Chapter Four - Bouquet of Hyacinths and Amethyst Ring

I woke up in a shock. Somebody had knocked the front door to my flat. Honestly, I didn't feel like getting up from my bed. Last night's shift was such a wreck. It was a Friday night after all, a lot of people went out to get dinner with their families and significant others. It was so crowded that the orders did not stop until it was almost closing time.

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My feet were hurting inside my shoes, and by the time I went home they were already swollen. Sigh. Well, that is what you get from wearing cheap shoes. If I was wearing a much expensive and comfortable pair of shoes, my feet would not hurt as much I guess. Moreover, my energy was drained running around the very spacey restaurant. I was never the athletic type of person. If zI worked too much, I would automatically become dizzy and lightheaded. My body then would slowly feel light and sucked into the sky.

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Sometimes I had wished that I was working in a smaller diner or cafe. I have always wanted a job that would not exhaust me to the point of fainting out of the blue. Then again I thought to myself for several times, jobs at smaller places would not pay as much as they do in fine dining restaurants. If I wanted to keep a pretty decent life for me and my daughter then I have to bear with the pain that came along with the huge responsibilities.

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As I have always said numerous times before, I would do whatever it takes for Amy to feel comfortable, even to the extent of being drained and fatigued everyday of my life. That is the essence of being a mother, er-erhm, a parent, right? Doing double roles have now become the norm for me. Sometimes it bothered my mind, but most of the time, I tried to go against my mind and tell myself that it was all normal for me to do. This is the consequence that I have to undergo after all the things that I have done.

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While staring at the bedroom wall for a good few minutes, I realized that the knocking continued. Knock, knock, knock. Then the door bell rang quite continuously. Damn, this person just would not quit. Why would not they just leave the package in front of the door already? It was starting to freak me out a little bit.

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"Okaaaay! I heard you! I'm çoming to get the doooor! Stop knocking or else you'll break the door!!!"

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When I got up and opened the door, nobody was there. Weird. They were so eager when knocking at my door, but they just left or disappeared when I opened it? I looked around the hallway to find traces of anybody, but nothing. That was weird. I stepped out of the door, but my foot met something that was shaped like a small box. Beside the box were flowers in a form of a bouquet. The flowers were purple, they looked like hyacinths.

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To be honest, I was scared as hell because I had no idea of whoever that had put these on my front door. The box was made out of wood and quite light. I tried to open it outside of my flat. I have heard enough criminal motives that put dead animals or other weird, creepy stuffs inside of boxes like this.

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I braced myself and finally starting to open the small metal latch attached to the box. Click. The box slowly opened, but I smelled nothing horrible. My thoughts about the package being strange or horrid things suddenly vanished, but I still feel a little worried; of course. I held my breath and tried to raise the top part of the box a little bit further to reveal the contents of the mysterious thing.

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I took a little peek at it, and in turn something shone out of it. What? Was it a diamond? Without any further thought, I opened the mysterious box fully. It turned out to be a little amethyst ring, with an enveloped letter sitting right underneath it. It baffled me for a while there. My daughter's full name is Amethyst Rae Quinn. I just call her Amy for short. How could a stranger send me a ring that was adjacent to my daughter's name? Or was it just a mere incident? Do they know me? What was their intention?

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Was it someone that I knew? But whoever would give me things anonymously like this?

I took the stuffs inside. For safety measures though, I put them on the rack beside my doorway. I checked the box and flower thoroughly. I was hoping to find some kind of freaky camera device in it. If I did though, I would be thrilled to crush it between my hands. I wanted to do this to let the stalker or creep know that I was not a stupid lady that would believe such stupid cheap trick.

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But I found nothing.

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I was pretty worried about the flowers, though. Not trying to be that kind of paranoid woman, but being extra careful could benefit you from time to time, right? I have read a lot of news and articles where people use some kind of drug called chloroform or something. They would usually spray it or pour it to certain surfaces. It could typically drug whoever that smelled it and made the person pass out quite almost instantly. I certainly would not want that to happen.

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Besides, my daughter Amy has this severe allergic reaction whenever she inhaled those pollen grains from flowers. Usually when spring came, Amy would get runny noses. She could not breathe normally during the whole season of spring. I did not know where she got those allergies from, though, as I was a big lover of flowers of all types. Having this huge bouquet inside the house would pose as a huge risk. The pollen grains could fly out everywhere in the close vicinity of the apartment.

