Chapter 1

Three days after my right leg was shattered, I gritted my teeth against the pain, picked up my phone, and tried to order a ten-dollar bowl of plain noodles.

The payment screen flashed back: Insufficient balance.

I stared at it, then opened my bank account.

Twenty-five cents. That was all that was left.

...

Three days earlier, a workplace accident had put me in the ER, and my parents came rushing over with my brother.

They looked so frantic that I handed over the debit card I'd spent years scraping together and told them the PIN.

"Dad, Mom, use this to pay my hospital bill."

My mother's face crumpled with concern. "Katie, don't you worry. We'll go take care of it."

But now a nurse walked into the room holding an overdue notice.

"Bed 32, your account's in arrears and your medication's been cut off. When are your family coming to pay?"

I looked around the empty room, then back at the post my brother had just put up.

He was gripping the wheel of the newest Porsche, captioned:

"Thanks Mom and Dad for the coming-of-age gift, paid in full."

In that moment, the agony in my leg wasn't a fraction of what tore through my chest.

I finally saw this family for what it was. A pack of leeches.

1

"Let me call my family and ask. I'm sorry to trouble you."

The nurse sighed and turned to go.

I stared, hopeless, at the "0.25" on my screen.

That card had held the full $520,000 I'd killed myself with overtime to save over ten years.

It wasn't just the surgery money that would save my life.

It was the down payment I'd scrimped and starved to put aside for a home of my own.

And now it was all gone.

The pain pump that should have been refilled had been shut off.

Now the slightest shift of my right leg drove a spike straight through me.

Cold sweat soaked through my hospital gown.

Hands shaking, I dialed my mother.

It rang a long time before someone finally, lazily, picked up.

Right away I heard my brother whooping with excitement, and the roar of a car engine underneath it.

Teeth clenched against the pain in my leg, I forced out the question, my voice raw.

"Mom, why hasn't my hospital bill been paid?"

"And where did the $520,000 in my account go? How is there only 25 cents left?!"

The line went quiet for a beat.

Then my mother's voice came back, not the least bit ashamed.

"What kind of way is that to talk to your mother? Shouting like I'm some thief!"

"Your brother came up a little short on his car, so your dad and I talked it over and borrowed from it for now."

My eyes went wide in disbelief, my whole body trembling with rage.

"A little short? The post says he bought a Porsche outright!"

"You took every cent I spent years saving and bought him a car with it?!"

"What are you yelling for!"

On the other end, my father started laying into me, furious.

"Your brother's wanted a car for a year now. You've got all that money sitting in your card, so what's the problem with letting him use it first? The three of us came all that way to see you, and travel costs money, you know. Not an ounce of gratitude in you!"

Hearing that, something in me still cracked.

To get away from the family I was born into, I'd cut off all contact and hidden away in this city for four whole years.

Three days ago the serious injury landed me in the ER, and my company managed to track them down.

They'd stood at my bedside and cried until their faces streamed.

My parents even slapped themselves a few times, saying they'd wronged me all those years and this time they'd truly stay and look after me.

I thought they'd finally found some shred of a parent's conscience.

Turns out it was all an act.

On the phone, my father kept scolding.

"You're a girl. What's the point of you hoarding all that money? You'll marry off sooner or later, so what, you want to carry the Finch family's money off into some other family?"

"Besides, your brother's dating a city girl. Without a decent car to make a good impression, do you think her side is going to accept him? All of this is for the good of this family."

"We're just keeping it safe for you! So some wild man out there doesn't con you out of it later!"

The same lines again.

"For your own good." "Keeping it safe for you." I'd heard them countless times growing up.

Back then I'd tested into a top-ranked university with one of the ten best scores in the whole city, and tuition was only five thousand a year.

The day the acceptance letter came, I was too happy to sleep.

But my mother said, "Silly child, let Mom keep it safe for you, in case you lose it."

The next day I found my acceptance letter torn to pieces and thrown into the outhouse pit.

I went on a hunger strike in protest, and my mother wiped her eyes and took my hand.

"Katie, you're flesh of my flesh. Seeing you like this breaks my heart!"

"Mom doesn't want you going off somewhere far. I want to keep you close, get you a job at the factory, so later you can help out the family and not have to wear yourself out somewhere far away."

"Anyway, what good does all that schooling do a girl? You'll just marry and have children in the end. Mom's doing this for your own good."

Yet for my brother, who scored a 200 on his college entrance test, they scraped together thirty thousand from every corner so he could go to a private junior college.

Later I worked myself to the bone, holding down a job while studying for my degree on my own, and finally landed decent, well-paying work.

Then they said, "Young people just blow their money," and every month forced me to hand over more than half my salary.

Supposedly they were saving it as my dowry. In reality it all turned into designer clothes and the latest phones for my brother.

Five years ago, long stretches of overtime gave me a perforated stomach, and I was rushed to the ER.

The doctors said a family member had to sign and pay before they could operate. I made dozens of calls begging them to come.

"Dad, the money I had you all save, I need it now for surgery. Come to the hospital and help me pay and sign, please."

But on the phone my father couldn't have sounded more put out.

"What money? Your brother got in a fight today and he's in a mood. Can't you just sign for yourself? We're doing this to build up your independence, you know. You can't always be counting on us."

In the end I signed the critical-condition form myself, propping myself up through it, and borrowed money from a coworker to get the surgery done.

The memory brought the tears flooding out, and I broke and screamed into the phone.

"But my leg is broken now!"

"The doctor said if I don't pay and get the surgery in the next two days, I'll be crippled for life!"

"You spent every cent of it. Are you trying to let me die of the pain in this hospital?"

My mother jumped in at once.

"Oh, Katie, it's not that serious! Doctors just say those things to squeeze more money out of you."

"You're young, you've got a strong body. Just lie in the hospital a few days and rest, and the bone will knit itself back together on its own."

Hearing that, I nearly passed out.

Just then my brother's irritated complaint came through the phone.

"Mom, I just picked up my new car and Sis is over there wailing like it's a funeral. Talk about bad luck!"

My father heard it and hurried to soothe Hubert Finch in the gentlest voice.

"Hubert, don't be upset. You're the root of this family. Daddy wants you happy every minute of every day."

Then he turned right back to me and gave his orders.

"Enough! Quit making a scene. Lie there a couple of days, then hurry up and check yourself out and come home. Stop burning money in that hospital! Phone calls aren't cheap. I'm hanging up!"