Make Them Regret It Chapter 40
In the study, I put in small desks, sized for children.
The first child to live there was six years old. Every time she held a pen, she got ink all over her face.
I taught her how to write her name.
When she finished, her letters all crooked and wobbly, she held the paper up for me to see.
“Sister Blythe, is it pretty?”
I looked at it for a long time.
“It is.”
She fished a chocolate out of her pocket and broke it in half for me.
I didn’t take it.
Thinking I didn’t like it, she said hurriedly, “It’s really sweet. If you eat it, it won’t hurt anymore.”
My eyes stung.
I crouched down and put the small piece of chocolate in my mouth.
“Mmm. It’s sweet.”
On the day Lighthouse opened, many people came.
Some stood outside, muttering that if a woman had a grievance, she should resolve it at home—what business did she have running off to live here?
I hung the family council’s newly sealed rule by the gate.
It was written in plain terms: no family or individual could forcibly imprison a female family member under the excuse of “private family matters.”
If anyone still wanted to come and drag someone away, they could take it up with the council first. And they could ask me first if I agreed.
Those voices quieted down quickly.
The new head of the family wanted me to stay and run Lighthouse.
I shook my head.
“This place is for them, not for me.”
“Then where will you go?”
I looked into the distance.
“To see the world.”
Lighthouse was for people who, for a time, had nowhere else to go.
I already had my own road.