Mom Could Remember One Daughter Each Month, but Always Chose My Sister Chapter 09

Mom Could Remember One Daughter Each Month, but Always Chose My Sister Chapter 09

Rain struck the gate.

Mom stood there, waiting for me to question her.

But I didn’t ask anything.

The moment she admitted it herself, none of the answers mattered anymore.

Mom clutched the bangle she had picked up.

Muddy water ran between her fingers.

“Nora.”

“All I could think about was Sophie. I couldn’t let her be humiliated in front of her in-laws.”

Her voice was quiet.

It sounded like an explanation.

It also sounded like she was searching for one last excuse.

I lowered my head and touched the crack in the wooden sign.

“So you let me be humiliated instead.”

Mom’s lips trembled.

At last, she had nothing to say.

The wooden sign had been repaired.

The broken edge still pressed painfully against my fingers.

Some things were the same way.

Looking whole didn’t mean they had never been broken.

I hugged the sign against my chest and prepared to go inside.

Mom caught my sleeve.

She wasn’t holding me tightly.

But she clung to me like I was the last rope keeping her from falling.

“I chose you this month.”

“I’ll choose you next month, too.”

“From now on, I’ll remember you every month.”

She spoke quickly and desperately.

She was afraid I would disappear if she waited even one second.

Those were the exact words I had wanted most in the past.

But hearing them now brought me no happiness at all.

She was willing to remember me.

Not because I had finally become important.

Only because I had truly left.

“Nora, come home with me.”

“I’ll have your room restored at once.”

“I’ll give the bangle back to you.”

“Whatever you want, I’ll make it up to you.”

Mom tried to push the bangle into my hand.

I didn’t close my fingers around it.

The bangle fell to the ground again.

This time, she didn’t rush to pick it up.

She only stared at my empty hand as the panic in her eyes grew.

I used to want everything from her.

I wanted her to remember my name.

I wanted her to sit down and eat one meal with me.

I wanted her to place the bangle on my wrist herself on my wedding day.

Later, I wanted less and less.

By the time my wedding came, all I asked was that she choose me for one month.

She still refused.

Now she was finally willing to give me everything.

But I didn’t want any of it anymore.

I gently pulled her fingers from my sleeve.

“I’m not going back.”

Her fingers went rigid.

“Why?”

I looked at her.

She truly didn’t understand.

In her mind, she had chosen me and followed me all the way here.

That meant I should wipe my tears and go home with her, just as I had always done.

I took the caregiver card from my bag.

The edges had turned white from wear.

Countless scratches covered the surface from years of use.

I placed it in Mom’s hand.

“Take this to your follow-up appointments.”

She looked down at it, and a flicker of hope lit her eyes.

“You can come with me.”

“The people at the clinic only know you.”

She gripped my hand tightly.

Her palm was frighteningly cold.

“Nora, I can’t do this alone.”

I slowly pulled my hand away.

Her fingers slid off the back of mine.

“Every time you forgot me, I found my way to the hospital on my own.”

“You can do the same now.”

Mom’s body swayed.

The caregiver card slipped from her hand into the puddle at her feet.

She hurried to crouch down and pick it up.

The card was covered in mud.

She wiped it with her sleeve over and over.

The stain only spread.

“Nora, I know I was wrong.”

She looked up. No one could tell whether the water on her face was rain or tears.

“Give me one more month.”

One month.

She couldn’t bear to forget Sophie for one month.

I had once waited through month after month for that same chance.

Now she was finally willing to give it to me.

She wanted to use that one month to erase twenty years of hurt.

I looked at the caregiver card in her hand.

“When you chose Sophie, I never blamed you for being sick.”

“I only blamed myself for not being good enough, so I kept waiting for the next month.”

Mom’s tears kept falling.

I paused.

“But later, I finally understood.”

“It wasn’t because I wasn’t good enough.”

“You simply never intended to choose me.”

She sank to her knees in the puddle.

Her lips shook, but she could no longer find a single word that would make me stay.

Linda came to my side with an umbrella.

She didn’t ask what had happened.

She simply took my cold hand and tilted the umbrella entirely over me.

“The soup is hot.”

“Come inside and eat.”

I nodded softly.

“Okay, Mom.”

Mom’s hand stopped wiping the card.

She looked up at me.

This time, she didn’t misunderstand.

She knew perfectly well that I wasn’t calling her Mom.

The gate slowly swung shut in front of her.

The gap grew narrower and narrower.

Mom knelt in the rain, clutching the caregiver card.

In the past, one simple I don’t remember had been enough to keep me outside the door.

Now she finally remembered me.

But there was no place for her inside anymore.