After Three Years of Waiting, I Stopped Expecting Him

On my nineteenth birthday, I signed up to be a volunteer in a clinical trial.

The moment I got the advance payment, I bought myself the birthday present I'd wanted for so long: a sports smartwatch.

The doctor said this trial carried unavoidable risk factors, and told me to inform my parents.

When I got home, Mom, Dad, and my brother were all celebrating my false-heiress sister's birthday.

Dad waved me over without really looking. "Patricia Henson, hurry up and come celebrate with us."

Mom couldn't help complaining, "Why are you only getting back now? We waited so long that your sister's birth hour already passed."

But no one had ever bothered about the hour I was born. I stood with them and sang the birthday song to the end.

After the cake was finished, Dad took out a birthday present and handed it to Millicent.

"Ta-data-dafor the Henson family's own young lady, the birthday present you've been dreaming of has arrived."

The moment the wrapping came off, it was the sports smartwatch I'd been longing for for three years.

I quietly went back to my room and packed a few clothes. The trial would last three months, and I might not come out of it alive.

My room was plain and bare, but Mom had decorated Millicent's room like a little princess's suite.

I'd barely finished packing when Mom called for me.

"Patricia, there's one slice of cake left. Come eat it. Isn't it your birthday today? Don't let it go to waste."

So Mom did remember my birthday. But it was the same as always. Under the excuse of being thrifty, she always made me take Millicent's leftovers.

Except we weren't poor. Dad ran a publicly traded company.

Mom had a jewelry store too.

It was precisely because they had money that, years ago, when they learned the mixed-up Millicent came from a poor family,

one sweep of the hand and a few million had that family sign Millicent over to them to raise.

And me, at nine years old, I was smoothly returned to my birth family.

I set the sports smartwatch I'd bought on the nightstand.

Then I walked back to the table, picked up the last slice of birthday cake, and ate it in silence.

On the sofa, Millicent and my brother were snickering, laughter they couldn't keep down slipping out of their throats.

Out of the corner of my eye I felt them looking at me, laughing at me.

But when I turned to look, not only were they not laughing, they were sitting perfectly straight.

I knew exactly what this was, though. Another one of their little pranks.

At least I'd finished the cake and hadn't found anything wrong with it.

Remembering the doctor's words, I decided to tell Mom and Dad what I'd decided.

If something really did happen to me, they could treat the compensation as the money they'd spent raising me.

I looked over at Mom on the sofa. She and Millicent were talking about something, laughing on and on.

So I went to the study instead and found Dad. "Dad, there's something I want to tell you both."

Dad rubbed his temples, a little irritated.

"Business hasn't been good lately. Can't you be a little more sensible? Stop obsessing over that sports smartwatch of yours."

"When Millie gets tired of hers, I'll have her pass it to you."

Hurt as I was, I still hurried to explain,

"Dad, that's not it. I know business isn't good. What I want to say is something else."

Dad cut me off, more impatient now.

"All right, all right, and stop harping on about wanting us to buy you a hearing aid. If I actually bought you one, what would outsiders think of this family? That we mistreat you?"

"Go on, get out. I still have work to do. Say one more word and I'll leave the study to you. I'll go hide out at the office for some peace, all right?"

My feet were rooted to the spot, my throat too afraid to make another sound, my heart like it was being gently squeezed in a hand, even my breathing gone tight and thick.

A sourness kept rising in my nose, a warm damp heat slowly welling up behind my eyes until my vision began to blur.

I blinked desperately and bit down hard on my lower lip, forcing the sob rising in my throat back down.

In that moment, I truly wished I'd gone completely deaf. For ten years these cruel words had been a knife, cutting into my heart one stroke at a time.

I'm deaf in my right ear because I fought with Millicent over a family heirloom bracelet Grandma had given me.

Millicent had our brother Eugene Henson on her side. As we grappled for it, Eugene shoved me, I lost my balance, and I fell down the second-floor staircase all the way to the first floor.

When I woke up, they confirmed I'd gone deaf in my right ear. My parents refused to buy me a hearing aid, afraid of what people would say.

At its worst, when they brought me to their gatherings and someone called my name or spoke to me, I couldn't hear a thing.

So they'd say, "How does the eldest Henson girl have no manners at all? Spend too long in a poor family and you lose all your breeding."

