Mixed Emotions Meaning

As the top phone service sales representative, I unexpectedly received a malicious complaint. I expect to be given a fair resolution, but nothing of the sort happens. The director calls off my imminent promotion and has an intern take my place. I'm indignant and want to resign, but I accidentally overhear the intern acting coquettishly toward the director. "Daddy…" The director is the general manager's husband, though. Everyone in the company knows they're DINKs. Where would he have gotten a daughter from? I chuckle and shred my resignation letter. Behold my wrath and revenge!

I receive a mysterious parcel on my fifth wedding anniversary. Inside the box are photos of my husband, Luke Madden, being intimate with his assistant. The photos go back a long time—they seem to start from over five years ago. The latest one was taken half a month ago. He, his assistant, and their daughter are playing by the seaside. They smile brightly in the photo and look like a happy family of three. I suppress my devastation and take medication to terminate my pregnancy. Then, I pull out my phone to text my mother. "I'll do as you say and get a divorce, Mom. I'll be back next month to take over the company."

My husband doesn't love me or our daughter. It's been six years since she was born, but he's never held her. The doctors say he has an emotional disorder, and that he doesn't know how to express the way he feels. But when his true love returns, he smiles at us for the first time. He even brings our daughter a gift. I think it's because he's finally seen sense… until she and I see the photo he uses as his phone's wallpaper. In it, his eyes are crinkled as he smiles. He has one arm around a little girl whose front tooth is missing, and he holds his true love's hand with the other. My daughter tugs on my hand, and her eyes redden. "Mommy, do you think we should leave? Should we give Daddy three final chances? Let's leave him if he still doesn't want us after that."

I used to be the apple of my family's eye, but Suzanne Nilson changed that when she showed up on my birthday with a DNA test result. The Nilson family cruelly kicks me to the curb and throws me back to my biological parents, leading to me being sold off to the village idiot. Xavier Gubbens, with whom I've grown up, kicks the door down and saves me. Later, he etches a word on my face. "Do you think you're done repenting for your sins with this, Suzanne Nilson?" Later still, his eyes are red as he pleads, "Can't we go back to how things used to be?" How things used to be? There's no such thing. Everyone has to look to the future.

My sister and I were caught up in a severe car accident during a family road trip down the mountain for the New Year. Shattered glass pierced straight through my heart. Amid the excruciating pain, my fiance and family insisted the rescue team take my sister, who only had a scratched arm, to the hospital first. As I cried out for them to save me, my fiance snapped at me. “Carol, you should know when to stop vying for attention! “Delila is bleeding so much. Why must you compete with her?” Dad shook his head and sighed while Mom looked at me with disgust. I forced my stiff neck to look over. They were all surrounding my younger sister. She only sported a faint red mark on her arm. No one saw the blood gushing from my chest. No one heard my fading heartbeat. I died during that snowy, bitterly frigid night. When they finally remembered me and came across my cold body, my fiance and family went mad.

My father raised me on one principle: fair exchange. If I wanted anything, I had to earn it myself. Fifty cents for washing the dishes. A dollar for mopping the floor. Five dollars for a perfect score on a test. To buy the pair of white sneakers I had been dreaming of, I spent three months collecting recyclables. In that house, I lived like a pieceworker, paid by the task. It was not until my senior year of high school that everything began to crack. I collapsed during morning study, my body worn down by years of malnutrition. The doctor said I needed better nutrition. My father stood by my hospital bed and started doing the math. "Three hundred for the hospital stay. Two hundred for medication. Chester, this all goes on your tab for the future." I turned my head and saw a boy in a school uniform in the next bed. His father was feeding him spoonfuls of chicken soup, his eyes red with worry. In that moment, the world I had known for 18 years fell apart. It turned out not every child had to earn their parents' love. After I was discharged, I went home and saw the pair of designer sneakers on my brother's feet; it was worth thousands. That was when I finally woke up. I tore up the family photo and, without hesitation, applied to the college farthest from home. Ten years later, my father called me in tears. My brother had taken all his retirement savings, sold the house, and run off with his girlfriend. He was left with nothing. No home. No one. I smiled and tossed him a rag. "Want a place to stay? Sure. It's 50 cents per window. Earn your own rent."

My nephew, Jason, came to live with my family for three years while he went to high school in the city. I took care of him the best I could, never once thinking it was a burden. The day he got accepted into a top-ranked university, he went live online. He told thousands of strangers about his miserable life living under someone else's roof. "I know I shouldn't say this, but I really suffered through it. "Those days of depending on others… I never want to think about them ever again. "I just want all parents to know this. No matter how poor you are, keep your kids with you. Even eating scraps together is better than watching another family of three enjoy a feast while you sit alone in the corner." He became an overnight sensation, so did I. The people on the internet dug up everything about me. My name, my job, my address. I was doxxed. I died depressed from the online bullying. However, I somehow got to do it all over again. This time, I was not going to be the saint anymore.

My cafe's sales have doubled recently. On the day before the celebration party, my younger brother, Ian Kingston, comes looking for me. "Vivian, I'm going to marry Louisa soon. We should dissolve our business partnership." He adds, "Louisa mentioned that she and I work better together as husband and wife. She intends to open a cafe with me so that we can spend the rest of our lives together. "Vivian, you'll marry into another family someday. This cafe is a business under the Kingston family, so you should withdraw from the partnership right away." Louisa Nott has yet to become Ian's wife, but she is already thinking of taking over the Kingstons' assets? I post an announcement on my family group chat right away. "My own brother decides to dissolve our business partnership because of his girlfriend, so I shall be opening a branch of my own. When the time comes, everyone here is welcome to my cafe to sample my food. It'll be completely free of charge!"

When my boyfriend came to my family home to ask for my hand in marriage, my sister-in-law, who was usually cold and aloof, became a completely different person. She flung her arm around me warmly and asked, “Cassie, who’s your favorite? This boyfriend or one of the dozen or so men that you’ve brought home before?” As I denied her accusation and interrupted her, she cheekily batted her eyelashes at my boyfriend and cooed, “Oh, yes, yes. Cassie has never brought another man home. You’re the lucky first!” In the midst of dinner, she deliberately took her own soiled underwear out of the bathroom, pinched her nose, and waved it around as she screeched, “Oh my goodness, Cassie! I know you don’t really care about hygiene, but we have guests today! How can you have no shame? It smells so bad!”

Steven Lambert claimed my mother almost killed his wife and daughter, branding me as a sinner from birth. For twenty years, he and his family tormented me in the name of atonement. I was forced into a cruel marriage with the vile Caleb Carpenter in Cindy's place, only to suffer a tragic end. Only then did the Lamberts realize I was their daughter. Yet all this time, the very existence they believed to be a sinner enjoyed their bottomless affection and adoration.