Chapter 276
Serenity looked so small in the photographs. Her cheeks looked chubby with baby fat. Her hair was
thick, luscious, and black. She was such an adorable and cherubic child.
Jackson never knew that he would ever he so fascinated by a little girl before, yet at that moment, as
he was looking at the tiny toddler in the photo, a peculiar love grew from the bottom of his heart. In fact,
he even had a feeling that if the girl in the picture would appear in front of him right now, he would not
be able to stop himself from hugging and kissing her.
Was it just because the little girl was Serenity? Was that the reason why he thought the girl was so
cute? In any case, he had never felt this way about any other child.
Jackson continued to pull out each photograph carefully one by one. It started with photos of Serenity
and her mother, but afterward, there were mostly photos of Serenity alone. She looked slightly older in
these photos than she did in the photos with her mother. She was probably about four to six years old
here……..
There were not many photos of her alone at all. In fact, there were significantly fewer of these than the
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtphotos of her with her mother.
Serenity stared at these photographs and recalled, “My mother loved taking pictures with me when she
was alive. There were a lot less photos of me after she died.”
There would be only a few photos of her after that, taken very occasionally, and most were pictures of
Serenity alone. It looked just like she was never welcomed to be a part of her father’s new family.
All of a sudden, Jackson squinted and fixed his eyes on one of the photos. He even stopped taking the
photos out of the album.
“What’s wrong?” Serenity asked.
“This photograph…” he paused. “How old were you here?”
She glanced at the photo. There was a little girl wearing a floral dress in it, and she was standing in
front of a fence with lush mountains in the background. Her eyes were filled with gentle warmth as she
stared at the picture.
“I was probably about eight or nine years old here,” she said. “Back then, I really wanted this floral
dress, but it was very expensive — it almost cost about 50 dollars. Only well–to–do families would buy
such a dress for their kids. I didn’t dare to tell my grandmother that I liked the dress, but she could tell
that I really wanted it, so she gritted her teeth and saved up the money to buy it for me.”
She would always cherish the love and affection her grandmother showed her and cherish this memory
for the rest of her life.
The older she got, the more she understood how hard it was for her grandmother to buy her that dress.
She was sure that her grandmother must have endured a lot of pressure from her grandfather, not to
mention her uncles and aunt… They must all disparage her for wasting money on such a frivolous
thing.
After all, 50 dollars really was a lot of money for them back then. Each of them was barely able to earn
500 dollars a month, not to mention the fact that her grandmother earned her money through working
hard labor jobs.
“What’s the name of the place you lived at the time?” Jackson asked, but there was an almost
imperceptible oddness in his
voice.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm“Back then, it was called Lorena Village,” she replied, “but afterward, the villages in the area merged
together and became a new town called San Leon.”
As she answered his question, she could not help but find it weird that he did not know the name of the
town. Had he not come to San Leon to find her before? How could be not know the name of the town,
then?
Darkness flashed across Jackson’s eyes. He then asked, “Were there a lot of girls in that town wearing
this dress?”
“I have no idea how many girls wore this dress in town,” said Serenity, “but I was the only one wearing
it in the village. At the time, my cousin was really angry about it. She loopt saying how unfair my
grandmother was and tried to take the dress away from me.”
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When Serenity recalled how moody and crabby her cousin Lynette had been back then, she could not
help thinking of her as a petulant child.
“And then?” he asked. “What happened next? Did she take the dress away?”
twas the same day that I fell
“Then, I was playing outside one day and I tore the dress. I couldn’t wear it anymore after that. It was ill
after coming home