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墨書 Inktalez
In the days following the funeral, I felt like a walking corpse. I spent my time in the empty house, guarding her room, repeatedly flipping through that diary that shattered my heart. With each reading, my regret deepened.
That afternoon, the doorbell rang.
I mechanically walked over to open the door, and there stood a quiet-looking girl, seemingly in her early twenties, with red-rimmed eyes.
“Hello, Uncle,” her voice trembled as she spoke. “I’m Fang Hui, Lin Wan’s college classmate and her best friend.”
I nodded numbly and let her in. Yes, I had seen her at the funeral; she had cried deeply.
We sat on the sofa in the living room, momentarily at a loss for words.
“Uncle,” Fang Hui finally spoke up, her voice still low, “I’m sorry to disturb you at such a time, but… there are some things I feel I must tell you.”
I looked up at her.
“Wan Wan… she was actually suffering a lot.” Tears streamed down Fang Hui's face again. “Do you know? Although you paid for her college tuition, most of her living expenses and the money for her computer and extracurricular classes were earned by her working part-time jobs without telling you.”
Part-time jobs? I recalled the mentions of restaurant work in the diary. “Didn’t she tell me she had enough money?”
Fang Hui gave a bitter smile. “How could she tell you she didn’t have enough? She was always afraid of bothering you. In her freshman year, to save money, she often only ate two meals a day—steamed buns with pickles. We tried to persuade her, but she said she wasn’t hungry. Later when she found a part-time job, things improved a bit, but she still lived frugally, rarely bought new clothes or attended class reunions.”
My heart felt like it was pricked by needles.
“She actually envied others,” Fang Hui sniffed and continued, “envied those who could complain and be pampered by their parents. She said she wanted that too, but she didn’t dare. She said you… seemed to never really like her.”
“I didn’t…” I instinctively retorted, but my voice was weak; even I couldn’t convince myself.
“Maybe you never said it directly, but she could feel it.” Fang Hui looked at me. “She told me many times how much she wished you would…”
I nodded painfully. How could I forget?
“She came back to me crying one day,” Fang Hui said. “She said she would rather not have done so well on her exams than have you suspecting that she cheated. She said that feeling was worse than failing.”
I felt heat rush to my face, utterly ashamed.
“And… about her illness,” Fang Hui’s voice dropped even lower. “She knew about it long ago.”
“Why…” My voice was hoarse.
“She was scared,” Fang Hui replied. “Scared that you would worry and even more scared that you would see her as a burden. She told me that if she told you, you would definitely want her to get treatment, but she didn’t want to spend your money or let you see her like that.”
“I would never see her as a burden! How could I…” I stood up in agitation, my voice trembling. “She is my daughter! No matter how much it costs for treatment! How could I…”
“But in her heart, what she felt was not that.” Fang Hui interrupted me; her gaze was calm yet carried a sharp sadness. “Uncle, with all due respect, your usual attitude towards her really made it hard for her to believe that you would unconditionally accept and support her. She lived carefully every day, afraid of upsetting you.”
Fang Hui stood up and bowed to me.
"Uncle, I know that saying this now might make it harder for you. But I just want you to know that Wan Wan doesn’t not love you; she just... lacks love and feels so desperate. Until the very end, she still cared about you."
After she finished speaking, she didn’t linger and turned to leave.
I slumped onto the sofa, her words piercing my already battered heart like countless steel needles.
Her friends knew she was working, knew how many times she had cried in secret, understood her fear and struggle after falling ill... Yet I, her closest father, was completely oblivious to all of this!
It turned out that in the eyes of others, I was just a cold, stingy, and unqualified father. It turned out that my daughter had silently endured so much injustice and pain in places I was unaware of.
She said she didn’t dare to tell me. She said she was afraid I would despise her.
What a profound despair it must be for a daughter to feel that she cannot even seek help from her own father in times of life and death?
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