Chapter 3

The next morning I wheeled my suitcase out of the bedroom.

Mom had already set the medicine on the dining table.

"Drink it before you go."

"I'm not taking folk remedies. I'm going to a real hospital for treatment."

Her eyes went to my suitcase.

"You're still moving out?"

"Yes."

"Layla, your head's up in the clouds now."

"You left the family chat too. Do you not want this family anymore?"

I buttoned my jacket.

"You're the ones who didn't want me first."

She started to say something, but her phone rang.

A video call from my sister.

On the screen Wanda had sunglasses on, a luxury boutique behind her.

"Mom, I found a bag, it's so me."

"But it's sixty-eight hundred and I don't have enough on me."

Mom smiled at once.

"How much short?"

"Forty-five hundred."

"Mom will figure it out for you."

Wanda blew a kiss at the camera.

"Thanks, Mom, I knew you loved me best."

"My friends are calling me over for photos, gotta go!"

Mom turned to look at me.

"You transfer forty-five hundred to Wanda."

I almost thought I'd heard wrong.

"Where would I get that kind of money?"

"Didn't you just borrow fifty thousand? I heard it through the door yesterday."

"That money is to save my life!"

"Save your life, save your life, haven't I already found you the medicine?"

She pushed the bowl toward me.

"Drink this and you'll be fine. Why send the money off to a hospital?"

I picked up my suitcase.

"Move."

Mom blocked me.

"Wanda's abroad, everyone around her has a designer bag and she doesn't. People will look down on her."

"She's your own sister. What's wrong with helping her out once?"

I gave a bitter laugh. "And me?"

Mom didn't get it.

"What?"

"I'm your daughter too. Why is my life worth less than one of her bags?"

She looked away from me.

"You've always been more capable than Wanda since you were little. You never needed us to worry about you."

That line again.

A capable person deserves to be squeezed dry, and even crying out in pain is just making trouble.

I went around her and opened the front door.

Behind me my father suddenly cried out.

"What are you doing!"

I turned, and my heart lurched.

Mom had already taken a kitchen knife from the kitchen and held it against her own throat.

"I don't want to live anymore."

"All these years and I raised an ingrate who'd rather trust an outsider than her own mother."

"What's the point of me living?"

Her sobbing drew the neighbors out.

Ruby Chavez from across the hall came out first.

"Mrs. Swanson, put the knife down, quick!"

The neighbors from upstairs crowded around too.

She pressed the blade tighter at once.

"Don't come any closer!"

"Not unless Layla promises to take good care of her sister from now on."

My father shouted at me. "Get over here and admit you're wrong!"

"If anything happens to your mother, I won't go on living either!"

The blade lay against her throat.

She cried and watched me at the same time.

I knew that look too well.

In elementary school, she'd looked at me like that when she knelt in front of the classroom podium.

Before the SATs, she'd looked at me like that when she knelt on the school field.

Watching for the moment I'd give in.

Ruby pulled at my arm.

"Layla, your mother went through a lot raising you. Can't you talk this out properly?"

The others started urging me too.

"Just agree first. If something happens to the old woman, it'll be too late."

"You can always earn money again, but you only get one life."

I badly wanted to tell them the one running out of life was me.

Seeing me not move, Mom made as if to slash her throat.

I lunged for her anyway.

I grabbed her wrist, and Ruby seized the chance to wrench the knife away.

In the chaos, Mom fell against me.

I thought she was terrified and caught her without thinking.

The next second she pulled my phone from my jacket pocket.

All the crying stopped short.

She opened the banking app with practiced ease and pointed the phone at my face.

Face ID failed.

She typed in the old password.

The screen showed: incorrect password.

I stood where I was, watching her fingers fly.

That last small thing in my chest finally went out.

So the wanting to die was fake.

Only her wanting to take my money was real.