After Rebirth, I Outplayed My Manipulative Older Sister Chapter 10

After Rebirth, I Outplayed My Manipulative Older Sister Chapter 10

“First, I won’t lend her money. This is just a gift for 

you. You can give it to whoever you want. It has nothing to do with me.” 

Dad nodded. 

“Second,” I said, “I want all the financial records. 

Mom left with Elvis. The receipts, the bank. 

transfer slips–everything. She kept them safe for 

1. me. It’s time I get them back.” 

His face changed slightly, but he nodded in the 

end. 

Those things were what he owed Mom. And what 

he owed me. 

“Third!” I popped a piece of sweet glazed pork into 

my mouth, chewed, swallowed, and spoke calmly. 

“She has to come see me herself.” 

A week later, she showed up. 

In my office, she wore a dark gray puffer jacket, no 

makeup, lips chapped, skin dull and sallow. She 

looked worn thin, like a wrung–out towel. Her big 

eyes were now lined with fine lines, heavy with 

exhaustion. 

Behind her stood a little girl, six or seven years old, 

hiding timidly behind her legs, watching me with a 

nervous, wideeyed look. 

“Say hello to Aunt Cora,” Georgia whispered. 

The little girl pressed her lips together and 

wouldn’t speak. 

“It’s okay. Don’t force her.” I placed a bank card on 

the desk and slid it gently toward her. “Twenty 

thousand dollars. For the child’s education fund.” 

Georgia didn’t reach for it. She looked at the card, 

then pulled a yellowed envelope from her bag and 

set it on the desk. “I’m not taking your money for 

nothing. This is what you wanted.” 

I opened it. 

An old photo: a young woman and a younger Dad. 

The woman held a baby in her arms. 

A date was written on the back in neat 

handwriting. 

The date was a full year before my parents‘ 

wedding anniversary. 

This woman had been in his life long before he 

met Mom. 

She’d been the first one. 

“You probably never heard this story,” Georgia said, 

leaning back in the chair, a bitter smile tugging at her lips. “When Dad met your mom, my mom had just found out she was pregnant. He wasn’t 

cheating. My mom just never told him she was 

pregnant. By the time he found out, the three of 

you were already living the good life.” 

Her voice was flat, emotionless, like reading a 

document about someone else. 

“He left my mom a house and sent her money 

every month, but he never showed his face. My 

mom waited and waited, until the house was 

demolished, the money stopped, until she couldn’t. 

go on alone with a kid.” 

“She took sleeping pills. I came home from school, and she was already cold. That photo was by her bed. The date on the back was my birthday, 

written right before she died. She probably wanted 

to remind herself of the biggest regret of her life.” 

The office fell quiet, traffic humming outside the 

window. 

“So what you said to Dad in his study that night 

wasn’t an act.” 

“No. I really hated him. And I really needed hist 

money. Hate and money aren’t opposites.” 

She reached out, took the card, and slipped it into 

her bag, slowly but steadily. 

Only her fingers trembled slightly. 

“You asked what I was thinking when I stood there, 

waiting for your mom’s aneurysm to burst.” She 

stood, took her daughter’s hand, and stopped at 

the door without turning back. 

“I was thinking, while my mom was depressed, 

standing on the balcony every day, looking down, 

where was Dad? While your mom sat on the couch. 

eating oranges and flipping through photo. 

albums, my mom sat in a tiny rental apartment, 

talking to that old photo.” 

“Do you know what that feels like? When your 

mom died, at least someone cried for her. When 

my mom died, there wasn’t even anyone to claim. 

her body. I was the one who called 911. I was just fourteen years old back then.” 

Her back was straight, but her hand holding the 

girl’s trembled. 

“You won, Cora. Not because you’re better at pretending, not because you’re rich, not because 

you have dirt on me. Because your mom loved you. She protected you until the very end. My mom. spent her whole life telling me I was unwanted, 

that I ruined her life, that I never should have been 

born.” 

She paused. Her voice finally cracked. 

“When your mom called my mom shameless in the hospital, I didn’t care about fighting back. I just wondered if my mom would stand up for me from heaven. Then I remembered, she didn’t even speak up for me when she was alive. She was too busy hating Dad to bother loving me.” 

Then she took her daughter’s hand and walked out 

the door. 

The door closed slowly behind her. 

I sat there, staring at the faded edge of the old photo. 

The woman in the photo smiled gently, the baby in 

her arms crying. 

So she was the one who came first. 

So Mom was the “other woman.” 

So in this story that had been wrong from the very beginning, not a single person was innocent. 

Not Dad. Not Mom. Not me. 

I’d just been lucky. Mom had given me all her strength and love, so I never had to live like 

Georgia, feeding off other people’s guilt to survive.