Rebirth on Her Birthday

I raised Megan, Megan Bailey, for over a decade. She threw my things out of the place on her eighteenth birthday. She declared that that place had been her father's and that he had given it to her, so it would be her and Colby's place after they got married.

Colby, Colby Kirk, was a true delinquent, raised without discipline. His mother ran away, and his father was in jail. He'd outdone them both. He had many bad habits, including drinking, gambling, womanizing, and so on.

I begged Megan to change her mind, forced her to go to school, and even climbed up to the rooftop to plead with her to break up with Colby.

She just sneered and kept stimulating me verbally. "If you want to die, then jump! Do you think you can scare me? You drove my dad to his death, and now you are trying to do the same thing to me. Look at you! You are over forty and as pathetic as a stray dog. You deserve it."

Colby laughed beside her. He even swaggered over and gestured to push me. Then he lost control, and I fell straight down.

I thought my death would wake Megan up. My soul drifted above and watched her lie to the police. She told them that I'd fallen by accident. Colby wasn't punished by the law due to it. The two of them lived in my place, spent my money, and enjoyed themselves happily.

No one even bothered to deal with my dead body from the morgue for burial.

Heaven must have pitied me, as I had nowhere to rest after dying. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on Megan's eighteenth birthday.

1

I was a stepmother. When I married Megan's father, Joshua Bailey, she was only three years old.

I was young and naïve back then and fooled by Joshua, who looked honest and reliable. Every time Megan saw me, she'd sweetly call me "Mommy," melting my heart. Joshua put on a pitiful show, sobbing and sniffling as he told me how tragic Megan had been. Her mother died when giving birth to her; her grandfather passed away when she was one year old; and her grandmother left her forever when Megan was two years old. So I stepped into the miserable family without hesitation.

I had never married before, and everyone around me was against me when I decided to marry a divorced man with a daughter. My father was so angry that he refused to speak to me. I kept bringing Megan to my father's place in the hope that she would soften my father's heart and win his approval of my marriage, as Megan was such an adorable girl. But my father refused to let us whenever I brought her with me. He shut us out completely.

My married life was not so bad shortly after I got married. Joshua treated me pretty well. That situation changed six months later when I got pregnant. He started coming home late. If I called him, he told me that he was busy at work. When I called him again, his phone was off.

How could he be busy? He ran a small stall at the local market, selling pet turtles.

Back then, I was just pregnant and suffering from terrible morning sickness. Megan always played games with me. For the sake of our family, I quit my job.

Then, one night, I was woken from sleep by the phone. It was from the police, telling me that Joshua had been caught soliciting a prostitute and that I needed to go and sign a notification. He would be detained for seven days.

When I arrived at the police station, there were two rows of people squatting in the lobby, one row of men and the other of women.

Joshua was squatting in a corner, with his head buried deep. His chin nearly touched his chest.

The officer told me that if I paid a five-thousand-dollar fine, he could avoid detention.

Back in 2000, it was almost a year's living expenses for us. His shop was closed, so our family had no income. We couldn't even scrape Megan's kindergarten tuition.

I refused.

Suddenly, a woman squatting nearby looked up and asked, "Are you Joshua's wife?"

I glanced at her, puzzled.

She shot to her feet, with one hand on her hip and the other pointing at Joshua. She cursed at the top of her lungs, and the spittle flew. "Your husband is indeed mean. He solicited a prostitute without paying. He still owes me from last time, and he's got the nerve to come back. Don't you know he is impotent? The worst part is that he can't do it, but he still insists on messing with me. Pens! Chopsticks! Now you've given me an infection. So you have to pay up, or I'll be at your door every day."

The officer shouted at her to stop. The woman grudgingly squatted back down and still muttered threats about the medical bills.

I heard snickers all around.

My cheeks burned with humiliation. Everyone in the room seemed to be staring at me in judgment. I stood there and thought I shouldn't have stood there. I wished I had something in my hands to distract myself. But there was nothing in my hand. I only felt the sting of my nails digging into my palms and the metallic taste of blood in my mouth.

I opened my mouth but couldn't say anything.

Joshua just squatted there, motionless. It seemed that nothing happening around him had anything to do with him.

I didn't remember how I got home. When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in a ward, and my unborn baby was gone.

I was suddenly relieved. At least my baby wouldn't have to face a father like that or grow up in a broken home.

I hoped my baby would be reborn into a warm, loving family. It would at least have a responsible father and a gentle, caring mother.

I should have been happy. But tears went down my face when I was laughing. I clutched my belly and whispered to myself, "Leave me, baby. I hope you have a good life." The laughter turned into sobs, and my tears soaked the pillow.

The doctor rushed in and held my hand tightly. She even wanted to call in a psychiatrist to give me a sedative.

I squeezed her hand back and repeated, "My baby is gone. It must choose a happier family."

