The Beginning

“Why are you only telling us this now? Do you have any idea how important this information is to us?! Please leave and reflect on what you have done, I need to discuss this with the others first.”

“As you wish father, please excuse us.”

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“This seems to be really bad. I knew we shouldn’t have told them in the end. I hope they won’t split us apart.”

“Don’t worry honey, they won’t do that. They know we love each other too much. Plus, it’s not like I had a choice, right? Fate was the one that decided for me to have two daughters; we should be celebrating instead of mourning. A birth of any child is a blessing.”

“You’re right. I just hope our fathers and the others can see it from our point of view.”

“They will. We are all a big family after all, right?”

“Hmm…I hope so.”

“It doesn’t matter, as long as we give our daughters the love they deserve, everything will be fine.”

“Yeah, you’re right. We must love them with all our hearts. So have you decided on a name for them yet?”

“Hmm…what do you think we should name them?”

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I was born into a very high class family who are ranked highly in the society that we live in. Both my parents came from well-off families with very strict and traditional backgrounds. My elders from both side of the family have worked hard to give their children this kind of life. They put all their effort into building our family names up from scratch. I wouldn’t be living in this kind of luxurious environment if it wasn’t for their hard work, so I don’t complain. But then again, sometimes they can be so frustrating to deal with.

When my mom first became pregnant, my parents were hoping for a baby boy. Though much to their disappointment however, they got a baby girl. My parents were so upset over the fact that their first born was a girl they decided to keep the birth a secret from everyone. When my mom became pregnant again a couple of years later, they had prayed every day for it to be a baby boy this time. Sadly, it was another baby girl.

My parents came from a very traditional family so if your first born is a male, your family will be happy and you will have a great future. It is something to be extremely proud of. However, because my parents’ parents have already asked my mom to give birth to a son, she was put under a lot of pressure hence the praying for a baby boy. Though that never happened, after my mom gave birth to a second baby girl, me, she finally decided it was time to come clean and tell everyone that this is their second baby girl, indirectly implying that their first born was also a girl. At first, all the elders and other family members were furious with my parents for keeping such important news from them. They were extremely disappointed to not be able to have a son and were even considering shunning my parents out and cutting all ties. However, after much debating from the elders, it was decided that my mom will have to become pregnant again and give birth to a son. They will give her another chance, but if she fails, they will sever all ties with her and my dad.

It was tough for my parents. They didn’t want to disappoint anyone, especially their family members and relatives. My dad was an only child in his family and because he was also the only son, his family adored him like no other. They gave him the best of the best. My mom on the other hand, has four other siblings, making it five children including my mom. Of those five, two were male and three were female. The order her parents had them in was boy, girl, girl, girl, boy. The first born and the youngest were boys. They were the light of the family, being treated like royalty. Everyone was biased towards them. This was the life my mom and her sisters lived in, being in the shadow of their brothers because the attention was always given to the two of them. At first, they tried competing, showing that they can do better than their brothers, but in the end, they were always ignored. When their parents would go out, they would only praise their sons and never mention their daughters. In the end, my mom and her sisters learned to live with it. They stopped trying because there was simply no point in doing so. As long as they get married and give birth to a son, their parents will be happy, because their families were very male biased.

Giving birth to a son is as easy as it sounds, right? Wrong.

All my mom’s siblings are married and have kids of their own. All of them were lucky enough to have a son as their first born, all of them except for my mom. She was the only one that still couldn’t give birth to a son yet. The situation got worse when my mom was diagnosed with growth of cyst in her ovaries. She was forced to have it surgically removed and of course that caused side effects. She could no longer give birth anymore. My parents were shocked upon hearing that and for weeks, they were in a state of denial. What were they going to do if my mom can’t have kids anymore? What about the son that the family had asked for? If they found out she couldn’t have kids anymore, they will immediately sever all ties with my parents. Because of this, my parents kept my mom’s condition a secret.

