a little more, gave them a little more of myself, one day they would see me. They would appreciate me in the end, right?
Even when faced with their indifference, I couldn’t give up until the day I died.
And, at this very moment, Lizbeth stood at the door. Her eyes were swollen and red. It was obvious that she had cried a lot ever since she learned about my demise.
When my mother opened the door, Lizbeth could see the mix of surprise and impatience on my mother's face, which she quickly erased. And that sight almost set Lizbeth off.
After she was able to control her emotions, Lizbeth said coldly, "Auntie, I'm here to do one last thing that Andrea had asked me to do. These are the flowers she picked for you last Saturday, along with the knee massager she bought for you."
"Originally, she had work training today and couldn’t be here to celebrate Mother's Day with you, so she asked me to deliver these gifts on her behalf," Lizbeth continued, her voice trembling slightly with anguish.
My mother barely acknowledged her explanation. She did not see the gift properly and even responded with a dismissive sentence, "Oh, thanks. The house is a mess. I won't invite you in, Eh, just leave the flowers on the rack by the door."
Without any care, my mother started to close the door.
Lizbeth who was starting to get angrier by my mother's reaction, quickly blocked the door with her foot. Her voice rose, trembling with fury, "Auntie! Andrea is dead! Don't you have any feelings at all? Aren’t you sad at all? Do you even realize how much she loved you? Every word you said, she would take it to heart."
"Just recently, you casually mentioned that your knees hurt. She remembered that. And on her only day off, instead of resting, she dragged me along to find this knee massager for you. It cost her an entire month’s salary, but she didn’t even flinch! Do you know how frugal she was? She barely spent money on herself, not even for new clothes. How can you, as her mother, be so heartless, so blind to what she did for you?"
Tears welled up in Lizbeth's eyes as she spoke. Her voice broke with emotion. She poured out everything that she had bottled up in her heart for so long.
For a brief moment, my mother’s face softened, as if something inside her began to stir. However then, just as quickly as possible, her face hardened again, as if she pushed away any trace of guilt.
"She was my daughter. Of course, she should do things for me. That’s a normal thing for children to do for their mother, isn’t it?" my mother said coldly.
"Do you really still consider her your daughter?" Lizbeth spat with an incredulous look on her face. "Then why won’t you even look at the gifts she carefully prepared for you? If it was Isabella who gave you these, would you be acting so disdainful like this?"
"Enough!" my mother snapped. "Don’t you dare compare her to my Isabella? I won’t waste any more time talking to you. Leave!"
After she said that, my mother tried to forcefully slam the door shut in Lizbeth's face.
Chapter 8Lizbeth held the door. Although she was seething with rage, she still managed to give my mother a bitter smile. Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a blue leather book from it. It was my secret diary.
Ever since I was a child, whenever I felt upset, I would go to Lizbeth's secret hideout with Lizbeth to vent my grievances. That blue notebook had been my emotional outlet for over two decades. It held countless things my parents knew nothing about.
Lizbeth and I had once promised to guard each other's secrets. Yet now, she was breaking that promise. I knew she was doing it out of a sense of justice. She did not want to let me fade away without anyone knowing the truth.
"This is Andrea's diary," Lizbeth said. The sarcasm dripped heavily from her voice as she handed the diary to my mother. "I hope after reading it, you’ll still feel the same."
Then without waiting for my mother's answer, she shoved the diary into my mother's hands and walked away. Her footsteps echoed in the hallway.
My mother stared at the notebook for only a moment before tossing it toward the trash without a second thought. However, as soon as the diary fell, a photograph slipped out, fluttering to the floor.
The photo showed my father, my sister and an unfamiliar woman. The joy on my father’s face in that picture was unmistakable. His wide smile triggered a flood of unease feeling in my mother.
Her feet, which had been set to walk away, froze in place. She slowly bent down and picked up the photo, then scrutinized every detail. The expression on my father's face filled her with dread. The suspicion started to gnaw at her heart.
Unable to shake her growing fears, she turned toward the discarded diary. Driven by an urgent need for answers, she picked it up and flipped through the pages with trembling hands. The deeper she read, the more the walls of her world began to crumble.
