Dad, I'm No Illegitimate Child

Dad had never cared about me, not even once in my entire life. If he had, how could he have let me die the way I did, with my body destroyed beyond recognition?

Still, I was curious what expression he would make when he saw the so-called gift.

The door opened. Helen stepped outside cheerfully and walked back in with the gift box.

A moment later, screams and furious shouting erupted inside the house.

I drifted through the doorway and saw the overturned box on the floor and my heart rolling across the floor.

Dad was shaking with rage as he grabbed his phone and sent a voice message.

"Edith, are you insane? It's Helen's birthday. Not only did you refuse to come home to celebrate it, but you even sent something so disgusting to scare her. I should have killed you when you were born. You're such a monster!"

I lowered my head and floated over my heart. Crouching above it, I touched it lightly.

My translucent fingers passed right through the dark, bloodied flesh. There was no warmth. It had been too long since it had been taken out of my body, so even if I were able to feel something, my heart would no longer carry my warmth.

I looked up at Dad's hysterical expression, wishing I could speak to him.

"Dad, it isn't something disgusting. It's my heart. Just because it frightened Helen, you hate it this much?"

He couldn't hear me. He was making another call and barking into the phone, "Edith is suspected of threatening and harassing my daughter. Arrest her immediately."

Whoever answered the call must have questioned him, because he grew even more agitated.

"She's not my daughter. She's a bastard!"

I remembered the first time he called me that. It was ten years ago. Mom was gravely ill. She lay in bed coughing blood, and I begged Dad to send her to a hospital.

But Dad's true love, Agnes, stopped me. She was heavily pregnant by then.

For some reason I still didn't understand, she fell down the stairs.

There was so much blood back then—more than I had ever seen. The sight left me so stunned that I fainted.

When I woke up, I was shoved into a closet and locked in.

Whenever I made a mistake, that was always my punishment.

I didn't know what I had done wrong. I pounded the door, crying, "Dad, let me out. I'm scared! It's so dark. Please let me out!"

No one answered.

I stayed in that cramped, suffocating space for so long that I thought I might die there.

At last, the door was yanked open. Dad stood outside with a cold, disgusted look on his face as he stared at me. It was as though he were looking at trash.

His voice was icy. "Do you admit what you did wrong?"

"I-I don't know," I stammered, shaking my head. "Dad, I didn't do anything bad. Please believe me. I didn't push Ms. Rowley. She fell on her own."

The way I addressed her seemed to hit a nerve. Dad's gaze sharpened, and he raised his hand and struck me hard across the face.

"Bastard! You still won't admit it. Agnes almost died because of you. If anything had happened to her, I would have made you pay with your life."

The slap left my ears ringing. His voice blurred into a faint hum as I stared at him, watching his mouth open and close, his face twisted into a grotesque shape that continued to haunt me for years afterward.

It surfaced again now, clear and sharp in my mind.

Dad ended the call abruptly and glanced again at the bloody heart on the floor. His brow furrowed.

I followed his gaze. The heart no longer even looked like a heart.

The surface was coated with bits of something shiny, probably scraps of confetti left over from Helen's birthday celebration. The housekeepers hadn't cleaned up yet.

Dad's eyes hardened. He kicked the mangled organ with all his strength. It tumbled out the open door and bounced down the steps.

I rushed after it, trying desperately to catch it, but my hands passed straight through as I followed its path. I watched helplessly as it landed in the dirt like a discarded piece of trash.

I knelt beside it with care, staring at the filthy, ruined mass. I supposed I should have been heartbroken.