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I admired the flowers for a bit, because they did look fresh and beautiful. I have to get rid of it as soon as possible, though, before Amy found out about all of these. She would be disappointed seeing me getting rid of these beautiful flowers. If she had known that I was going to throw these out, she would plead for me to not to. I just knew that Amy would ask for me to put it in a vase so it could be a keepsake. Sigh. Kids. They did not understand yet about the things that could pose hazards to them, it was definitely my role as a parent to keep her safe and sound from all the health hazards and dangers that surrounded her.

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I held the flowers in my hand and took the them out and put it inside the recycling bin at the end of the hallway. I tried to think about it carefully, who might be responsible of this anonymous bouquet? The envelope that was included inside the box might have some clue of whoever the sender was. I opened the envelope to see if there were anymore clues in it. I took out the paper and read it slowly.

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"I can sense that now you are wondering, who is sending me these stuffs? But deep inside you actually know. You do. This little ring is custom-made for Amethyst. Make sure she wears it because it took a huge amount of effort to make these cute little rings."

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The letter ended just like that. Considering the fact that they know my daughter's full name, then they must be someone I knew, or a family friend.

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I sat on the sofa of my little dainty living room, all while examining the little ring in between my index finger and thumb. It looked beautiful. The purple gemstone shone very brightly, and it was cut in a very neat manner to look like a heart. The ring was designed to look like leaves surrounding the gemstone. The ring was made from pure gold, I can tell.

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While I was examining it, I did not notice Amy was peeking from her bedroom door. She was reading her favorite story book and playing with her toys just an hour ago when I suddenly hear her voice.

"Mommy, what's that?"

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Oops. I intended to keep it hidden from her because I did not want to receive gifts from strangers. I wanted to keep it a secret until I could find an address to return it to. I kept silent.

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"Mommy, can I have a look too? Pretty please?"

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She was already scooting next to me. She gave me those puppy dog eyes. How can I even decline? Damn.

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"Honey, this morning Mommy received a package from somebody who Mommy doesn't even know and it actually was a box filled with this ring, aside from this, there were also purple flowers."

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"Where are the flowers, Mommy?"

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"I threw them out because I don't want to trigger your allergies, honey. You know how bad pollen grains could trigger your allergies. I wouldn't want to risk anything, sweetheart." I said the words slowly, to avoid her feeling disappointed by the fact that I had thrown out some beautiful flowers. In fact, they were much prettier than the flowers that I saw when I usually pass by the elite flower show near Scalavatia Fine Dining.

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"Aw, that's too bad, but we can keep the ring, right, Mommy?"

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"I'm afraid not, honey, we don't even know who it was from."

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"Mommy, but it looked very beautiful, it would be such a waste to throw this one out."

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Amy seemed to like the ring very, very, much. Taking the ring from her would probably ruin her day, so I would just wait until she forgot about the ring.

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"Mommy? What if the ring was from Daddy?"

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"What?"

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"..."

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"Don't be silly, Amy."

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I raised the tone of my voice quite a bit to make her scared. Sometimes I am baffled by the fact that Amy somehow speaks like an adult. I mean, usually children her age were not aware of the situations of their families, but Amy knew almost everything thoroughly.

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She knew that her father left, and she knew that something had happened that made our family this way. At her age, she was starting to notice that she lacked a father figure. I knew it from the way she changed her expression whenever she caught sight of fathers carrying their children on their backs. She often saw that sight whenever we would go out. I tried to act as neutral as possible though.

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What Amy never knew was that her father was a cheater and a brutal abuser. I never had the courage to tell her about all of that, but one day I should let her know. I was often upset whenever she would bring up about Kenny. She knew that she must not bring up that topic again.

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"I'm sorry, Mommy, but what if...?"

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I stared at her for a good five minutes it seemed. She was already putting the ring on her finger. And it fitted perfectly.

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"Daddy was long gone before you even started talking and walking. How is he going to care enough to send something to us? He never cared, honey. Stop thinking about him."

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I saw Amy's face turned gloomy. Her eyes were watery.

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"I... I... I want to see Daddy again..."

