Chapter 4

I didn't want to argue with Spencer.

I grabbed my bag and headed out.

When I reached the elevator, I heard Pearl's voice.

"Will your sister find out?"

Spencer said, "Don't worry, Mom won't see her."

His tone was so certain.

So certain that even I started to waver.

Back when I went abroad, my whole family was against it.

My mom said a girl had no business going that far away.

The relatives said that if something happened to your mother while you were gone, you wouldn't even get to see her one last time.

But I insisted on going.

The job market at home was just too bad.

And my boss had promised that if I agreed to go, my first-year salary would be $200,000.

After that it would rise year by year based on performance.

Seven years later, my annual income had reached $1.3 million.

But precisely because I wouldn't listen to them and insisted on going,

I had a terrible falling-out with my mom.

She even swore she'd cut all ties with me if I went abroad.

My mom blocked every way of contacting me.

For the past two years, we hadn't so much as spoken on the phone once.

Every bit of contact I had with my mom

went through Spencer.

High-speed rail, then a bus, then a three-wheeler.

By the time I reached the hometown, it was already pitch dark.

I hadn't been back since I graduated from high school.

Ten years had passed now.

But the hometown looked exactly the same.

I walked up to the door of the house.

The lights were on inside.

Through the window glass, I saw my mom sitting at the dining table.

There was only a small dish of pickled scraps on the table.

She was taking little bites of rice with the pickled scraps.

I didn't know how my mom had gotten by all these years.

The hometown had no cell phone, no TV, no air conditioning.

There wasn't even a water heater.

Even the lights were the oldest kind of tungsten-filament bulbs,

glowing a warm, orange-yellow light.

I shut my eyes for a moment, then pushed the door open.

Hearing the sound, my mom turned her head.

The instant she saw me, she froze.

Soon her eyes went red.

But just as quickly, she turned her face away and ignored me.

"What are you here for? Didn't you want to cut ties with me?"

My mom's voice was dry, but a little shaky.

Hearing her say that, my nose went red at once.

Tears fell in big drops.

"Mom! You're alive! Thank goodness!"

In my last life, I didn't even get to see my mom one last time.

Thank heaven I'd been reborn into a year when my mother was still alive.

My mom was stunned by my reaction.

She stared at me blankly.

It was a long while before she rapped my head with her chopsticks.

"Pah, pah, pah! Who are you cursing? I'm perfectly healthy! What's all this talk of alive or not!"

"Didn't you go abroad? So you still remember how to come home!"

I took hold of my mom and looked her over from every angle. "Mom, weren't you sick? How's your health now? Have you taken your medicine?"

My mother stared straight at me, her eyes full of resentment and guilt.

"Didn't you say you weren't going to look after me anymore?"

"When did I ever stop looking after you?"

I pulled out my phone and held the bank transfer records up in front of her.

Living expenses, medical bills, surgery fees, hospital fees, caregiver fees.

Starting at $10,000 a month, then up to $15,000, then to $20,000.

Every single transfer had a note: Take good care of Mom.

My mom snatched the phone away and swiped through the screen.

Her eyes were full of disbelief.

As she looked, the tears started to fall.

"This much money? You sent your brother all this money?"

"But your brother said you didn't intend to acknowledge me anymore!"

"He only gives me three hundred a month."

Three hundred.

He asked me for ten or twenty thousand a month.

And gave Mom three hundred.

My heart felt like it was being squeezed by an invisible hand.

It hurt even to breathe.

That night I pulled up every bill I'd paid Spencer over the past two years.

The first year, he said Mom needed imported medicine.

He sent me photos of the medicine.

I didn't doubt him, and transferred him $10,000 every month.

The second year, he said Mom's blood vessels were blocked and she'd had a stent put in that cost $60,000.

Later he said Mom had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, so I transferred him another $60,000.

All in all, counting medicine, surgery, hospitalization, and recovery,

that year I transferred him $250,000.

In just two short years,

by claiming Mom was sick, he'd taken nearly $400,000 from me.

A full $400,000.

Every cent of it money I'd scraped together by living frugally.

I figured it was fine if I ate whatever, however.

Mom's health was what mattered.

But what I never imagined

was that of the money I sent,

Mom hadn't received even $10,000.

I saved the transaction history and sent it to Spencer.

"Explain this. Why did I transfer you $400,000, and yet you only give Mom three hundred a month for living expenses?"