After the college entrance exam ended, my mother, who had died years ago, suddenly came back.
Though she had undergone permanent sterilization, she was somehow pregnant.
She used to be severely allergic to mangoes, yet now she could drink an entire glass of mango juice without flinching.
The red birthmark behind her ear had vanished, replaced by a butterfly tattoo.
Deep down, I knew she wasn’t my mother.
But my father and everyone else dismissed it as stress from the exam.
They said I was just seeing things.
I called the police, and they ran a DNA test.
The result confirmed she was indeed my mother.
Still, I couldn’t bring myself to believe it.
Not until I graduated and returned home to transfer my household registration.
That’s when I found the spirit tablet, buried deep at the bottom of a box.
——
“Elisa, you scored 690 points!”
“Honey, our Elisa scored 690!”
“Really?” Lila rushed out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.
It was the first time she had stepped into my room since coming back from the dead over half a month ago.
Seeing the score on the screen, she jumped up and down in glee, clapping like a child.
“I have to tell my parents the good news right away!”
Lila dashed out to make a call, never once meeting my eyes.
“Now your mom can brag at work for days,” Dad said with a soft chuckle, patting my shoulder as he gazed lovingly in the direction Lila had left.
I stared at him, my expression cold.
“She’s not my mom. Mom’s been dead for three years. You and she were inseparable, there’s no way you wouldn’t notice that this woman isn’t her.”
“You were the one who declared her death.”
Three years ago, after the accident, it was Dad, her own surgeon, who had walked out of the OR and said the rescue had failed.
Now, three years later, just after my exams, she came back as if nothing had ever happened.
He insisted I was imagining it all, that Mom had been here, taking care of me the entire time.
When I questioned it, Dad no longer had the patience he once had.
His voice, edged with irritation, snapped through the air. “Elisa, how much longer are you going to keep this up?”
“Your mother carried you for ten months, raised you through storms and hardship, and stood by you until your college entrance exam, yet you keep claiming she’s dead. What’s wrong with you?”
“When you were little and ran a high fever while I wasn’t home, she carried you to the clinic in the middle of the night and nearly got hit by a car. She still has a scar on her leg from that night.”
“But Mom didn’t have a scar on her leg before!” I screamed back, my voice trembling.
I couldn’t remember that incident, no matter how hard I tried.
Dad’s gaze dimmed as he looked at me, disappointment washing over his face like a shadow falling over light.
Just moments ago, he had been glowing with joy over my score of 690. Now he turned and left my room, shoulders slumped like a man worn down by time.
But I remembered, clearly, painfully, that Mom never had a scar.
The woman in front of me, Lila, bore a scar shaped like a twisted centipede.
She wasn’t my mom.
As I leaned against the bed, lost in thought, Dad stormed back into my room, a photo album clutched in his hand.
He threw it down onto the bed with a loud thud.
“These are your childhood photos. Look carefully, see if your mom had a scar on her leg!”
The photos slid into view.
Though the image quality was grainy, it was clear enough to show the scar on Mom’s leg.
Right there, exactly where the scar now sat on Lila’s.
My breath caught.
How could this be?
I flipped through the album again and again, eyes searching, heart pounding.
Mom had shown me this album a hundred times. Never, not once, had I seen that scar.
Just as the confusion surged within me, Lila rushed into the room and stepped protectively in front of me.
“Jackson, why are you yelling at the child again?” she snapped at Dad, her voice sharp.
