Blood Wasn't Thicker Than Water All the Time

Hazel's POV

By six thirty in the morning, I had already finished cooking breakfast. But my stomach hurt so badly that I peeled a boiled egg and swallowed it just to ease the pain.

Half an hour later, right as I finished dressing my grandson, Finn Reynolds, my son Colin Reynolds exploded at me and told me to get out.

“Mom, you actually stole a pickled egg? If you can’t stop this filthy habit, then get out!”

I stammered, explaining that my stomach hurt, and I grabbed the wrong egg by accident, and that I’d replace it when I bought groceries later.

But he wouldn’t hear any of it. “Stole it and still lying about it. Don’t make me laugh. My mom would never touch the garbage eggs from the street market, so what are you going to replace it with?”

His mother-in-law, Agnes Langley, sat elegantly at the dining table and motioned for me to serve her food.

“What are you staring at? Go get my bowl.”

Colin barked orders at me, and Finn mimicked him, swinging his little hand and smacking my face.

“Bad Grandma! Go away! Go away!”

Agnes laughed softly and suggested, “If you wanted a pickled egg, you could’ve just said so. No need to sneak around. If you teach Finn bad habits, maybe it’s better if you go back to your hometown sooner.”

Looking at the family I had worked myself half to death caring for, I gently set my grandson down.

Clutching the passbook I had kept hidden all night, and the newly deposited two million inside, I decided I really would go back home.

——

No more explanations, I put my struggling grandson aside and turned toward my room.

Calling it a “bedroom” was generous, as it was basically a storage room beside the bathroom.

When I moved here from the countryside, Colin told me his mother-in-law had rheumatism and needed the master bedroom near the bathroom. And since he and his wife were “light sleepers,” they took the second bedroom farther from the door. As for their five-year-old son, they wanted him to “develop independence,” so he got the spacious, bright guest room.

And I, the mother who rose before dawn and worked past dark, the old peasant woman who took care of them, was shoved into a damp, cramped storage room built beside the toilet. A one-meter-wide cot and a folding screen I picked up from a neighbor were all I had.

Sitting on the creaking bed, I looked around and found that there wasn’t a single thing in that room that truly belonged to me.

I picked up the blue cloth bundle I brought with me when I moved to the city three years ago and walked out of the place that had trapped me ever since.

The door creaked open, and the four of them, eating happily at the dining table, slowly turned their heads to look.

“Bad Grandma opened the door! Daddy, hurry and scold her!”

Following Finn’s finger, Colin turned, a meat still in his fork, and shot me a look full of irritation.

“Why are you throwing a tantrum this early? It’s almost seven-thirty. Come eat and clean up.”

I looked at my son, his mouth greasy, and let out a breath I’d been swallowing for years.

Since the day I stepped into this house, I had never once eaten at that table I scrubbed countless times.

I still remember that first meal I tried to sit with them. I pulled out a chair and took the corner seat. But my daughter-in-law, Colette Reynolds, glanced at me in disgust and slammed her chopsticks down, glaring at Colin.

Instantly, he understood. “Mom, you’re from the village. Your hygiene isn’t great. From now on, eat over there,” he said, pointing to the short stool in the corner.

From that day on, the tiny stool beneath my grandson’s hamster cage became my “dining spot.”

Thinking about it now, my nose stung, so I quickened my steps toward the door.

“You steal food, and you're just leaving like that? A pickled egg costs a buck. But it’s wasted on you and would only turn into nothing but crap. My mom is generous enough not to be mad. So, what are you sulking about?”

When he said “my mom,” the ache in my chest only grew heavier.

To distinguish between me and his mother-in-law, my own son, the boy I carried for nine months and raised for twenty-seven years, called another woman “Mom.”

In the beginning, every time he said it, I couldn’t even tell who he meant, so I always turned around, ready to answer.