My Brother Became a Vegetable To Save Me Novel by NANCY ROWSE

I imagined countless times how my mother would react upon discovering the truth. Would she regret her actions? Or would she weep for me, her heart breaking into pieces? I felt like a dog desperately seeking attention, trying to find even a hint of remorse in her eyes. Yet, she remained as calm as ever.

After hanging up, it was as if nothing had happened. She called for Winnie to prepare dinner, trying to placate my brother as she pulled him toward the table. He shrugged off her hand, laughing bitterly.

“You don’t deserve to be a mother. I often wondered if I were like my sister, would you and Dad stop loving me? Now I have my answer.”

Mother seemed to lose her balance, collapsing to the floor. Tears shimmered in her eyes as she stared blankly at my brother.

“What do you want me to do? She’s already dead. Should I die in her place?”

Both Dad and my brother were stunned by her words.

“Quinn, who was on the phone just now?”

Mother got up from the floor, smoothing her clothes with composure. Her voice was eerily steady.

“The police station. The victim is Lydia.”

Pain etched across Dad’s face, his lips trembling, unable to form complete words.

“You… you mean the dismembered one… is Lydia?”

Mother responded softly, then calmly walked over to the dining table to eat. Her indifference pierced me deeply once more.

Dad snatched her fork away. “Quinn, how can you still eat? Our daughter is dead.”

Mother shot him a cold glance and stood up from the table. Dad grabbed her arm, his voice low and fierce. “How can you be so cold–hearted?”

She turned to him sharply. “What right do you have to criticize me?”

He looked as if he had been choked, opening his mouth to speak but unable to utter a single word.

“Mrs. Brown, it’s been a long time.”

“Now you remember who I am, don’t you?”

The man in the interrogation room stared at his mom with a smile.

“What’s it like to know the victim is your own daughter?”

I didn’t understand why the man hated Mom so much until now.

It turns out that ten years ago, mom helped a man who raped his daughter win his case.

His daughter couldn’t accept the result and eventually chose to slit her wrists.

Therefore, he hated my mom and wanted to take revenge on me for all the pain he had endured.

He wanted Mom to taste it too, the pain of losing her own flesh and blood.

I covered my heart and took a few steps back.

Well, it’s better this way.

Mom gave me life, and now, I’d sacrificed myself to take her punishment.

It’s a clean slate.

“Do you know how stubborn your daughter is? She refuses to admit that you’re not a good lawyer.”

“What a pity. She’s in the prime of her life, but she has to pay for her mother’s sins.”

The man thought these words would make my mom’s heart ache.

But he was wrong.

Mom’s face was unperturbed from the beginning.

Just quietly listening to the man, recounting the whole process of killing me.

This made the man nearly break down, slapping his handcuffed hands furiously on the table.

“Aren’t you sad? Why aren’t you upset?”

“Are you even a mother?”

I don’t know why, but at that moment I felt some sympathy for this murderer.

Maybe he didn’t realize that not everyone was like him, loving his own child so much.