“Andwe! Andwe! Omma mianhe… mianhee…!” the crying didn’t stop the woman from dragging her daughter down from the bed.

The little girl’s cry was getting louder as she fell from the 80 centimeters distant to the hard floor. Another bruise would appear in her young body. When she landed, she felt the bigger hand was releasing its hold on her leg. Freed from the mother’s grasp, the girl quickly moved away and cowered, hugged her knees close to her body.

Two second of feeling relieved wasn’t a good judgment as she then noticed her mother throw something at her direction. She gasped when the object landed just inches away from her head, barely missing her or she would have another injury. She couldn’t help but cry louder in afraid.

She didn’t like to live with her mother. She wanted her father to live with them again. Everything was different when the three of them were living together. Her mother didn’t get angry at all, always smile and bake her cake and cookies. Since her mother and she moved out from their old house, no more cake and cookies for her.

She wanted her old room back, with her toys and dolls, her now room was smaller and lack of toys and dolls. And when she pointed that out to her mother last week, that she wanted her old room and old toys and old dolls, she got her first slap in the head. She cried of course, for her mother never ever lay hands on her but to hug or caress her… and then her mother throw a wooden bowl at her. Hit her shoulder, caused her shoulder to bruise.

There she starter to afraid with her mother.

“You are spoiled! What am I going to do with you, huh?!” her mother voice didn’t sound like before. No more soft whisper or beautiful laugh.

“Appa…” she whimpered, trying to move backward but her back was already connected to the wall.

“Stop calling your appa! He’s not here! He chose not to be here!” another loud shout that scare her, made her want to cry more but shallow it for afraid to make her mother more angry. “You little brat, what am I going to do with you?! You are spoiled! I’ve cooked your meal but you don’t want to eat. I don’t ask you to do anything but eat! But your spoiled whine and whine and I have enough! I won’t let you just to be spoiled like that!”

Her mother pulled her up by her hand and dragged her out from the room. Her pity cry was being ignored.

Oh she really didn’t like this house. The old house was bigger and has more rooms. This one was small and there was only one bedroom. She had to sleep with her mother. In the old house, she had her own room, full with toys and dolls…

Her thought was been interrupted when suddenly her mother put something on her wrists, binding them together.

“Omma… andwe… andwee…” her plea was been ignored and she felt a stingy pain as her mother tied her hands tightly. She tried to break her mother’s grip but no avail. Her mother was still binding her hands together.

“You need to learn not to be a spoiled brat,” her mother murmured before shoved her body down to the floor after she finished tying her hands.

She tried to move away, but her mother got hold on her ankle and pulled her, took her other ankle and tied them together too. She struggled, vigorously kicked her mother’s hands away, but she was only a small girl.

If only she was bigger. Her mother wouldn’t tie her like this.

Before blackness surrounded her, she felt her mother shoved a fistful of food down to .

**

Sandara wanted to vomit as she had to tell her childhood story in front of the camera in one of the interrogation rooms. That part of her childhood wasn’t something she liked to recall. At one point, she would gladly pay fortune to erase it from her memory.

She would like to be the kind who blocked the traumatize memory and forget it. Unfortunately, that wasn’t her. She was the kind who still remember what her favorite dress and shoes were when she was four year old little girl. She even now could still recall the sweet smell when her mother baked her cake and cookies – before their moving.

Her parents was divorced when she was seven years old, thus her mother moved out and brought Sandara along to a small room apartment over the rooftop in outskirt of Seoul. What she just found out after the incident of her mother death was that her mother diagnosed by bipolar disorder when she was young. The illness likely to comeback after the divorce due to stress and depress. Her father knew about the illness but forgot and just let his ex-wife brought his little daughter with her. One thing he regretted, the deepest among his other regret.

The divorce happened because her mother’s own allegation that her father having affair – which not, according to her father. But eventually he tired with the accusation and asked for divorce. This didn’t put her mother’s mind at peace, but as a verification of her accusation was right after all. Around that time being, Sandara remembered she rarely saw her parents and spent her time with the housekeeper ahjumma.

Until her mother brought her to move out.

“Omma would snap at any small reason,” she said, eyes focused at the small red light on the camera. Intentionally avoid Dongshin’s and Kang Namsik’s – another senior from major crime section – eyes. She couldn’t stand to see their pity for her. “When I couldn’t reach the soap she put on the higher shelf, when I couldn’t finish my meal because she gave me too much… sometime she just cried to herself, sometime she would beat me, sometime she threw stuffs, sometime she would tie me when I cry because I was afraid to her.”

**

Dongshin held his breath for several second at Sandara’s revelation. He had heard the story but not this detail, for he was one among the team who interviewed her after she passed the detective’s test. He glanced at Namsik who looked sick and pale as Sandara kept talking.

“When she beat me and tied me, I hoped to be older, to be bigger. That I would strong enough to struggle and not let her beat me and tied me. I often passed out because of pain and I gladly welcomed the blackness so I wouldn’t feel the pain anymore.”

“What about your father?” Dongshin heard Namsik asked, while he only could rub his face with both of his hands. If would be happy to see the end of this. He couldn’t stand the ashen look at Sandara’s face, left a sour taste in his mouth. “Didn’t he come to visit you?” Namsik continued his question.

Dongshin realized Sandara avoided face them. She set her gaze into the camera behind them.

“He never visited… he couldn’t visit. Omma didn’t give him our new address. When I could finally sneak out to call him by the payphone, no one in the hous