One day, my parents had a talk with my sister and me. Even though we weren’t adults at the time, we understood the dilemma they were put in and didn’t ask too many questions. A few months later, my parents left for some overseas business leaving my sister and me behind to live with one of my mom’s sister. The business trip wasn’t suppose to take long, it was only suppose to be for a couple of weeks to get the contracts signed, but when the other party ended up reconsidering a different company to sign with, my parents had to stay longer than expected to try to pull their customers interest back to them.

My sister and I got a phone call from my mom saying that they couldn’t fly back just yet. We were disappointed, but my mom promised that once the business contract is signed, she will call us and let us know when they are coming home. I reluctantly agreed because I know my parents take their work very seriously, so I shouldn’t be complaining.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like staying at my aunt’s house, but it’s just weird staying there. My aunt lived in a big house and she had four kids, two of which were boys. She also has a lot of maids there. She was different from my mom. She liked showing off to the world how rich she is. My mom is the more reserved well-mannered type of person. Even though my parents are equally as rich and probably richer, they don’t go and boast about it to everyone. They don’t even wear brand items all the time. Instead, we lived in a slightly bigger house than a regular house, but just by looking at it from the outside, it looks just like any ordinary house you find in a subdivision.

Even though my sister and I aren’t very fond of this aunt of ours, her two daughters were okay. In fact, they were really nice and friendly unlike their brothers, so the four of us became really close friends, even best of friends if you will.

I had originally thought that we would only stay here for a couple of more weeks until the business deal is sealed and my parents would fly back, but instead, my sister and I lived at my aunt’s house for 5 years, 5 long years without seeing our parents. We could only talk to them through the phone every night before bed and that was it. One night while I was talking to my mom, she was telling me how much she had missed us and that when she comes back home, she has a surprise for us. I was excited about the surprise and asked her what it was. She said that it was a secret but I will get to find out in 2 weeks. That’s right, my parents were coming home in exactly 2 weeks. I ran over to my sister who was lying in bed and told her the good news. It was finally time we get to be together as a family again.

Those two weeks were the slowest two weeks I have ever experienced in my life, but when the day finally came, I was already outside excitedly waiting for their arrival. My sister joked about how I was acting like a little kid, but I could tell she was equally excited as me. When a car finally pulled up in the driveway and my mom stepped out, I dashed towards her and gave her a tight hug. Then I did the same for my dad. After that, my mom thanked her sister for taking care of us and took us home. When I stepped foot in our house again, I was so happy and relieved that I literally ran around and jumped in joy. It wasn’t until dinner time did I remember the surprise my mom had spoken about over the phone. Also, when we came home today, my mom had called in a few maids to clean out two of our guest rooms upstairs, but I didn’t really bother asking why.

After taking a shower and getting dressed, I head downstairs to eat dinner. As I was sitting there waiting for the food to be served, I took the chance to ask my parents about the surprise. My mom looked at me and smiled saying that I will see it in a few moments. When the food was served, I noticed that we had a new chef. Thinking that the chef from five years ago probably found a new job, I didn’t bother asking who this new lady is. It wasn’t until the chef sat down at the dinner table with us did I start to find it rather strange. I looked over at my sister and saw that she was also trying to figure out who this new lady chef was. I’ve never seen her before in my life but here she is, eating with us, and my parents haven’t introduced to us who she is.

After a silent dinner because I just felt uncomfortable talking when a stranger is sitting beside me, the deserts were served. Right when I was about to dig in to my delicious looking desert, my parents finally decided to speak up. Both my sister and I looked over at them curiously. My dad had gotten up and told something to one of the maids and she hurried off. A few moments later, the maid returned, but not by herself. There was another person standing beside her. Upon their arrival, my dad and my mom both stood up and held each other’s hands. They looked over at us and smiled. My dad raised a hand gesturing towards the person the maid brought in.





“Girls, say hi to your brother.”





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End of Prologue.
Beginning is kinda slow, but will pick up pace later...I felt the need to explain the more complicated things in the beginning instead of later on.