Chapter 1

After the poor student my father sponsored hid the special medication my mother had waited in line three months to get her allotment of.

My mom searched for three whole days.

On the first day, she said the special medication was hidden at the highest point of the Ferris wheel.

My mom fought down her fear of heights and rode the Ferris wheel.

But the amusement park lost power, and she was trapped up there for twenty-four hours without ever seeing a trace of the medication.

The next morning, the girl's phone call came through:

"You're thirty, how can you still be so naive! I'm done messing with you!"

"The specialist's appointment is hidden at the mountain chapel where you prayed for Nathaniel!"

The next day my mother went up on her knees, kowtowing every step, blood running all over the ground.

But when she reached the top, the old monk told my mother there was no such special medication at all.

The girl hid behind the Buddha statue and burst out laughing:

"Okay, this time I'm really not teasing you. The medication is hidden in the abandoned hut behind the old house!"

On the third day, my mother went, but several old thugs tied her to a chair and tortured her for a whole day and night.

The woman staggered out of the room, but her hands were empty.

I stood beside her, saying nothing for a long time.

"Mom, go be a star in the sky. This time I'm not afraid."

1

The ringing phone broke the silence in the rental apartment.

My father Nathaniel Gilbert's voice came through:

"I'll bring your special medication back to you a little later."

"She's just holding a grudge because you caused her miscarriage, that's why she's getting back at you!"

Three seconds later, my mom smiled and shut my dad up with a "No need."

My dad's cold voice came through the phone:

"True enough. You caused her to miscarry back then, so now it's just some medication, what's the big deal about letting it go!"

"Besides, Fern was only joking with you. Do you really have to keep at it like this?"

With every word my dad spoke, my mom's face went a shade paler, and she forced out through gritted teeth:

"Forget the medication, but you'll pay me back for the cost, plus round-trip fare, three thousand two hundred in all."

"A penny short, and I'll come make a scene at your house tomorrow!"

That thirty-two hundred was money she had saved up for a long time working.

The hospital's allotment was small this year, and that box was the last one; wait any longer and it would be another three months.

The next moment, my dad transferred four thousand, and the cold voice of the payment app rang out through the whole rental apartment.

The call cut off abruptly. The woman's face showed nothing at all as she lifted her eyes to the stars.

My dad said my mom was the fiercest woman in the whole alley.

To marry my mom, he was often beaten with a stick by my grandparents, and even when he was beaten black and blue, he wasn't afraid.

In the third year after I was born, the poor mountain student my parents sponsored showed up at our door, begging for a meal.

My mom threw herself into buying her clothes and treated her like her closest sister.

But she climbed into my dad's bed, and on our seventh wedding anniversary, she falsely accused my mom of causing her miscarriage.

That day my dad invoked the family rules, and all one hundred and eight votes of the family passed unanimously to cast my mom and me out.

My mother packed up all our belongings by herself, took me, and left without looking back.

Until the ground turned crimson, and I suddenly looked up to see my mother's nosebleed dripping to the floor drop by drop.

The medicine bottle had been knocked over, and only emptiness was left.

I rushed forward in a panic and grabbed my mother's hand:

"Mom, don't be scared, I'll go buy you the medicine! I know the way!"

My heart felt like it was being torn apart. I didn't even get my shoes on properly before I ran out of the house.

I'd memorized this route to buy the medicine thousands of times, and I can recite the names of the medicines my mother takes by heart!

Even the neighbor lady praised me for how good I was.

But at the end of the road, under the warm yellow light, I ran into my dad and that woman.

The man's gaze swept lightly over me, his tone carrying a trace of distaste:

"Philippa, who did you ask to find out I was here?"

"Go on, what do you want from me this time with that wish card?"

My heart suddenly clenched, as if stuffed with cotton, and for a long while I couldn't say a word.

Those wish cards were something I'd traded from him as a child, back when I was trying to cheer my mom up.

He promised that I could use a wish card to make one wish of him.

Last time, I asked him for three hundred so I could buy my mother medicine.

But halfway there, Fern insisted I'd lied and bought candy with it, and she crushed the medicine and threw it in the trash.

The time before that, my mother ran into some hoodlums, and I begged him to come save her.

But even after the police came, my dad was still blocking the road.

I stood there frozen, slowly taking the last wish card out of my little backpack.

The man wore exactly the expression he'd expected to.

But the next moment, in front of the two of them, I tore the wish card to shreds.

"Not one of my wishes has ever come true!"

"I don't want this wish card anymore!"