My mom couldn’t sit still anymore. She pushed my brother aside and sat next to Mila, holding her hand and pretending to tear up. “Mila, you have to understand – sons and daughters are different. Our family has only one son; we need a successor, right? Now that you’re having a boy, if he doesn’t take our family name, your husband won’t rest easy in the afterlife! If it really comes to that, let Lily take the Payne surname instead. We can switch things around!”
Mila frowned at my mom’s words, and I felt uneasy too. She was openly expressing her preference for sons right in front of me. I couldn’t help but feel pitiful compared to Mila, the only child from a big city.
When my brother married, Mila didn’t ask for a ‘big wedding gift’; she only accepted some jewelry, and her family covered the entire cost of the wedding. I thought my brother had married up! At the engagement banquet, I learned it was an equal marriage, with the bride’s family wanting the second child to take their surname. But since my dad passed away early and my mom wasn’t educated, I honestly felt my brother had hit the jackpot.