Alrighty get ready cause this is a lot of reading. I wasn’t sure how specific you wanted me to get.
Her mother is a very smart woman. She chose to remain pregnant as a strategy to baby trap MM’s father and that in turn made her lose her status and forced her to take on the worst customers to keep house which led to her getting syphilus and a variety of other STDs that ruined her health and made her look that way. She sent him a letter hinting at her condition but he didn’t understand and she thought this was his way of rejecting her, especially when he was forced to leave to become the head of his family- she cut off one of her fingers and MM’s pinky as a baby to curse him for it. When he panicked and ran to the brothel to see her, the Granny told him she’d died and hid her away to a) let her rest without actually throwing her out, and b) keep MaoMao’s father from continuing to ruin her life (but I’m assuming the best intentions from her considering her good relationship with MaoMao and her workers). MeiMei, having been with MM’s mother and father since she was young, couldn’t bare to be brought out by him while letting her rot unhappily in secret, so she reveals she’s alive to him. He runs to her recognizing the song she’s singing and falls to his knees in tears because the woman he loves is still alive, regardless of how she looks or how sick she is. The panel with her staring at him unblemished is how he views her, still as beautiful as the day he left. She’s not going to live long, but he bought her out for hundreds of thousands of dollars and is set on being with her until her last breath.
Thank you so much for explaining that, I find her story so sad
Broooo it wasn't baby trapping but rather a way of MM's mother showing her love for MM's father, they did talk about how she would tell him if it were a girl or boy smth along those lines and leaving a cut pinky behind is some red light district way of showing affection and how that the person u give the pinky to is the "one", smth like that, it's much sweeter in meaning unlike how u described some parts tho
Yes and no.
Maybe I wasn’t clear in my phrasing…yes, they undoubtedly love each other, and yes, she chose to remain pregnant of her own volition as a result of that love, but he had no idea she was pregnant until long after she sent the pinkies. It’s an ongoing theme in earlier chapters leading up to MaoMao’s parent arc how much losing her finger so young impacted her as well as how her father unintentionally leaving her mother screwed her mental health. The pinky is known as a symbol of promise, but cutting it off and sending it to someone is a negative act that symbolizes a broken one (Yubikiri). When I said, “curse” I meant it figuratively (possibly literally as well but that I’m unsure of). She was berating the idea that he’d abandoned her
What happened to mao mao’s mom in chapter 38?