Is 'Concerning My Daughter' Worth Reading?

My daughter, Tina, locked herself in her room, crying so hard her body shook. I pried the door open and saw that she was clutching a test paper that was torn to shreds and pieced back together. It was a math Olympiad selection test. She should have gotten a perfect score, but was given a score of zero instead. "Mom," she sobbed, "the teacher said 3x5 is not equal to 5x3; that it's taking shortcuts. She tore my paper up in front of everyone, revoked my eligibility for the competition, and told the whole class not to talk to me…" I looked at the deep red scratch marks on my daughter's wrist and immediately picked up the phone to call the principal. "What good does it do for your school's reputation to drive a kid who loves math to their breaking point?"

My daughter was violated and killed, yet her death was ruled a suicide. After seven failed appeals, I kidnapped the chief prosecutor’s daughter. I tied the chief prosecutor’s daughter to an autopsy table and publicly addressed the prosecutor’s office in a live stream. “I performed the autopsy myself. My daughter didn’t kill herself. She was murdered. “I’ll give you seven chances. Release the actual evidence and name the murderer publicly. Each time a chance runs out, I’ll remove one of her body parts.” The chief prosecutor and his wife knelt on the floor. They begged me desperately to spare their daughter. “The evidence proves your daughter took her own life. Stop this madness now and let my daughter go. She’s innocent.” Viewers in the live stream called me insane. They said I had lost my mind with grief and was taking it out on an innocent person. I ignored their contempt. With a sneer, I picked up a scalpel and pressed it against the judge’s daughter’s abdomen. “The clock is ticking. Hurry up and reveal the true murderer now.” I knew perfectly well the real murderer was watching the stream at that very moment.

My three-year-old daughter was playing in the room, and she suddenly fell from the window of the room and died. In my past life, I held her lifeless body after learning the news, crying so hard I thought I would never stop. But when my husband rushed back, he slapped me across the face without a second thought. "How could you be so cruel? You actually threw her out of the window—she was only three!" I was too stunned to react. Later, my husband and my best friend teamed up and testified that I had thrown my daughter from the window because I had an argument with my husband. I was cyberbullied and labeled the "evil mom". Amid the public hatred and the pain of losing my daughter, I jumped to prove my innocence. Even in death, I still didn't understand. My daughter had been fine playing in the room—how did she fall out of the window? When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day she fell.

Because I had a face that screamed 'pick-me girl', I became the target of my mother's deepest hatred. She claimed that just seeing me made her sick, bringing back memories of my father's affair. In retaliation, she channeled all her affection into helping a child from a poor village, praising her for being kind and genuine while insisting she loved her hundreds of times more than she ever loved me. But then that same girl went behind my back and seduced my boyfriend, and my mother reacted by hitting me across the face repeatedly. "How did I end up with such a shameless daughter? You're the third wheel, and you're accusing her of being the other woman!" Yet when I fell gravely ill with cancer, she was beside herself with grief, begging for forgiveness while praying earnestly. "How could I not love you, my dear? I've made such terrible mistakes…"

My husband persuaded my daughter to donate her kidney to save his lover. After the surgery, he stayed by his lover’s side and neglected my daughter who developed kidney failure that led to her death. When I confronted the nasty couple, they refused to believe that my daughter had passed away and kicked me out by force. Afterward, I took my daughter's ashes to her eighteenth birthday party where my husband showed up with his lover and tore down all the decorations, going as far as to scatter my daughter’s ashes. He then accused my late daughter of undermining his lover’s career. When he finally had to accept that his daughter was dead, he still insisted on defending his lover. Eventually, I showed him proof that it was his lover who refused the hospital’s proposed organ donor so that she could plot to take my daughter’s kidney instead. Upon finding out the truth, he lost his mind and killed his lover. Now that those two have gotten what they deserve, I bring my daughter’s ashes and travel to the places she had always wanted to go to.

He took everything from me. My home. My heart. My daughter. I was twenty four years old, lying in a hospital bed, holding my newborn girl for the first time, when Rane Blackwood walked in with divorce papers and a court order. He said I was unfit. He said I was poor. He said I had nothing to offer his child. And because I had no money, no lawyer, and no one to fight for me, I signed. I told myself it was temporary. I told myself I would come back for her. I kept that promise. Six years later, I am not the broken girl he left behind. I rebuilt from nothing. I worked, I sacrificed, I planned. And when his six shareholders quietly sold their stakes one by one, I was the one buying. By the time Rane Blackwood figured out what was happening, I already owned sixty percent of his company. He does not know it is me. Not yet. I have a new life, a new love, and a daughter I have never stopped thinking about. But my daughter does not know I am her mother. His wife, the woman who was once my best friend, has made sure of that. She has poisoned my child's heart against a woman she does not even know is standing right in front of her. Now Rane is chasing me. Begging. Promising. Suffering. Good. Let him. Some debts are not paid in money. Some are paid in regret.