My Daughter Is A Troublemaker

The day I gave birth, the hospital corridors were heavy with the sharp smell of disinfectant. Out of nowhere, a fortune teller dressed in a gray cotton shirt barged into the ward, his eyes locked on the baby girl in my arms. He said the child was born to be a jinx—if we didn't let him take her away, someone in our family was bound to die. My husband, Morgan Carter, trembled with rage. He snatched the enamel cup from the bedside and threw it at the fortune teller. The fortune teller clutched his head and ran off, shouting, "Just wait and see if you don't believe me." At the time, I just thought he was a charlatan and didn't pay his words any mind. But three months later, Morgan Carter met with an accident. That day, during a heavy rainstorm, he was riding his electric bike to the construction site to deliver materials. Passing by an unsealed construction puddle, he suddenly fell in, bike and all. He clearly knew how to swim, but he never came up from that half-meter-deep puddle. The police said the rain probably washed away the soil around the puddle, burying him. At the funeral, I held my daughter, just a hundred days old, too drained even to cry. My daughter's name is Nancy Lincoln, a name Morgan chose. From that day on, I became a single mother. To support Nancy Lincoln, I took two jobs—stocking shelves at the supermarket during the day and washing dishes at a restaurant at night. The cold cases at the supermarket always leaked air, so I had to crouch down and organize the milk for two hours every day. After a while, my knees would ache terribly whenever it was damp or rainy. The restaurant kitchen was even worse—the smoke and oil fumes stung my eyes so badly I could barely keep them open, and the water in the dish sink was always cold. I often washed dishes until after midnight, my fingers so wrinkled I couldn't even hold chopsticks properly. I lived like that for five years. When Nancy Lincoln was five, I started working back-to-back night shifts, trying to earn extra money to pay for her kindergarten. At two in the morning that day, I was wiping tables at the restaurant when my colleague, Madam Lee, suddenly came running over, holding up her mobile phone. "Victoria Lincoln, look quickly—isn't this your child?" I leaned in, and the image on the phone screen sent a chill down my spine. Nancy Lincoln was standing on the balcony of our rented apartment, tears streaming down her face, shouting down to the street below. "My mother doesn't care about me anymore! She locked me inside the house and hasn't fed me all day!" "Don't call her anymore; she'll just report me!" In the video, people downstairs were jeering, and someone called me "heartless." Nancy cried so hard she was gasping for air, but I clearly saw her sneak a glance upstairs, a trace of pride hidden in her eyes as she watched the reaction below. Madam Lee patted my shoulder with a complicated look and said, "This child... how could she say things like that about you?" I said nothing, just felt my throat tighten, and even breathing hurt. Every morning before I leave, I put Nancy's breakfast and lunch on the table. Last night, I even specially cooked her favorite tomato scrambled eggs—so how did that become "she hasn't eaten all day"? At that moment, Quincy Scott suddenly stepped out from the kitchen. She's Morgan Carter's distant cousin. Last year, she started working as a waitress at the restaurant and always said she wanted to 'help me look after Nancy.' Quincy leaned close to me, her voice low but just loud enough for those nearby to hear: "Victoria, Nancy is still so young; she can't go hungry. If Morgan knew this, he'd be heartbroken." I looked up at her, and the smug satisfaction in her eyes was impossible to hide. I know exactly why she hates me. Even when Morgan was still alive, Quincy always found excuses to come to our place; there was something unsettling about the way she looked at him. After Morgan Carter died, she openly and behind my back called me a "jinx to my husband," saying I "didn't deserve to raise Nancy." I didn't have the strength to argue with her; I just grabbed my mobile phone, hoping to call Nancy Lincoln.