"My head hurts like hell."
Amber Shelton clutched her throbbing head and snapped her eyes open. The first thing she saw was the old wall calendar. On it, in bright red numbers, was the date clear as day: March 24, 1970.
She looked around the old room, familiar and strange at the same time, and the whole person froze stiff. She had clearly died. Her two nephews, the boys she had raised with her own blood and sweat, had shoved her off a high building and killed her outright.
She lowered her head and stared at her hands and arms. The skin was fair and smooth, soft and clean, not a single crack or callus in sight. Nothing like the rough, split hands from years of farm work, laundry, and cooking in her last life. These hands were so tender they looked like water could be pinched right out of them. Just then, a young voice came from outside the door, one she knew all too well.
"Amby, is your head better now? Your big brother and sister-in-law still need to get to work. The whole family is waiting to eat. If you're fine, get up and make breakfast already."
It was Margaret Shelton, her mother. Young, sharp, and mean in that familiar way, carrying every bitter memory Amber had from her last life.
Amber raised her hand and pinched her thigh hard. A sharp stab of pain shot through her at once, and her heart gave a violent shudder.
This wasn't a dream.
She had really been reborn.
In her previous life, she had emptied herself out helping her brother and his wife pay off debts. She never married. She worked herself to the bone raising those two nephews, then nearly died earning two apartments for them, all so the Shelton family line could continue. She pinched every penny, skipped meals all the time, and kept working on an empty stomach. Before she even turned fifty, she had worn herself into stomach cancer. And the two nephews she had raised by hand? Afraid her treatment would cost money, they joined forces and killed her.
It was only right before death that she learned the cruelest secret of all.
She was never the Sheltons' biological daughter.
Her parents, her brother, her sister-in-law—they had all known from the start. They had stood by and watched her suffer her whole life, watched her feed and carry the whole family on her back.
The Amber Shelton from her last life—the obedient, gentle, hardworking fool—was dead.
The one alive now had seen through everything, and her heart was full of hate.
That pack of ungrateful wolves?
She was done serving them.
Amber couldn't hold down the rage boiling in her chest. She turned toward the door and shouted, "What, is everybody in this house dead? Why's it only me you're waiting on to cook?"
Outside, Margaret Shelton went blank with shock. Her face was full of disbelief. This daughter had always been obedient and sensible, never once talked back. And now she dared snap at her in public?
Margaret quickly found her voice and started banging on the door.
"Amby, how can you talk like that?"
Amber shut her eyes and forced down the bitterness and hatred piled up over two lifetimes. These people probably still thought she was the same soft pushover they could knead any way they liked. She yanked off the blanket, shoved her feet into her shoes, and pulled the door open in one hard motion.
"What, you don't understand plain words? Is everybody in this house dead? Every last one of you sits around waiting for me to serve you. Without me, can none of you live?"
She truly wanted to ask the woman in front of her—this so-called mother—why she had been so cruel in the last life. Was it just because she wasn't a real Shelton? Was that enough reason to watch her slave away for the family forever?
Margaret Shelton was suddenly choked silent. Just a second ago, she could still tell herself the girl had a fever and was talking nonsense. But now? What excuse was left?
"Amby, how can you speak to your mother like this? I'm your mom!"
"Oh, so you remember I'm your daughter? Then did you know I was burning with a 104-degree fever last night? Did anybody even look in on me? If I'd died of thirst or fever in that room, none of you would've noticed. But now you remember to drag me up to cook? What, none of your hands work?"
"Am I a beast of burden for this family? You all have jobs, so I don't? I work too. But on top of that, I have to handle your three meals a day and every bit of housework. If I'm not here, does this family stop running?"
Margaret Shelton couldn't listen anymore. Her face darkened, and she lifted her hand to slap the daughter still making a scene.
Amber shifted aside in a flash and dodged the slap. Looking at her mother, who was shaking with anger, she gave a cold laugh.
"What now? Hit a sore spot, did I? Can't stand hearing the truth?"
"Hmph. Let me tell you this—whoever wants to do the housework can do it. Me? I won't touch a single thing from now on."
Amber's heart felt cold clear through. She threw those words out, then slammed the door shut with a loud bang.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Margaret Shelton stood there in a daze, staring at her own right hand, then at the tightly shut door. After a long breath, she turned and went to the kitchen. Without Amber, the Shelton family still got their breakfast.
Morris Shelton and his wife had definitely heard Amber's shouting fit that morning. Of course they had. But so what? Let her yell. As long as it didn't get in the way of their business, they couldn't care less.
Margaret looked at her eldest daughter-in-law several times, wanting to bring up Amber's behavior, but every time the words reached her mouth, the younger woman blocked them back with a few casual lines. In the end, Margaret could only swallow her anger along with the porridge in her bowl. Once she watched her son and daughter-in-law leave for work, she took her two grandsons and headed off to the nursery class.
The living room outside gradually went quiet.
Amber could tell the people who needed to work had gone to work, and the ones who needed school had gone out too. She hadn't gone out to cook first thing in the morning, yet not one person had come to call her to eat.
Fine.
Just fine.
A whole nest of white-eyed ingrates.
She lay there silently on the narrow little bed, her mind churning hard through everything from her last life, trying to dig out something useful.
Then it hit her.
Ethan Mercer.
The fiancé she had failed to end up with in her last life. If she could hold tight to that leg this time, how bad could her future possibly be?
If she still ended up living the same bitter life as before after getting another chance, then she'd really be a fool.