My father, too worried I would dirty his beloved car, rented a beat-up truck instead. Together, they roughly threw me onto the back of that broken-down vehicle and swiftly drove me to the crematorium.
They did not even bother buying a proper urn. My ashes were carelessly stuffed into an old plastic container they had emptied of sweet potato starch. They didn’t even clean it.
If you looked closely, you could still see traces of white starch mixed in with my ashes.
And yet, my parents still felt I had wasted their time. To them, I had always been someone who did not matter.
I could never understand the reason, despite being their child, I was treated so differently from my sister and brother.
I had even suspected, at times, that I wasn’t their biological daughter. So much so, that I secretly had a DNA test done behind their backs, I was hoping I was not their biological child.
The day I received the results, I actually wished I was not related to them by blood. I thought maybe that would help me find peace.
However, when I saw the words “Confirmed biological relationship,” all my hopes shattered.
Ironically, on a quiet night not long after, I overheard my parents talking and learned the real truth, that it was my sister who was the one who had been adopted.
At that time my parents had not had a child even though they had been married for so many years. Finally, they decided to adopt a girl in hopes of "summoning" a younger brother. That’s how my sister came to our family.
After my sister arrived, my father’s business flourished. We soon became the first family in the village to have a fortune of fifteen hundred dollars
My father believed my sister was his lucky charm. Because of that, he showered her with endless love and attention.
And my sister did not disappoint them. Soon after, my parents were expecting their first biological child. The shady clinic they visited assured them that this time it would definitely be a boy.
They were overjoyed and dreamed day and night of their son's arrival. However, the boy they were promised turned out to be me instead.
To make things worse, on the day I was born, my father suffered a major financial loss.
The double blow led to me being labeled a “misfortune” from the moment I entered the world. From then on, I was the unwanted child, unloved and unnoticed.