Sister, I Love You - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Every day, after helping her mother-in-law tend the vegetable fields and finishing the household chores, she prepared medicine for her husband, boiled his herbal remedies, sewed clothes for him, washed them, played with him, and put him to sleep.

Sometimes he would cough throughout the entire night, burning with fever.

She would stay awake until morning, changing the cool cloth on his forehead, giving him water, and making sure he took his medicine.

In her heart, she thought of him as nothing more than a younger brother.

Whenever she met neighbors or people from the village, she would lower her head in silence, avoiding their eyes and hurrying past them.

She never knew whether the fortune teller's prediction had truly been blessed by the Buddha, or whether it was simply the result of her own devotion.

But under her constant care, he gradually survived one illness after another—whooping cough, meningitis, painful sores, and countless other ailments.

Little by little, the feelings he developed for her grew beyond the affection he had for his own mother.

Whenever she found a quiet moment between chores, or when he had fallen deeply asleep, she would sometimes lie awake and cry silent, burning tears.

Then she would stare into the darkness and ask herself:

Is this really my marriage?

Is this really my husband?

When he reached school age, she sewed him a little schoolbag and took him by the hand as she walked him to class.

The children from the village and the surrounding hamlets would often surround her, laughing and chanting at the top of their voices:

“Bride! Bride! What does the bride do? Turn off the lights, blow out the candles, and climb into bed!”

She never knew whether what she felt was pain or sorrow.

She would lower her head, her face turning crimson, then deathly pale, then crimson again.

One evening, as they lay beneath the blankets, he suddenly whispered,

“Sister… I love you.”

She was his wife.

And yet she was still his sister.

She looked at his innocent, childlike face and said nothing.

For the first time, she smiled—a smile filled with quiet sorrow.

Meanwhile, his father, who made his living trading goods, had developed a gambling habit.

In only a few days, he lost the entire family fortune they had struggled for years to accumulate.