After that, instead of buying me a hearing aid, they simply stopped bringing me to any big event.

As I walked out of my father's study, Millicent Henson sidled up to me, grinning. "Patricia, guess what I wished for."

"I don't know. And I don't want to."

My voice came out raw, my eyes red, my head low. I tried to slip past her, but she blocked my way.

"You don't want to know, but I'm going to tell you anyway."

"Dad actually bought you that junky watch you've been wanting."

I looked up at her, stunned, my throat too tight to speak.

"Want to know why he didn't give it to you?"

"Because I made a wish. I told Mom and Dad they weren't allowed to give it to you early."

"They had to leave you out first, let you feel disappointed, and then let you get it."

"I told them that way your happiness would be so much bigger."

When I didn't react, Millicent frowned, puzzled.

"Patricia, aren't you going to thank me? Why are you still standing there like a fool? Did your ears go deaf again?"

I said nothing, because Millicent knew perfectly well I would never be moved by this let-you-down-then-surprise-you routine.

She'd traded her birthday wish for this surprise on purpose.

Someone who has been conveniently forgotten since childhood carries a stored-up fragility that simply can't take a "surprise" like this.

And this magnified happiness couldn't fill the fissure cracked open inside me either.

I went back to my room, wanting a little quiet to myself, but Millicent wouldn't let up. She followed me in,

chattering on. "Patricia, are you even listening? You found out about the surprise early, so shouldn't you be thanking me?"

I stopped and looked at her, steady. "Stop bothering me, Millicent. From now on I won't need any of these surprises."

"Who are you fooling? You wouldn't dare leave the Henson family."

She shot me a scornful look and went on scanning my room,

hunting for something else to needle me with, when her eyes landed on the watch I'd left on my nightstand.

She darted over and snatched it up, then rounded on me, furious.

"Where did you get this watch?"

"I bought it myself."

"You're lying. There's no way you could afford it."

"Oh, I get it. When you went to the study just now, you must have secretly taken the watch Dad had in there."

"No wonder you didn't react at all after I told you."

As she talked, she held my watch high out of reach.

"Give it back. I bought that myself."

I tried to grab it, but she ran out with the watch. "Mom, Dad, Patricia stole the watch Dad bought!"

By the time I chased after her, Mom, Dad, and my brother were all in the living room.

Millicent hid behind Dad and held up the watch. "Dad, Patricia stole the watch you bought for her."

Before Dad could say a word, Mom spoke. "Patricia, what is wrong with you? That watch was bought for you in the first place. If you wanted it, all you had to do was say so. Did you really have to steal it?"

Eugene stood with his arms crossed, looking at me with contempt.

"No wonder people say kids raised in poor homes have no manners."

Anger was already spreading across Dad's face. "A minute ago I was actually feeling bad, wondering if we'd teased you too hard. Turns out you'd already worked out your little scheme."

"You heard I wouldn't buy you one, so you decided to steal it. Is that it?"

"I didn't. I bought it myself."

Millicent's voice shot up again.

"You still dare to lie? Dad said none of us are allowed to take a part-time job until we graduate from college."

"So where would you get the money?"

The confession I'd wanted to make was choked right back down by that one line.

She was right. Dad had said no part-time jobs. We were students, and a student's job was to study.

But I wanted a hearing aid so badly. I didn't want to keep being misunderstood just because I couldn't hear.

Mom and Dad were afraid of gossip, so I told them I'd wear it in secret. They still said no.

And now, how could I ever admit that I'd signed up for a clinical trial just to buy that hearing aid?

But faced with my family's accusations, I had no way out. All I could do was tell the truth.

"Mom, Dad, I signed up for a clinical trial. They paid me a deposit, and I used it to buy the watch."

But when Mom heard my explanation, she got even angrier than Dad.

"You lie with no shame at all now, don't you? A clinical trial? You can even make that up?"

"If you're really that sick of living, then get out. Out of my sight, out of my mind."

Mom was shaking with rage, and when she pointed her finger at me, her eyes were full of disappointment.

"I might as well have never had a daughter like you. When people said you had no manners, I still blamed myself for not raising you right."

"But now you lie and you steal. How am I supposed to raise a girl like you?"

"Millie doesn't carry our blood, but we raised her too, and she never picked up a single one of your bad habits. How is that?"

