Chapter 3

Everything in my stomach was surging up, like something wanted to burst out through my throat.

But my mother clamped my mouth shut so hard I couldn't breathe.

My face went red with the effort, my lungs ready to explode.

Her face kept swelling in front of mine, until at last it slowly warped into the shape of a demon.

Everything before me blurred, and my mind went blank.

I slid off the chair to the floor.

The cake hit the ground, and the acid in my stomach came pouring out.

The last thing I heard before I passed out was my mother's terrified scream.

……

I woke to the sound of a doctor scolding.

"What kind of parents are you? The child is severely allergic to cream, and you didn't even know that?"

"Ten minutes later, and this child would have been gone!"

I opened my eyes slowly and saw my father seeing the doctor out with an apologetic smile.

My mother sat by the bed, her face dark.

My sister's eyes were red, as if she'd been crying.

She said, "Mom, it's all my fault. I shouldn't have said those things to set you off."

My mother shook her head. "It's not your fault. She's just impossible."

"She knew perfectly well she was allergic, and she didn't tell me."

"She did it on purpose, to hurt me, to get back at me."

"Mom, no, she's not like that."

"How is she not? She blames me for ruining her little dream of running off with some man, so she wants to torment me."

"She thinks I care? I wouldn't shed a single tear even if she died."

My heart was already empty. Over twenty years I had felt, deep in my bones, how little my mother liked me.

So why did hearing those words still hurt?

When my father came in, he saw me lying there awake, staring at nothing.

He patted my mother lightly and frowned. "Stop with the angry talk. Kayla's awake."

I saw my mother's shoulders stiffen for a moment.

But she quickly turned her head, shot me a glare, then stood and walked out without looking back.

Before she left, she said, "I'm never making you birthday noodles again."

My sister ran after her.

Before she left, she told my father to take good care of me.

My father looked pleased. "If only your sister had half her sense."

He looked at me, his face cold and hard. "When we get home, apologize to your mother. Stop making her angry."

"I'm away on business all year. She takes care of you two girls on her own. It's hard on her."

"You're not a child anymore. You need to learn some gratitude."

I said nothing. My mind just turned over slowly.

Hard on her, I thought. How exactly?

From the time I was little, my parents left me back in the old hometown.

My grandmother raised me with her own hands.

It wasn't until I finished elementary school, when Grandmother died, that they took me in.

My mother said having me at home would hurt my sister's studies.

So the moment school started, she put me in the dorms.

Boarding students all ate in the cafeteria.

Three hundred twenty a month.

Every meal balanced, meat and vegetables, proper nutrition.

But my mother thought it was too expensive, so she went to the school and made a scene until she'd won me my "freedom to eat off street stalls."

She gave me a hundred and fifty a month and expected me to be grateful for it. "Aren't you happy? Other kids don't even get to eat from street stalls!"

What she didn't know was that street food isn't clean.

Over those three years, my stomach was badly damaged.

The year I was a junior, my sister went to college in the city.

My father was transferred to the state office.

My mother, claiming she was too scared to be alone, forced me to come home and keep her company as a day student.

But when I got out of evening study, there was never a hot meal waiting.

There was only ever plain noodles and greens in the house.

For three years, my dinner was always plain noodles in water at nine thirty.

So when I heard my mother say she'd never make me birthday noodles again, I wasn't sad at all.

If anything, something in me eased.

Today, at last, I wouldn't have to face that bowl of birthday noodles with no fat, no flavor.

Wouldn't have to force out a "thank you, Mom."