I replied indifferently, "It is her eighteenth birthday, and with so many classmates present, it's fitting that she dresses elegantly for the occasion."
"No way!" she exclaimed.
I was startled.
"I've watched you raise Vivian to be willful and unreasonable, and I've let it go. But being too pretty in adolescence will attract boys; early romance will affect her studies."
I sneered, "So you're aware they're in their adolescence? Adolescents are the most prone to feelings of inferiority and sensitivity. Dressing shabbily does more harm than early romance."
"Elena, I won't allow you to raise Vivian to be promiscuous."
I was enraged.
"Vivian is my child. You have no right to judge or interfere."
"We're neighbors who see each other all the time. Have you ever considered how negatively Vivian affects Elise?"
Elise, poorly fed and dressed, was taught that enduring hardship was a virtue, yet Vivian was confident and beautiful.
Elise always felt like she lived like a rat in the sewers.
She had expressed to Miranda more than once that she wanted to live like Vivian.
That displeased Miranda greatly, as she believed it was Vivian who had given Elise desires she shouldn't have.
"Stubborn woman. No wonder Charles cheated on you back then. Any man would cheat on you! You deserved to be a widow."
Realizing she couldn't convince me, she deliberately targeted my soft spot. My anger flared up instantly.
"Don't be ridiculous. You tried to seduce my husband and failed. You shamelessly climbed into his bed only to be kicked out, and then out of spite, you told me about his affair."
In my previous life, I only found out before I died that Miranda actually loved my husband. She divorced her own husband to better seduce mine.
After multiple failed attempts to seduce Charles, she was furious.
To get back at Charles, she fabricated the story of his affair and told me, leading me to divorce him.
My belief in Charles' infidelity was unwavering, all because I trusted Miranda implicitly.
She caused me to lose such a good husband, becoming a single mother for so many years, and my daughter never got to experience paternal love.
Although I was reborn, by the time I came back to life, Charles had already divorced me and remarried another woman.
I couldn't possibly go back and disrupt someone else's marriage, so I had to maintain the status quo from my previous life, remaining a single mother.