My parents looked at me coldly and said,
“You are the one who brought shame upon this family. From now on, you are no longer our child.”
I got pregnant when I was still in Grade 10.
When I saw the two lines, I was so terrified that I started trembling and could barely stand. I hadn’t even had time to think about what to do when everything was suddenly exposed.
My parents looked at me as if I were utterly despicable.
“You’ve disgraced this household. From now on, you are no longer our daughter.”
My father’s words felt like a cruel slap across my face.
That night, it was raining.
My mother threw my torn backpack outside and chased me out of the house. I didn’t have a single coin in my pocket. I had nowhere to go.
Holding my stomach, I endured the pain and walked away from the house that had once been the calmest and safest place in my life—without ever looking back.
I gave birth to my daughter in an eight-square-meter boarding room.
It was hard, miserable, and filled with whispers and gossip. I raised her with everything I had. When my daughter turned two, I left our province and took her with me to Sài Gòn. I worked as a waitress while studying a vocational course.
At last, fate smiled on me.
I got the chance to start an online business, and later, I built my own company.
After six years, I bought a house.
After ten years, I opened a chain of stores.
After twenty years… my assets exceeded 200 billion Vietnamese dong.
I knew I had succeeded.
But the pain in my chest—the wound of being abandoned by my own parents—never truly went away.
One day, I decided to return.
Not to forgive.
But to let them feel what they had lost.
I drove my new Mercedes back to my hometown. The old, dilapidated house was still there, almost unchanged from twenty years ago—if not worse. The iron gate was rusted. The paint on the walls was peeling. The yard was overgrown with weeds.
I stood in front of the door, took a deep breath, and knocked three times.
A young girl, about eighteen years old, came out to open the door.
I froze.
She… looked exactly like me. From her eyes to her nose, even the way she frowned. It was as if I were looking at myself when I was younger.
“Who are you looking for?” the girl asked politely.
Before I could answer, my parents came out of the house. When they saw me, both of them stopped. My mother raised her hand to her mouth, her eyes turning red.
I smiled coldly.
“So… you regret it now?”
Suddenly, the girl ran over and held my mother’s hand.
“Grandma, who is she?”
Grandma?
I froze completely. My chest felt like it was shattering. I turned to my parents.
“Who… who is this girl?”
Tears streamed down my mother’s face.
“She… she’s your child.”
I died inside.
I almost screamed,
“That’s impossible! My daughter has been with me since she was little! What are you talking about?!”
My father let out a deep sigh. His voice trembled, clearly aged by time.
“We… adopted a baby who was left at our door… eighteen years ago.”
My whole body went cold.
“Abandoned? At the gate?”
My mother took out an old diaper from a cabinet. I recognized it instantly. It was the diaper I had wrapped my baby in when she was born.
It felt as if my heart were being stabbed.
Through her tears, my mother said,
“After you left… a few months later, her father came. He wanted to take the child back, but you had already taken her to Sài Gòn. He was furious, started drinking, caused trouble everywhere… and then disappeared for a long time.
Eighteen years ago… one morning, I opened the door and saw a newborn baby lying in front of our gate. She had nothing with her except this diaper. I knew… I knew it had something to do with you. I thought… maybe something terrible had happened to you… maybe… you were gone.”
Her voice broke as she cried.
“We were wrong about you back then. But this child… we couldn’t abandon her to an orphanage. We raised her as our own. We never hurt her or scolded her—not even once.”
I trembled.
I remembered clearly: I had carefully hidden that diaper in a wooden box. No one knew about it. If someone had left this baby at my parents’ gate… there was only one possibility.
The real father of my daughter.
He… had another child with another woman. Then he abandoned her at the very place where he knew I had been thrown out years earlier.
I looked at the girl—the child I did not give birth to, yet who looked shockingly like me.
Shyly, she asked,
“Big sister… why are you crying?”
I hugged her and cried like I had never cried in my entire life.
My parents knelt down.
“Please forgive us. We were wrong. Don’t be angry at the child… she didn’t do anything wrong.”
I looked at them, and suddenly the twenty years of resentment in my heart disappeared. Not because they deserved forgiveness—but because I understood something.
This child needed a family.
And I… needed to close the door on the past.
I stood up, wiped my tears, and said,
“I didn’t come back to take revenge. I came back… to take what belongs to me.”
I held the girl’s hand and smiled.
“From now on, you are my little sister.”
My parents stood there, crying like children.