Chapter 6
“When are you going to bring your daughter from your first marriage? I think we need to talk about this. Clara was so upset when
she found out. Shall we take it easy?” Mina leaned weakly against Christian as if she had no bones.
“Did she cry? Why didn’t you tell me?” Christian asked.
Mina pouted. “You’ve been so busy with work lately. I didn’t dare bother you with something so trivial. Besides, you said you’d
bring her over. Don’t worry, I’ll be good to her and treat her like my own daughter!”
I watched as Clara stabbed a doll with a needle. A piece of paper was attached to it, with Minnie’s name written on it.
When Christian called for her, Clara quickly hid the doll and trotted over. “Dad, don’t worry, I’ll treat Minnie well!” Like Mina,
she had learned to act at an early age.
Christian didn’t see it—either because he was blind or because he refused to. Instead, he grinned to himself, thinking he was so
charming that everything was under his control.
“Good girl, Clara. Even when you weren’t feeling well, you never made us worry. Not like Minnie–crying over every little thing as
if she’s the only one in the world with a heart condition!”
Minnie had been born with a weak heart and had nearly died the day she was born. She learned to take medicine before she even
learned to drink milk.
Christian was always busy with work. If Minnie didn’t take the initiative to talk to him, he could go days, even weeks, without
saying a single word to her. Whenever she accomplished something, he would only belittle her efforts.
When she was little, she often clung to him, telling him she felt unwell—because that was the only way to get his attention. But as
she grew older, she stopped. Even when she was in pain, she endured it in silence.
I had begged him to pay more attention to her, but he never took it to heart.
“I’m her father. How could I not care about her? Can you stop nagging me? Look at other people’s daughters–none of them act
like her! Am I raising a child or an ancestor?”
Christian only visited Minnie once after she was hospitalized.
Back then, he had scoffed, “She’s been in the hospital so many times since she was born. Why should I have to accompany her?”
One day, I ran into him at the hospital. That was when I found out that Clara also had a heart condition–and her ward was right