When the police brought me to the hospital, the doctor already had some idea of what had happened. She lowered her head and gently said, "You'll have another baby someday."

2

The first day after I was discharged, I knelt outside my parents' place all night and promised that I'd get a divorce.

My father took a long drag on his cigarette, spat on the ground, and gruffly said, "Come in and have dinner."

The second day, Joshua was released from the police station.

He showed no remorse at all. Nor did he think that what he'd done was a disgrace to our family.

He stood at the bedroom door and yelled at me furiously for not paying the fine for him. He questioned me if I had any idea what he'd been through that week.

He pointed at his beer belly and told me that he'd starved and lost weight. He said that the detention center was full of all sorts of people, even hepatitis patients. If anything happened to him, he'd make sure to infect me before he died.

He blamed me for losing the baby and said that I was useless since I failed to give birth to a baby.

Finally, he concluded in a rage that I relied on him for everything, but I was ungrateful.

I leaned against the bed silently. I didn't even bother to argue. What was the point?

I didn't want to remind him that I earned more than he did before marrying him or that most of our expenses came from my savings before I married him.

I said, "The divorce papers are on the coffee table. Sign them if you have no objections."

He grew even angrier and stomped and shouted that he would never divorce me unless he was dead.

I watched him with a tall figure and a beer belly jiggling as he jumped around in a rage. He was like a fighting rooster.

Suddenly, I found it funny. What had I ever seen in him? Was I attracted by his sob stories and crocodile tears?

I was exhausted. I told him to leave because I just wanted some peace.

He kept cursing me, spewing every nasty, spiteful word he could think of. Megan stood in the living room, terrified and sobbing. He called for me, but Joshua lashed out and kicked her, sending her flying.

When I rushed out, I saw Megan lying on the floor, blood in her mouth.

Two of her front teeth had been knocked out.

As much as I hated her father, I still felt sorry for Megan. I screamed and asked him to drive her to the hospital. Joshua just grunted and spat on the floor. "If you leave me, I'll beat her to death and leave her at your family's doorstep."

I couldn't believe my ears. "She's your daughter! Are you even human?"

Joshua ignored me and strode out directly.

I was still weak. The doctor warned me to stay home and avoid cold air during my recovery after I aborted because it could cause lasting health problems. I checked Megan over and found nothing else was wrong with her, aside from those two missing front teeth. I breathed a sigh of relief.

That night, I was woken again by the shrill ring of the phone.

It was still from the police.

I rushed to the police station, where the police officer told me that Joshua had been driving drunk. He'd fallen asleep at the wheel, crashed straight into a tanker truck, and his car had flipped and caught fire. By the time the fire was put out, Joshua's body was already reduced to a charred husk.

I didn't know whether to feel happy or sad. He was never a good man. In fact, he was downright despicable. I should have laughed out loud and said, "What goes around comes around."

But he was my husband, and I had seen tenderness and affection in his eyes before.

When I was handling his funeral affairs and logged into his social account, I discovered that he'd been driving drunk on his way to a prostitute's place that night he died.

He once said that he would never divorce me, except he was dead.

Looking back, I realized that his words turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That was so great.

3

As my final duty as his wife, I handled his funeral affairs as quickly as I could.

After the funeral, I took Megan to the gates of the orphanage. She broke down and wailed so hard that her voice cracked. She lacked two front teeth, which was seen as she sobbed. Her face was streaked with tears and snot.

She cried out, "Mom, please don't leave me. I'll be good, I promise."

I'd been stone-hearted at the funeral, but at that moment, I couldn't bear it. I discussed it with my parents, and we decided to take her home. We'd keep her paperwork separate and make sure she had food and schooling. It wouldn't cost much to raise her.

My father stayed silent, and my mother was soft-hearted and agreed.

And so, I raised Megan for fifteen years as her stepmother with no legal ties.

She was, all things considered, a well-behaved and sensible girl. She never brought me any trouble, always maintained average grades, had a face that blended in with the crowd, and never went through a rebellious phase or made any demands of me.

For the first eighteen years, she seemed invisible as she was so quiet and meek.

Sometimes, I even felt lucky that Joshua died early, sparing her from his bad influence. She didn't grow up like him. Instead, under my consistent, generous care, she grew up innocent and sweet.

My first marriage left me wary. Over the years, I was set up with countless guys, but none of them worked out in the end.

So I kept focused on raising Megan. She had everything she needed, both materially and emotionally. When she was sick, I took care of her day and night. I gave her everything I thought was best.

When she was ten years old, I encouraged her to learn piano. She said she liked it, and I bought her a piano worth over fifteen thousand dollars without hesitation.

Even her own mother couldn't have done better.

Our family was well-off. Plus, I started a small business after Joshua's death. I even became one of the first in our small town to own a Mercedes.

