Sabrina turned around to find a vaguely familiar face. The woman was dressed exquisitely and oozed arrogance with every single move she made.
"I'm sorry, but you are...? Sabrina asked, as she tried to search through her memory for the face in front of her, but she couldn't seem to figure out whose mother was her.
"Ha! Stop playing games! You have spoken to me a couple of times by now! Your daughter keeps taking toys from my daughter and you came returning it every single time, and now you want to try and pretend like you don't recognize me?"
Sabrina finally remembered that the woman before her was the mother of Carol, Aino's classmate. Carol enjoyed giving her toys to Aino as gifts, even when Aino rejected them. The gesture of sharing toys meant nothing more than the fact that the children were learning to share, but Carol's mother insisted that it was Aino who took the toys from other children and claimed it as her own. Carol's mother had reached out to Sabrina twice because of that and Sabrina had returned the toys each time without thinking much of it. She had only spoken to Mrs. Long twice and she rushed off after returning the toys each time, how could Sabrina be expected to recognize her? But of course, her memory was jarred with the reminder. 1
With the injury on her cheek, Sabrina did not want to draw any attention to herself, so she opted to ask politely, "Can I help you with anything?"
"Mommy," Aino whispered. "Carol's mom looks so angry. But don't be afraid, if Carol's mom bullies you, I will help to beat her up."
"Aino Scott! Don't say things like that!"
Aino fell silent obediently, but her eyes were still fixated on Carol's mother like a little warrior who was ready to pounce and fight. Her father had left her a mission to protect her mother before he left for the business trip, so that's what she would do.
Carol's mother flaunted her newly polished nails and drawled, "I don't recall seeing your car ever since you made the payment of fifty thousand dollars to the group. The clothes you are wearing today are so crude, too. Don't tell me you actually went and sold everything in order to gather up that fifty thousand dollars for the party? Are you one of those imposters who pretended to be wealthy too? Could it be that the man who used to send you and your daughter here to the kindergarten everyday was actually just someone you hired and now that you don't have any money left, you fired him?"
Dumbfounded, Sabrina did not respond right away, when the little one who was holding her hand decided to speak instead.
"Aunty, I think you have been watching too much soap opera," said Aino.
Carol's mother seemed confused for a moment and asked, "What do you mean, Aino?"
"I watch soap operas too, Aunty. Soap operas are TV shows where only the prince and princess are good people and there are a lot of bad women in them.
Those bad women will always try their best to stop the princess from marrying the prince. That's soap opera, Aunty," Aino explained sweetly, when instead she was being sarcastic without any of the adults realizing. Carol's mother was puzzled and even Sabrina couldn't understand what her daughter meant.
What none of them knew was that Aino had not been exposed to soap operas before. It was Kingston who told her about it last Sunday when he came to pick her up for a day out early in the morning.
Back then, Aino was displeased and questioned," Uncle Kingston, why are you taking me out? Shouldn't daddy and mommy take me out to play?"
"Your daddy is busy, so you are stuck with me today,"
Kingston comforted her.
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: Still Wanna Escape After Stealing My Heart?