He Gave Me Hearing, Then Taught Me What Silence Really Means novel Chapter 44

"Thank you, ma'am."

She took the woven basket and left. Her phone buzzed with several texts from Macy.

Standing by the road, Juniper hailed a cab and called Macy back.

Macy had gone to pick up the medicine by herself and had ended up getting delayed by the Lane family.

Now, the two of them were sharing a ride back to the city.

Sitting in the car, Macy was visibly annoyed. "Those people kept prying into your business. Your parents are exactly the same as always—hearing people talk trash about you and not even daring to let out a squeak. Your brother settled down in the county town and bought a house, and Nadine is pregnant, but I heard they fight every single day over money. Construction jobs are scarce this year, and the contractors are broke. Brooks hasn't been paid in months. That house is on a mortgage, costing over five hundred bucks a month. The financial pressure on your family is massive."

Juniper kept her eyes closed, offering a quiet, "Hmm."

By the time they arrived back in the capital, it was already dusk. Carrying the bamboo basket and the bags of medicine Macy had handed her, she walked toward the entrance of her apartment complex.

A new text from Brooks lit up her screen.

[Mom went to the city all by herself to find you. Juniper, you are incredibly cold-blooded.]

Juniper unbuttoned the top two buttons of her collar, a suffocating tightness seizing her chest.

As she approached her building, she saw a middle-aged woman waiting by the entrance, a large white nylon sack resting at her feet.

It was her mother, Beatrice.

No matter how hard she tried to hide, this woman had still tracked her down in the city.

She had even arrived early and waited.

The last time they had seen each other was two years ago.

Beatrice was clutching a jar of homemade hot sauce and a bag of wild mountain mushrooms, looking incredibly anxious.

Juniper kept her head down, trying to walk right past her.

Beatrice hesitated, opening and closing her mouth before finally holding out the bags. "I ended up calling Yara to find out you were living here. The mountains are full of wild mushrooms right now, so your dad and I went picking. We gave a batch to your brother, and I wanted to bring some to you. The jar is hot sauce. It used to be your favorite."

"The sack is filled with this year's new harvest of rice. It tastes a hundred times better than the stuff you buy in the city. I brought fifty pounds for your brother, and fifty pounds for you. It should last you a long time."

She rambled on and on, seemingly forgetting everything that had happened years ago, completely oblivious to the fact that Juniper had intentionally avoided them earlier that day.

It felt as if everyone else was happily moving forward with their lives, leaving Juniper trapped alone in the past.

"Mom, I don't need anything. Just take it back."

They were always like this. They would do something unforgivably cruel, and then act as if a few pounds of rice could magically erase the damage.

And if she didn't accept it with blinding gratitude, they would pull the parent card.

Juniper had been suffocating under that exact web of guilt, forced to wear the label of the ungrateful daughter for four agonizing years.

She turned to leave, but as she moved, Beatrice caught sight of the marks on her neck. The bruises Nelson had left the day before.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify