1: 1

My mother is a heart specialist known around the world, and once again, to avoid any appearance of favoritism, she pushed back my transplant surgery.

She even drew my HR-negative blood, the rare kind, and gave it to another little girl whose heart was failing too.

Because I'm slow, my reactions lag behind everyone else's, so it wasn't until my vision went black that I started crying and begging her.

Her face was cold, her eyes full of disgust. "I'm a cardiologist, and I'm your mother. No one understands your condition better than I do. A hundred milliliters won't hurt you."

But what I wanted to say was that this was the fifth time she'd drawn my blood in July. I really couldn't take it anymore.

The second before I passed out, I heard a nurse ask her,

"We finally have a donor heart that matches your daughter. We could schedule the surgery for tonight."

She refused without a moment's hesitation. "Daughter or not, she gets no special treatment. Give the heart to Sabrina."

"I've examined her. She can wait a little longer. Sabrina is the one who really can't."

My body was slowly going cold, and the tears kept falling.

Maybe the daughter my mother wanted was the lively, clever Sabrina.

Not a dull, slow fool like me.

My heart hurt so much my whole body was shaking, and I remembered my mother saying the painkillers would take the pain away.

I hid under the blanket, wrote a note, and fed myself one pill, then another.

But it still hurt so much. Mom, you lied to me.

My soul drifted out of my body, and I saw my mother cradling Sabrina with delight. "Sabrina, you're finally saved. We can operate tonight!"

1:

Sabrina's eyes went wide with joy.

Then she glanced at me, being wheeled into the ward, hidden under my blanket, and suddenly broke into loud sobs.

"No, no, I don't want the new heart. Give it to big sister Norma Fox instead. She's your daughter, she should get the best care."

There was no one at the door, but my mother's ears pricked up anyway, tense, and she rushed to explain.

"Even my own daughter gets no privileges! If anything, it means I have to be even more careful about favoritism! I compared both your cases side by side. Your condition is more serious. Even though Norma has been on the waiting list longer than you, the heart should still go to you!"

"A hospital can't go by who came first. It goes by how critical the patient is."

She stroked Sabrina's soft little cheek as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"And you're so lively and sweet. You deserve a healthy heart. Don't you want to run around on the ground like the other children?"

Sabrina's eyes filled with longing, and she clung tightly to my mother. "Thank you so much! Tomorrow I'll have my daddy bring you a banner!"

Sabrina was young but very sweet-tongued. She hadn't been here two days before she had all the nurses and my mother wrapped around her finger.

Even the head nurse, the one who thought I was the most hopelessly stupid, shook her head with regret.

"Such a lovely little girl, and she has heart failure."

But when I was admitted, all she did was frown and say, "There's an upside to being slow. At least she doesn't know pain and isn't afraid of dying."

I burst into tears right then and told her I wasn't stupid, that I could already do addition and subtraction up to ten.

And I did know pain.

My chest hurt every time, so much that I couldn't even eat the gelatin cups I loved most.

I was afraid of dying too, because I'd seen a kitten hit dead by the side of the road.

White worms grow inside your body. I didn't want to be eaten by worms.

The tears kept falling, but my mother noticed none of it.

She just glanced back at me with disgust. "Heartless, just as I thought. She can even sleep through this."

She gave the blanket a hard shove. "Get up. Sabrina is having her surgery tonight. Hurry and say something to cheer her on!"

Critically ill patients always encourage each other before surgery.

Before all this, I would have listened to my mother, climbed up, and used the few nice words in my head to praise Sabrina.

Wished her a successful surgery and a quick recovery.

But now all I could do was pass through my mother's body, again and again, and she couldn't hear a word I said.

Seeing me lying on the bed without a sound, my mother slapped it hard in anger.

"Get up! Didn't you hear me talking to you!"

2: 2

Sabrina spoke with the sweetest, most innocent face. "Big sister Norma must be upset, because I took her heart. If it's a problem, Sabrina can give it back to her. Sabrina really doesn't mind."

Even when she cried, the little girl was adorable, her cheeks and the tip of her nose flushing pink.

Not like me. When I cried, tears and snot smeared all over my face.

Every time, Mom wiped it away with a look that was half disgust, half aching tenderness.

None of the nurses liked me, so I never let them wipe my face. Only Mom.

Whenever this happened, the other patients in the room would sneer.

"Even a simpleton with a heart condition gets treated differently, once she's a doctor's daughter. Look how busy she is, and she still finds time to come wipe her own girl's nose. Not like the rest of us, just left here to die."

Mom's face would go stiff. She'd finish wiping me down without a word and leave, her expression cold.

Not long after, she had me transferred, and she took a job at this new hospital.

Because they were willing to give me my own private room.

A room just for me, and nurses who wouldn't look at me with disgust.

I could read, but I didn't understand what it all meant.

I only knew the form said: Heart failure, severe, requires solitary rest, special approval for a family-staff room, cost deducted from salary.

But a month ago, Sabrina moved in too.

She was lively and loud, and she'd sing songs for Mom.

The noise kept me awake, and I lay there clutching my chest as it twitched and seized.

But Mom said I was selfish, that I wanted to hoard scarce medical resources all for myself and get Sabrina killed.

I didn't understand what Mom was saying. I took her hand and pressed it to my heart.

"Mom, it hurts here. It hurts so much."

Before Mom could even ask, alarmed, Sabrina piped up with a grin.

"Big sister Norma, stop pretending. Heart failure doesn't hurt, it just makes you weak. Because Sabrina has it too."

At that, Mom's face darkened all at once.

Especially after she ran a full set of tests on me and they showed my condition hadn't worsened. Then, in a rare moment, she spoke to me sternly.

"Norma, Mom is so tired. Can you please stop being difficult?"

"Because of your nonsense about your heart hurting, Sabrina's parents pulled her out of the room, and she had an attack and nearly didn't get treated in time!"

"Mom can only give you the best care if she gets a solid footing at this hospital. Everything Mom does is for you. So be good."

I didn't understand what Mom meant about avoiding favoritism, but I knew I was supposed to be good.

Yet even after I was good, Mom gave my Baba plush to Sabrina.

Because Sabrina said she had no mom, and no Baba, and she was scared to sleep alone.

When I was in the ICU, Mom couldn't come in, so she'd given me that Baba plush to keep me company.

With Baba there, I could finally close my eyes.

I didn't dare ask for my own Baba back. I could only sneak up onto the foot of Sabrina's bed, hoping to sleep in one small corner.

But she suddenly screamed. "Help! Big sister Norma says I stole her Baba, and she's trying to strangle me!"

The shrill sound terrified me. I clutched my chest, unable to speak, unable to breathe.

Someone said the simpleton had gone mad. Someone else said there was going to be a death.

Sabrina hid in Mom's arms, sobbing and sobbing.

Until her crying overloaded her heart, cut off the blood, and she fainted.

Mom bowed low and deep to Sabrina's grandmother, apologizing, then dragged my unconscious body away to draw my blood.

"My daughter and Sabrina share the same blood type. She's asleep, so let me take her blood to bring Sabrina around."

3: 3

I looked down at the needle marks on the back of my hand, where they'd drawn my blood, and the tears just kept falling.

Even dead, when I remembered that thick needle, I was still so afraid.

Mom stood beside the bed, and when she couldn't get me to stir no matter how she pushed, her temper flared.

She slapped the blanket hard.

"To think I gave birth to a curse like you! Sabrina's got one foot through death's door and you're still lying there playing dead!"

I kept crying, looking up at her.

I wasn't playing dead. I really was dead.

But Mom couldn't hear me. She deliberately took out my favorite gelatin cup.

"Since you don't want it, I'll just give it to Sabrina."

I still didn't move, and in her fury Mom kicked the bed.

My pale little hand, stained red with blood, slipped out from under the blanket, but she didn't see it at all.

Instead she turned and peeled open my favorite gelatin cup for Sabrina.

Sabrina made loud smacking sounds on purpose, eating and talking at the same time.

"Dr. Fox, you really are the best mom in the whole world. You even carry big sister Norma's favorite gelatin cups around with you. I wish you were my mom."

Then Sabrina suddenly burst into tears. "Sabrina never had a mom. Daddy's always so busy with work he ignores me, there's only Grandma. I really do envy big sister Norma."

Mom held her close, her heart aching. "I wish you were my daughter too."

Sabrina looked up at her, eyes glimmering. "You don't mind that Sabrina has a heart condition...?"

Mom smiled softly. "Then it must be fate that brought us together. I can be the one to treat you."

"You're smart and pretty, lively and sweet. A well-behaved daughter like you is exactly what I'd want."

Sabrina threw her arms around her. "Can I call you Mommy?"

Mom froze for a second. "You can."

"Mommy!"

"Mm."

"Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!"

Sabrina called out over and over, and Mom answered every single time, not missing one.

That shrill little voice stabbed straight into my heart.

I was already dead, and yet I clutched my chest in pain, the tears never stopping.

So Mom really didn't love me. She loved Sabrina.

When Sabrina finished the gelatin, she sweetly told Mom she could go to the bathroom by herself.

Mom smiled, comforted, then turned her head and saw the mound of my blanket, and all her anger came rushing back.

"Norma! How long are you going to keep giving me the silent treatment!"

I didn't answer, and her voice went low with disgust and held-back rage.

"If you weren't my own child, I really wouldn't want to be dragging a simpleton around for the rest of my life."

The moment she said it, Mom went stiff.

Then she laughed again.

"You're a simpleton. You can't even understand what I'm saying."

"Everyone calls me a genius, and I've always been healthy, and yet I gave birth to a sickly child like you."

"If all you had was a heart condition, I could treat you."

"But you're a simpleton! What am I supposed to do with that!"

Mom's eyes were red, utterly hopeless.

She was crying.

The scalding tears fell onto the white blanket.

I reached out to catch them, and I found that they tasted bitter.

Mom once told me a fairy tale, that if a person is happy, her tears are sweet.

But Mom's tears were bitter.

I had made her sad.