Chapter 2

It had been three years since I'd seen my mother, and I found her in a convenience store.

One AM. The store was empty.

I was bent over, stocking bottled water on the shelves, when the sensor bell chimed at the entrance.

A woman holding a little girl, around two years old, walked in.

I continued working, not paying attention.

It wasn't until the woman came to the checkout counter with a bottle of water that I looked up.

Our eyes met.

The expression on her face froze.

I was stunned for a moment too, but quickly recovered.

"Twelve dollars total."

I scanned the barcode, my voice as flat as a machine's.

She didn't pay.

She stared at my name tag.

My name tag read: Autumn Dawson.

"Autumn?" Her voice was trembling slightly. "Is it really you?"

I didn't answer her question.

"Twelve dollars. How will you pay?"

Her gaze moved from my grease-stained uniform to my deformed knuckles, then to my worn-out canvas shoes with peeling soles.

"Why are you so thin?" She frowned. "Where's your dad? If he's not taking care of you, at least tell me, I'll come pick you up."

I forced a small smile.

"Ms. Vance, either pay for your things or step aside."

She glanced back. There was no one behind her.

She sighed.

"Give me your account number. I'll transfer you some money so you and your dad don't have to suffer."

I looked up at her.

"No, thanks."

"Never saw you care so much about Dad and me before."

Her face darkened.

"You're as stubborn as your dad. If you hadn't stuck with him back then, would you be working the night shift at a convenience store now?"

The little girl tugged on her coat.

"Mommy, I want milk."

She bent down, picked up the child, and looked at me again.

"Tell your dad not to be stubborn. If he's willing to apologize, I'll take you in. Your life wouldn't be worse than it is now."

My fingers tightened on the cash register.

"My dad and I don't need your concern. We're strangers to you. Talking like this, people might misunderstand."

Her eyes flickered, as if she wanted to say something.

But she swallowed it.

She put down twelve dollars, turned, and left.

After she left, my colleague peeked out from the back.

"Who was that just now? She had quite the entourage."

I didn't look up.

"Don't know her."

Another colleague came over, holding her phone screen in front of me.

"I looked her up. Isn't that Eleanor Vance from Vance Corp.? The CEO who's always in the news for her charity work?"

"Look at this interview. She says her biggest regret in life is her ex-husband and daughter."

I glanced at the screen.

"She's good at faking it."

"But she donates real money to charity, and she even started a children's foundation named after her daughter!"

I stopped what I was doing and looked at them.

"She pretended to be poor to her ex-husband, transferred all their savings when they divorced, and dumped all their debts on him."

"Her husband went from being a teacher to a warehouse mover just to pay off the debts she left behind."

"She says her biggest regret is her ex-husband and daughter? But then she physically pushed her own daughter's hand into broken glass, making it so I could never draw again."

They froze.

"You... How do you know all this so clearly?"

I flipped my name tag.

Autumn Dawson.

"Because I'm her daughter."

They immediately fell silent.

After my shift, I didn't go back to the rented apartment. I stopped at a bakery for the smallest cake, then a flower shop for a bouquet. It was a forty-minute walk to the cemetery.

The cake and flowers I placed in front of the gravestone.

In the photo, Dad wore a white shirt and had a gentle smile.

I knelt down in front of him.

"Happy birthday, Dad."

"I ran into her today."

"She still thought you were alive."