I Paid for Mom’s Mistake Chapter 05
Mom suddenly snapped and screamed, “Why are you talking nonsense too? It couldn’t have been me! Bernette was the apple of my eye. How could I possibly have killed her?”
I didn’t give Mom any chance to escape. “Mom, did you start believing in your own lies? You were the one who killed Bernette. It has always been you!”
Aunt Greta’s testimony, coupled with Mom’s reaction, had everyone believing it almost immediately.
Uncle Solomon seemed the most surprised. “So it really was you who filled the juice bottle with disinfectant, and Dahlia wasn’t even around when Bernette drank it? Tessa, you can lie to yourself all you want, but you shouldn’t have deceived us, too. Because of you, we’ve been acting like the bad guys all along.
“And why do you hate Dahlia so much? Is it just because she looks like our mom who abandoned us?”
Mom opened her mouth, but she couldn’t utter a single word.
That meant that Uncle Solomon was right.
Never in my dreams would I have expected that Mom would hate me for such a simple reason.
Aunt Penny patted me on the shoulder. “Dahlia, I’m sorry for what you’ve had to endure all this time.”
Aunt Greta hugged me. “I’m so sorry. I was afraid that it might be too much for Tessa to bear back then, so I didn’t dare expose the truth. But I had no idea she was so cruel to you in private. I should’ve done something right at the start.”
Everyone was looking at me in sympathy.
I had never seen them like this.
All these years, they had treated me with cold hostility. They acted like I was a wicked villain who had done something utterly unforgivable.
I had lost count of the cold stares I had endured over the years.
Now that the truth was out, it was Mom’s turn to lose her mind.
She screamed as she tried to drive everyone out. “Get out, all of you! Stay out of my family’s business!”
After that, she stopped interfering in my life. I was free to do anything I wanted.
Meanwhile, night after night, she barely slept a wink. She would often sit on the couch in the living room and stay there the whole night.
One day, she suddenly talked to me. “I had a dream. In that dream, your sister was still alive, but that was only because you made a deal with Death. It felt so real!”
Even though I didn’t meet Death again, I knew it was him helping me.
I was extremely calm as I told Mom, “That wasn’t a dream. I really did make a deal with Death. Bernette originally had the chance to go on living.”
Gripping my shoulders, Mom shook me with all her might. “Then why did you regret it? Why did you ask Death to cancel the deal? Why did you come back? Why couldn’t you just stay dead?”
I knew Mom didn’t love me, but when I heard those words, I still couldn’t help feeling the ache in my heart.
She had no love for me, and she even hated me.
I could neither laugh nor cry. “It wasn’t that I regretted it. Death just made another deal with me afterward. He entered your dreams and showed you everything I did for Bernette. If you showed any guilt toward me, the deal would still be on. If not, everything would return to its original course.
“Obviously, you were just glad that you could trade my life for Bernette’s. You didn’t feel guilty at all. So, Death could only take back the deal. You were the one who killed Bernette a second time.”
Feeling that the delivery wasn’t devastating enough, I emphasized, “You killed your dearest daughter with your own hands, and you did it twice!”
Mom looked distraught as she dropped back onto the couch. “What did you say? It was me? I was the reason Bernette died again?”
I didn’t answer her.
She sobbed, and then laughed. In the end, she passed out.
