Chapter 2

After that, my father started visiting once or twice a month. He didn’t have much to say to my mother, but he’d chat with me, tell me stories, and sometimes take me out for a meal.

My mother, though, was relentless. One rainy night, she got my father drunk again.

The next morning, when he woke up in her bed, he looked like his world had fallen apart. It seemed possible to make the same mistake twice.

Ten months later, my brother, Xavier Norton, was born. The first time I saw him, all wrinkled and red, I thought he was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen.

He cried his little toothless head off, face flushed bright red. I reached out with a finger to poke his cheek, and just like that, he stopped crying. Instead, he turned his head and latched onto my finger, sucking on it with all his might.

With my brother’s arrival, my father moved us into a bigger apartment, and the monthly allowance doubled. Life got a bit better.

My mother, holding my baby brother, was filled with renewed ambition.

She kissed his little face and bragged to me, “Your father’s wife only gave him that one daughter, Cindy. But me? I gave him a son. With your brother, your father will have to put me ahead of that old witch.”

Yet, once again, she was overconfident, for my father had no intention of divorcing his wife, and he made that crystal clear.

He even threatened her. “Gracie Adams, you better behave. If you so much as think about bringing this to Mary’s attention, you’ll regret it. You like threatening to kill yourself, don’t you? In that case, go ahead and do it.”

Mary Norton was my father’s wife. I learned later that my father had built his fortune through his wife’s family, so divorce wasn’t an option for him.

In a fit of rage, my mother shoved my brother into my arms and hurled herself at my father, screaming, “I can’t take it anymore! Why don’t you just kill all of us?”

Xavier started wailing in fear. I held him tightly, coldly watching my parents as they fought like wild animals. If I could choose my parents, I definitely wouldn’t have picked them.

The battle ended with my mother bruised and swollen, and my father with a bloodied face. From that point on, my mother seemed to have given up. She finally realized that no matter what, my father would never marry her, not even after she had his son.

Once she accepted that, my mother stopped making my father her life’s goal.

In her own words, she said, “I’ve moved on. Who cares about titles or status? You two are his kids, and there’s no way he can deny that. I’ll just spend his money. It’s there for the taking, so why not?”

With that, she shifted her focus to playing poker through the night, totally forgetting about the time. She also stopped caring about her appearance. Every time I went to find her at the games, I’d see her shouting while stuffing her face with burgers and fries.

From elementary school onward, I had no choice but to take on the responsibility of caring for my little brother. Other kids’ first words were “Mom” or “Dad”, but his first word was my name—Willow. When other kids cried for their parents, my brother would cry for me.

I used to resent that little burden because he was the reason I didn’t have a childhood and couldn’t play outside like other kids. After school, I had to rush home. If I didn’t, my mother would leave my two- or three-year-old brother alone, locking him in the house. He’d cry until his throat was hoarse, covered in his own filth.

One day, it was raining heavily outside. My mother had gone off to play poker and hadn’t come back. Thunder rumbled outside, and I curled up in bed, trembling. I’d always been terrified of thunderstorms, convinced they sounded like wild beasts that could devour me at any moment.

In the dark, a small figure crawled into my bed, his soft little body snuggling into my arms.

Just like how I’d comforted him so many times before, he gently patted my back and whispered, “Don’t be scared, Willow. Don’t be scared. I’m here. I will protect you.”

I cried and hugged him tightly.

He was five that year, and that was when I finally understood what it meant to have a sibling.