Chapter 2

Following my daughter Nicole Ford''s stumbling figure, my soul arrived at Vivian''s ward.

Vivian was comfortably lying in her single ward while I was casually left on a stretcher in the hallway. She leaned against the head of the bed, looking weak and eating the fruit my mother cut.

"Grandma, where''s my mom? I miss her," Nicole said.

Nicole''s babyish voice rang out, seemingly shocking Vivian, who recoiled and said with reddish eyes, "Mom..."

My mother glared at Nicole impatiently. "You''re a troublemaker like your mother. Vivian needs to rest. Who brought you here?"

Breathless, the nanny ran over. "Nicole said she saw her mom being sent to the hospital on TV and insisted on seeing her."

My mother looked at Nicole with disgust. "Don''t play the victim like your mom. If you don''t learn well when you''re young, you''ll give birth to a love child like your mother when you grow up."

Nicole was reprimanded mercilessly. She stood aside, feeling aggrieved and too scared to speak.

The ward door was pushed open. My father hurried to see Vivian before he could clean the dust on his face.

When Nicole saw my father, her eyes lit up. "Grandpa, did you save Mom?"

His expression darkened as he kicked away Nicole, who wanted to get close to him. "Don''t call me ''Grandpa''! Your mother is just good at pretending to be dead and missing. She doesn''t need me to save her!"

I bit my lip to swallow my sobs.

My parents had always thought that all I did was play the victim and pretend to be dead. Even the daughter I had worked so hard to raise was considered a love child.

Vivian secretly smiled. "Nicole is just anxious to find her mother. Yvette sure is something. She disappeared and left behind such a young child." She pretended to hold Nicole''s hand intimately as she spoke.

Nicole felt pain and bit her wrist.

Vivian shook Nicole away with force, lowering her gaze to hide the hatred in her eyes. "Looks like Nicole doesn''t like me, just like Yvette. I shouldn''t have joined this family in the first place..."

Familiar words rang in my ears.

When I was in high school, my aunt and uncle died in a car accident, and Vivian was brought home. My mother gently told me, "You must take good care of Vivian from now on."

However, Vivian, who was well-behaved in front of my parents, would secretly tease me and set me up as part of her daily routine. She always cried and complained to my parents, saying, "It''s normal that Yvette doesn''t like me, but she pinched me so hard that it hurt."

Looking at the bruises that Vivian left on herself, my parents punished me by making me kneel all night.

Vivian was now using the same trick on my daughter. As expected, my mother coaxed Vivian with distress.

My father pushed Nicole out of the ward. "Get lost with your mother and don''t disturb our family!"

I wanted to help Nicole up, but I could not touch her and could only watch the nanny leave with Nicole, who kept looking back. Closing my eyes, I tried to suppress the pain in my heart. I looked at the happy ''family of three'' in the ward.

My father''s big hands which used to caress the top of my head were now peeling oranges for Vivian. Meanwhile, my mother gently looked at Vivian and fixed the hair at her temples.

As Vivian said, I did not belong to this family.

After Vivian was taken back to my house, my face was no longer in the family photos on the wall, and I was no longer my parent''s good daughter. Unloved people were outsiders to the family.