Before I returned to my hometown, I had uncovered my father’s secret, which was he had another family.
My older sister, Isabella, was not just "adopted" from an unknown family but actually, she was my father's child from his second family.
After a private investigator followed him for several days, I discovered that the other woman in his life was his first love. She was ten years older than him. Because of the age gap, my grandparents fiercely opposed their relationship. So, my father could not marry the woman he loved and, in the end, he decided to marry my mother.
However, my father had only married my mother to appease his family. Secretly, he never ended his affair with the woman he truly loved. Together, they had a child and she was Isabella.
Both of us were his daughters, but Isabella was born from the woman he loved, which was why he showered her with affection. To legitimize her presence in our family, he lied to my mother. He convinced her that adopting a child would "bring a son into the family."
However, in fact, the reason why my mom did not get pregnant for a long time was because my dad had deliberately stopped it.
I wrote all of this down in my diary, along with the photo that confirmed everything. My original plan was to reveal this dark truth to my mother during our family’s Day of Death Celebration when the family came together.
However, before I could say anything, Isabella found out about my investigation.
Chapter 9That day, during The Day of the Death Festival, after walking a fair distance, my mother realized that she had forgotten to bring the offerings. So, she sent me back to our old house to retrieve them.
As soon as I arrived at the old house, my phone rang. It was the investigator that I hired. I was too busy discussing everything that he had discovered that I failed to notice that Isabella had entered the house and accidentally heard the direction of our conversation.
She then hid behind the door and eavesdropped. However, she became panicked when she knew I knew the truth. So, she grabbed an iron shovel that was resting by the door. And before I could do anything, Isabella struck me on the head.
I immediately blacked out.
Fearing exposure, she decided to finish the job. Without hesitation, she set the old house on fire, trapping both me and the building in flames.
That was how I was burned alive.
Little did she know that I would eventually reveal the truth to my mother in the most unexpected way.
When she discovered the truth from my diary, my mother was shocked. She completely lost her mind. She could not believe that the man he loved for thirty years had only been playing games with her. Moreover, the adopted daughter that she cherished more than her own daughter for more than twenty years was the product of his affair.
With trembling hands, she locked my blue diary and the photo in the storage room where I once lived. Her entire body felt as though it had been drained of energy and she slumped down onto the sofa, feeling overwhelmed and defeated.
When my father came back home from work, my mother was still sitting frozen on the sofa. She stared at him with her mind in turmoil. She was torn between wanting to confront him and holding back.
When he saw the flower and the knee massager on the table, my father smiled and said, “It is such a thoughtful gift. Must be from our dear Isabella, right? That girl really knows how to care for her mother, doesn't she? She's truly our little angel.”
My mother's face turned pale, but she remained silent.
“What? You don’t like the gift? Oh, come on, she made the effort! You should appreciate that. If it were that unlucky girl Andrea, do you think she’d even remember to give you anything?”
“Enough!” my mother shouted angrily.
"Andrea is your own flesh and blood. How can you speak about her like that?"
Taken aback by her sudden change in demeanor, my father reached out to touch her forehead. He was so confused by her outburst, but my mother swatted his hand away.
“What’s wrong with you? Why are you mad at me over Isabella’s gift?”
“Shut up! All you ever talk about is Isabella. Isabella that, Isabella this. Let me tell you something, this gift that you’re so quick to dismiss was from Andrea, not Isabella.”
My father’s body stiffened as if he had just seen a ghost.
After hearing what had really happened, he scoffed and said dismissively. “A bunch of flowers and a cheap knee massager? Of course, only Andrea would give you something like that. Just wait, when Isabella gets back, she’ll bring you something much better.”
He laughed mockingly. “That unlucky girl, working in the funeral business and never even giving us any money. Raising her was worse than raising a dog. Good riddance, I say.”
At that moment, rage flooded my mother’s face. She slapped him hard, yelling, “Are you even human? She was your own flesh and blood!”
Caught off guard, my father stumbled from the impact, his face twisted from the blow.
“What the hell? Have you lost your mind, hitting me like that? Looks like I’ve been too soft on you all these years!”
With fury in his eyes, he lunged at my mother, then he beat her with his fists and kicked her with his legs.