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"Amy! You don't even remember his face! I want you to stop talking about him! I'm the one who took care of you and feed you! Stop!"

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Next thing I knew, Amy had sunken her face on the throw pillows of the sofa. She was sobbing. Ugh, what have I done again? Am I selfish for saying the facts? I did brought her up since she was a baby, no help at all! While her deadbeat Dad was busy running around with other girls younger than my age. That's silly!

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I tried to hug Amy, but she knocked my hands off her body. She refused to be hugged.

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"Stop it, Mommy! I want you to stop! Just stop!"

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Amy ran back into her room, and closed the door forcefully. I kept quiet. What hurt me the most was that she was copying my speech. This felt really hurtful, I was at lost at what to do. If it really was my ex, how did he even know my address? That was so fucked up.

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I never thought I would say anything like this to Amy. She was talking way too much and nagging way too much for me to respond properly, and I couldn't think of anything else to say. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. I should apologize to Amy later on in the evening. For now, I would let her settle and calm down for a bit.

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My heart and my mind were racing, competing with each other. I had long moved from the apartment that Kenny and I shared. How was it possible for him to find out about my current address? The thought of my ex knowing about it triggered some kind of traumatic flashbacks into my mind.

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What if one day he suddenly barge in and do horrible and unspeakable things to me and my daughter? Yes. I said MY daughter, not OURS. Kenny never posed as the father figure present in the life of my precious darling, Amy, when he definitely ought to. Why would I want to consider him as Amy's father, or anything close to that?

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I birthed Amy and took care of her alone. Alone! Well, I did receive some help from my neighbor then. She was a nice and friendly old lady, but she could only do so much as giving me advices because she was old and she had no energy to take care of and carry around a young baby anymore.

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Where was Kenny when my days become nights, and my nights become days? Where was he when my life after having a newborn started? Where was he when everything went upside down? Where was he when Amy needed to be fed, and all that was left in the pantry were dry crackers and some stale oatmeal? When Amy grew up a tad bit, I then had the density and courage to ask help from my neighbor. Kanika was there to help me tend for Amy while I work my ass off to afford life for the both of us.

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Now he is trying to barge in into our lives again?! In your dreams, you sick bastard. All these years, I was better off without your ass. Your hobby of cheating and beating me up whenever you deemed me guilty of making a sheer mistake, it left a big hole inside my heart and my head.

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Kenny will never understand how hard I had tried to move on. Why did I have to live like that? I was so dependant on him back on those years that I slowly lost myself, trying to comply to each and every command he gave me. For years I lived, feeling like a plastic bag. Hollow, empty, and lifeless. I became a vessel for his egos to live inside of me.

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He went out the door several times after leaving me with a black bruise around my eye before, but he would always come back in the mornings. Sometimes

I tried so many times not to let him get to me. To forget him, to just move on from everything. But he would always come back.

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Then one day, he left just like that. Before he left he told me that he had enough of me, when I should be the one telling him that shit. That was when I caught him cheating with another girl. She was much younger than I was too. He had beaten my face up badly that I couldn't even see through my left eye. I felt like every inch and part of my face was swollen. I had to wear sunglasses and a mask to cover up his horrible deeds towards me. That was when I saw the last of that bastard. He never showed up again.

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But here we are again. He tried to send signs telling me that he was still alive. What the hell was he trying to do? It has been years since I last saw him. But it seemed like you wanted to come back again. Not so fast, you pathetic living scum. If his return would only bring a mess again into my life, he better not get close to the proximity of where me and my daughter lived.

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I did not know whether I should be breathing a sigh of relief that he is back, or be spiteful of him. On one side, I felt like Amy would be very happy to see what her father really looked like. On the other hand, though, this scum had always been very violent and brutal towards me, I was often afraid of his presence. I really could not tell anymore. He had always been able to mess with my emotions, and now he is doing it again.

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He was just another person who I had given up on already. He was always a coward at heart. Even when he hurt me, even if he beat me up for no reason, he could never seemed to stop. When I thought he would finally leave, he did, but he left me broken hearted too.

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What happened to my love life? Kenny stole it all away from me from my youth. He ruined my chances at happiness. And now, what? He wants something from me? I never needed him to beg for forgiveness. That did not sound right, not after everything he had put me through. And yet... I still think about it... Should I give him another chance?