"It seems the old environment really does shape a person. So you turning out this way isn't a fault in how we raised you."

At that, Mom pulled Millicent into her arms, relieved. "Thank God our Millie never had to live in that house."

The tears I'd fought so hard to hold back finally broke loose, and Mom's words kept echoing in my head: sick of living, then get out.

I wiped my eyes, turned in silence, and walked back to my room, where I picked up the few clothes I'd already packed and got ready to leave.

When I reached the living room, they were all on the couch watching TV.

I wanted to say goodbye, but I felt ridiculous even thinking it, so I just left quietly.

Eugene watched my back and shouted with a sneer, "Mom, Dad, Patricia's trying to run away from home."

Dad let out a cold snort. "Leave her be. Her wings have hardened, I see. Nineteen years old and still thinking she can threaten her parents by running away."

Millicent raised her voice. "Eugene, how many days do you bet before she's back?"

Eugene answered, pitching his voice up on purpose too. "Three days. Three at most. Three is being generous. Someone who's useless at everything, where's she going to go?"

Mom laughed. "You two, stop stirring the pot. Hurry up and tell all our mutual friends not to lend her any money. Let's see how many days she lasts."

My hand tightened on the suitcase handle, and my steps slowed.

Don't worry, Mom. I never borrow money from anyone, because I know I could never pay it back.

Once I was out the door, with barely any money on me, all I could afford was a twenty-five-hour ride in a cheap coach seat to Harbor City.

I got on, leaned against the window to rest, and the woman beside me pulled up some short drama on her phone. She turned to the man next to her.

"Honey, if our daughter got swapped with someone else's daughter at the hospital, would you switch them back once you found out?"

He answered without a second's hesitation. "Of course I'd switch her back. You even have to ask?"

"But the other family's daughter has been raised right here with us. We've grown attached to her!"

"Then we'll just raise both."

"And if the other family won't hand ours over?"

"Then I'd have no choice but to pick my own flesh and blood."

"This is awful. I couldn't bear to give up either one."

Listening to them, I thought back to the year I turned nine.

Mom and Dad came to see me in secret, but they wouldn't claim me. They only knew how to press money into my hands.

With that money, I bought the snacks I never let myself buy and hid them under the bed. My brother in that family dug them out.

When the couple who raised me found out and tracked down my birth parents, that was when everyone learned the babies had been swapped.

Only then did Mom and Dad decide to bring me home, and they paid a staggering price to keep Millicent in the Henson family.

The day I came back to the unfamiliar Henson house, Mom didn't comfort me first, uneasy as I was. She held Millicent and comforted her instead.

"Millie, we only claimed her because we had no choice. Having her won't make your father and me love you any less."

"You're the baby we raised with our own hands. Your father and I will love you forever."

That night, their talking woke me. Dad said,

"Sweetheart, I've realized I like Millie more than Patricia."

"She was ours to raise, and she takes after us. That timid look Patricia has, honestly, it just won't do in company. You'll have to work on her."

Mom agreed. "After all this, I finally understand. The child you raise yourself is the one you feel close to."

"..."

Back at the Henson mansion just then, Mom glanced at the sky outside and muttered,

"It's already dark, and she still hasn't come back. Since when did she have such a temper?"

My brother spoke up.

"Relax, Mom. I've told all my friends. Not one of them is going to lend her money just because I'm her brother."

Millicent added smugly,

"She barely has any friends at school, and my friends definitely won't lend her a cent. She's probably on her way back already."

Then Dad suddenly shouted from the study,

"Sweetheart, come look. This is bizarre. The watch I bought for Patricia isn't missing at all. It's still sitting right here in my drawer."

Mom called out as she hurried over, "What? That's impossible. That watch just now was the one you bought."

When they all crowded into the study and saw two watches, both in unopened packaging, no one could get out a word.

Dad was quiet for a moment, then smacked his own forehead in frustration.

"If only I'd come back and checked the study sooner."

Mom blamed him too. "Look at you. Over one little thing, you drove her out of the house."

My brother murmured, "So Patricia isn't a thief. She really did buy it herself."

That last part struck Mom and Dad like a jolt.

"So that thing she said about being a clinical trial volunteer, could that be true too?"

"Mom, Dad, no way. If you don't believe me, I'll call her right now."