At first, my parents worried that I'd never find another guy. But as the years passed, they got used to it. When my father suddenly fell ill, my parents decided to move to the countryside. They stopped hoping that I'd marry well and have a peaceful married life. Now they would be pleased as long as I was safe and healthy.

Life was uneventful, and I thought the next few decades would pass just as quietly, until Megan's seventeenth birthday.

Megan's teacher called to tell me she'd gotten into a fight at a place outside the school. The girl she'd attacked had already been taken to the hospital by the police.

4

That was the first time I met Colby, Colby.

He and Megan were crouched in the police station lobby, heads down. Megan was hugging her head. Her slightly tight school uniform was stained with dirt and grime. Her messy hair covered her face, and I sensed the cheap smell of cigarettes from her.

After all these years, I could suddenly see traces of Joshua in her.

I was dazed for a moment. Thanks to a nearby officer, who caught me in time, I didn't collapse to the floor.

Colby was chubby, with a greasy, swollen face that shone under the lights. His hairline had receded a lot, and he had a few sparse, permed strands sticking up like tin foil.

He wore a headband with a crude "third eye" drawn on his forehead and some character scrawled on his hand.

The police officers were cataloging the items they'd confiscated from the two of them. A folding fan was among them. Its wooden handle and the edges of the fan were stained with blood. The police officers opened the fan with disposable gloves, and it revealed bold, unruly calligraphy. "Never underestimate a poor young man!"

My hands and feet went numb, and my palms became clammy. I couldn't hear anything anymore. Just a persistent buzzing in my ears was rattling my nerves.

It felt like when I was trapped in darkness, someone said, "Once you climb over this mountain, you'll find a bright road ahead."

I kept climbing day and night. After I suffered endless hardship and was exhausted, I finally made it over the mountain.

I only realized that I'd been deceived. There was just another mountain waiting for me.

The night was eerily silent and moonless.

I heard myself say, "I've contacted the police three times in my life. The first two were because of your father. The third time is because of you."

I didn't know how long it took me to say those words. My voice sounded hoarse and rough, like something ancient and rusted unearthed after years underground.

Megan said nothing. Colby looked up and sneered at me. But his bravado lasted only a second before the police officer barked at him and dragged him away rudely.

Megan's teacher told me that Megan had been skipping classes frequently, and her grades had plummeted. When the teacher asked to meet her parent, Megan said she was an orphan. After too many absences, the teacher gave her a disciplinary warning, which she signed herself.

I explained that she really was an orphan, and I was her stepmother and raising her.

The fight started because someone's wallet went missing after gym class, and under Megan's guidance, the wallet was found in the schoolbag of a girl named Alaiya White.

Everyone assumed Alaiya was the thief. As many students whispered, another girl, Belen Chavez, stood up during class and revealed that Megan was indeed the thief.

During gym class, Belen was on her period and napped at the back of the classroom, wrapped in her school jacket. Megan had sneaked back into the classroom, where she stole the wallet and put it into Alaiya's schoolbag.

Megan never expected anyone to be sleeping in the classroom. The desks in the senior class were piled high with books, and Belen couldn't be easily seen as she was barely ninety pounds among the stacks.

Megan's face had broken out in red acne after she hit puberty. When she was in middle school a few years ago, she was obsessed with fried skewers and starchy sausages from the food stalls outside the school. At home, she always locked herself in her room and never touched the piano. She told me she needed to study if I asked what she was doing. Plus, she barely worked out. So she was five feet three and weighed over 170 pounds.

As she walked through the desks, the scraping of the desk legs against the floor was so loud it woke Belen.

And to make things worse, after all that, Megan didn't even leave right away. Instead, she stood in front of Alaiya's desk, muttering to herself, "I've had enough of you. You change your shoes so many times a day. Aren't you afraid you'll lose your feet? So are you trying to wear all your shoes before you die? You are so disgusting. No one's more fake than you. Let's see how you can have the nerve to stay at school now. You're just like crap!"

When the truth was revealed, the classmates who'd been the loudest in accusing Alaiya apologized to her. The teacher called Megan out and asked, "Do you not want to stay at school anymore?"

Megan said nothing. Indeed, she had nothing to say.

But silence didn't mean she didn't care. After school, she and her Colby cornered Belen in an alley.

Luckily, a passerby saw them and called the police before Colby and Megan could do anything to Belen.

I had nothing to say after hearing the whole story. At the time, I was still blinded by motherly love and refused to believe that the girl I'd raised could be so bad by nature. I apologized sincerely, admitted I'd failed in my duty to discipline Megan, and begged the teacher to give Megan another chance to let her finish high school and take her college entrance exams.

The teacher sighed and had me sign the notice for her probation.

She was suspended for half a month, and I was told to take her home and discipline her properly.