Chapter 32: I Put Some Gifts
She felt as though a basin of cold water poured down over her head, and she sat down on the sofa disappointedly, letting out a long sigh.
Her cell phone in her pocket vibrated. Cathryn took out the phone and saw it was a text message from Keith. "Have you arrived home yet?"
Cathryn patted her head and then remembered that she had forgotten to text him after getting home, so she hurried and sent him a message back.
"I put some gifts in your suitcase. Those are for your parents." Keith sent another message to her.
Cathryn went back home so quickly that she forgot to buy gifts for her parents. She had planned to go shopping with them to buy some clothes as gifts before Christmas. She never expected that Keith had already bought the gifts for her parents.
Keith's tenderness entirely washed away the disappointment of not seeing Albert. Cathryn rushed into her bedroom, opened her suitcase, and saw two delicate gift boxes placed in it. She opened the two gift boxes and took a look. One of them was a necklace of a unique design, and the other one was a watch.
Since these gifts were from Keith, they indeed were not cheap. However, looking carefully at the offerings, Cathryn couldn't find a logo on them. Thank goodness her parents didn't know anything about logos or brand names. Otherwise, they would have complained that she spent too much money on them.
Cathryn walked out of her bedroom with the gifts. When Mr. Riley saw the watch, his eyes became bright right away. As a watch lover, he liked the gift very much. Mrs. Riley still looked the way she always looked, serious. Then Cathryn helped her put on the necklace. Looking at herself in the mirror, Mrs. Riley just smiled faintly.
Although Mr. and Mrs. Riley were over fifty years old, they still looked very young for their age. When they went out, they were still a desirable couple.
"Your grandma called and asked us to get together at her home on Monday." Mrs. Riley said.
Mr. Riley's parents had passed away, and the only one left in the family was Cathryn's grandma. As long as they were free, they were going to her grandma's home for a meal.
"Well, let's visit her soon," Cathryn said cheerfully.
Her grandparents had been kind to her since she was a child, and she loved them very much. Her grandpa had been dead for more than ten years because of an accident. She thought about her grandma, Cathryn frowned and unconsciously thought of her grandpa again.
Cathryn felt a dull pain in the corner of her heart. Then she forced herself to calm down, biting her lower lip. She embraced her mother and said, "Could you come with me to go shopping tomorrow, mom? I want to buy some gifts for grandma."
After mentioning Cathryn's grandma, Mrs. Riley, who was always distant, unexpectedly patted Cathryn's arms and promised that she would go. This was something that she had seldom done before. It caught Cathryn off guard, but she nodded her head and said, "great."
With Christmas being right around the corner, the days Cathryn spent at home were very substantial. Apart from helping Mrs. Riley do some housework, she had also started decorating the Christmas tree. Cathryn's grandma lived in the suburban area. Fortunately, there was no traffic jam on the way to her grandma's house on Monday.
Cathryn's grandma lived in an old residential building, and the buildings in this area were as old as the people living there. As soon as Cathryn got out of the car, she hurried to her grandma's home with a pile of gifts.
"I'm coming, grandma," Cathryn shouted as she ran up the stairs to the third floor. Just as Cathryn was about to knock on the door, it opened. Cathryn saw a familiar woman standing at the door.
Looking at the woman, Cathryn's eyes lit up, and she said in surprise, "Stella! Have you been here for a long time? What about Aunt Nancy?"
Stella Lee was Cathryn's cousin, and Cathryn was only six months older than Stella. The two of them would always go to their grandma's home to spend their summer and winter vacations with her. It was something they had done since they were children. So it was like they had grown up together.
Cathryn really liked her cousin very much. Stella was not polite to her at all. Dressed in the latest Prada dress, Stella stroked the BVLGARI bracelet on her wrist and glanced at the gifts in Cathryn's hands. Then she said disdainfully, "Don't buy these cheap domestic products for grandma anymore, Cathryn. I have bought grandma better ones from Australia."
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Cathryn's cousin, who had graduated from a prestigious university, now worked as a white-collar in a multinational company. Every time Aunt Nancy mentioned her daughter, she could not conceal the pride in Stella's achievements from her face.
Stella was a woman of high intelligence, and her annual salary had risen to seventy thousand dollars within two years of working. She had fallen in love with the department manager of her department.
Cathryn heard from Mr. Riley that Stella's boyfriend was about the same age as her. He was good-looking and very wealthy. He was definitely his first choice for a son-in-law.
The disdain and conceit shown by Stella to Cathryn were roughly related to their childhood experience. Stella and Cathryn were about the same age growing up. Their relatives were always comparing the two of them to each other.
Before going to college, Cathryn was not only beautiful and good at school but also well-behaved. Therefore, the relatives gave Cathryn all their praise generously. However, in contrast, Stella was born from a poor family and was considered to be not as beautiful as Cathryn.
She also had an excellent academic performance, but she received little attention from her relatives. Stella was also outstanding among her peers. So as soon as the family compared her with Cathryn, she became the ugly duckling at once.
Since she was born into a poor family, she even had to wear Cathryn's clothes when she was a child. That made her always feel inferior in front of Cathryn. As the two of them grew up, the situation began to change, and the balance of the fates gradually tilted towards Stella.