To Save My Troubled Daughter, I Transformed My Husband Chapter 2

After Ainsley left, I was heartbroken, crying myself to sleep every night.

When I finally saw her again, she was pregnant, standing beside some punk with bleached hair.

Lawrence was so furious he slammed his fist into the table, while I just sat there crying. I tried dragging her to get an abortion, but she shrugged me off.

"You don’t love me, do you? So why can’t I have a baby who will love me back?"

After all the heartache I’d endured for her, how could she think I didn’t love her?

She pulled a kitchen knife on me.

"Try to force me, and I’ll kill you both."

She walked out with $2,000 from our savings without looking back.

Lawrence was smoking on the balcony. "How did you raise her to turn out like this?" he asked, disgusted.

And I was asking myself the same thing. Where had my sweet, obedient little girl gone?

I ran after her, catching her and the punk at the bus stop. I grabbed her, insisting she come back home. But she was strong now, too strong. I used all my strength, but she shoved me, sending me sprawling on the sidewalk.

The pain flared in my back, where I’d suffered an old factory injury. Grimacing, I looked up at her, and she sneered.

"Quit faking it," she scoffed, eyes as cold as a stranger’s.

"Ainsley, come home with me. Listen to me. This child will ruin your life."

"My life was already ruined. You just figured that out now?"

Tears streaming down, I pleaded, "I’m so sorry, Ainsley. I missed you so much. Just come back home with me."

She slapped a hand over my mouth. "Shut up. Don’t cry; it’s just another way to manipulate me."

"Why would I go home with you just so you can kill my baby?"

Before I could reply, I felt the sharp pain of a knife plunging into my chest.

I looked down at the blood soaking through my shirt, saw the kitchen knife in her hand.

"I won’t let you kill my child," she said coldly. "I’ll never treat my own child the way you treated me."

Those were her last words before everything went black.

When I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital bed again, back to the day I’d just given birth to Ainsley.

Lawrence was smiling, showing me our swaddled newborn.

The memory of that blade’s cold sting was fresh in my mind.

My own daughter had driven it into my chest.

I felt chilled to the bone, as cold as the knife that had ended me.

How could it be? Even if you raised a dog for eighteen years, wouldn’t it be loyal?

Why was Ainsley always so indifferent, like a stone that couldn’t be warmed?

Her words echoed in my mind: "I’ll never treat my own child the way you treated me."

Hadn’t I done enough for her?

We had so little, but I made sure she always had the best. She wanted strawberries? I’d go out in the dead of winter, even with only a few dollars left in my wallet, to buy the best ones for her.

When she was small and terrified of "monsters," I’d sleep beside her, no matter how sleepless it left me.

From toys and snacks to a piano and trips to Cedar Falls Family Park or a family vacation, if she wanted something, I’d give it to her.

Wasn’t that enough? Maybe I’d spoiled her too much, let her think she was the center of the universe, that my love was hers to exploit.

This time, things would be different.

This time, I’d be strict.