Chapter 11
My mother choked back a sob as she picked up a rib and handed it to me.
“South, I’m sorry.”
“I know you’re upset with me, but I was helpless in that family that valued boys over girls.”
“Do you know, after you left, I never made sweet and sour pork ribs again?”
The sweet and sour scent filled my nostrils, and in an instant, I was thrown back into the cold winter
when I was four. I felt as though I was drowning, my tears falling in big drops.
My mother trembled as she tried to wipe my tears away.
“South, I admit I’m biased. I raised Yuna for twenty years and only raised you for four. Unconsciously, I treated her better”
“But South, it’s my fault. Don’t punish Yuna, okay?”
“On behalf of the four years I raised you, please donate your bone marrow to her. I know I was wrong, and I’ll make it up to you!”
The person in front of me was someone I remembered as a comforting embrace. I longed for her love. I could never be as heartless as she was to me.
Strangely, I thought to myself: If Yuna could hold on until I gave birth to my child, would I donate?
That day, I never ate the sweet and sour pork ribs.
I am, perhaps, a dark–hearted person. I think that even after I gave birth, I probably wouldn’t have
been willing to donate bone marrow.
But perhaps my mother had conveyed some wrong message to Yuna.
When Yuna forcefully slammed into my stomach, shouting that she wanted to kill my baby, I had already anticipated the attack and easily dodged her.
She was quickly surrounded by medical staff and patients.
It seemed she had lost her mind, and when she realized she hadn’t managed to harm my baby, she dropped to the floor and started ranting.
Blood Ties, Broken Bonds
8.9%
If I can’t kill your baby, I beg you!”
Begging you, what’s the big deal? Isn’t it just that you deserve to be struck by lightning and die horribly, hahaha! I’m destined to die in a bad way anyway.”
As she spoke, she started crying again.
“Please, South, please, I beg you, get rid of your baby and donate your bone marrow to me, please!”
After that day, Yuna was kicked out of the hospital. She never got to see my child born.
And I no longer had to wrestle with the dilemma of whether to donate or not.
nce then, I had no further contact with the East family.
I heard they were severely harassed online and had moved far away.
We met again four years later.
I brought my daughter to my late aunt’s old home to pay respects. From afar, I saw someone in the
cemetery.
My mother had aged terribly, her entire demeanor drained of spirit.
She gazed at my daughter, as though in a daze, and after a while, tears fell from her eyes.
“South, you’re back?”
“Mom’s sweet and sour pork ribs are still warm, you know!”
“What? You’re sick? I’ll donate, I’ll donate for you!”
My daughter, frightened, hid behind me, and I picked her up, silently passing my mother.
Later, my daughter asked me,
“Mom, will you get me a little brother?”
I shook my head firmly.
“No, I will never let my daughter feel even the slightest hint of favoritism.”
(The End)
