Chapter 3

03

4

The moment I finished speaking, the whole room went dead silent.

Even Chester, who'd been rolling around on the floor throwing his fit, froze, forgetting to cry.

He shot up off the floor and jabbed a finger at my face. "Scarlett! Are you insane? You actually called the cops on me? I'm your own brother!"

I set down my phone and swept a flat look over him. "Oh, now you remember you're my brother? You didn't think about that when you threw a cup at me. Didn't think about it when you were making a scene, either."

The crowd at the door had watched me call 911 without hesitation, not a trace of guilt on my face, and started murmuring at once.

"That girl doesn't look cold-blooded to me. If anything, the brother's the one acting unreasonable. Maybe there's some misunderstanding here?"

"Yeah, I think so too. One look at that brother and you can tell he's no good."

"I know that doctor. She operated on my mother last week. She's a really good person, no way she'd abandon her own mom!"

Every word landed on Chester's face like a slap.

His color went from white to gray and back, but he still dug in, insisting, "Don't listen to her nonsense! She's exactly that cold-blooded! Our mom broke her back to put her through school, and what does she do? The second she makes it big, she cuts our mom off. Won't even pay the surgery bill. If that's not cold-blooded, what is it?"

"Hold on." I cut him off, my voice low but pitched just right so everyone at the door could hear it.

"You say Mom broke her back to put me through school? Then let me ask you: my senior year of high school, who paid my tuition? My college tuition and living costs, who covered those? If you can produce one shred of proof today that our mom gave me so much as a dollar toward college, I'll pay the whole surgery bill myself. But if you can't, when the cops get here, I'm adding a defamation charge on top of everything else!"

The moment I finished, Chester's face flushed a deep, ugly red.

His mouth hung open, and for a long time nothing came out.

Of course he had nothing.

From the day I turned eighteen, this family never gave me a dime for college tuition, never so much as a grain of rice.

I'll never forget the winter of my freshman year.

To save up tuition, I got a job at a restaurant.

My hands were covered in chilblains from the cold, and I called home to ask my mom for a hundred dollars to buy ointment.

Instead of an ounce of sympathy, she cursed me out. "You worthless girl. No money to treat it, then wait around and die. I never forced you to go to college. Quit bothering me with your garbage problems, you bad-luck brat!" Then she hung up on me with a hard click.

I didn't say any of that in front of the crowd. Too filthy, too degrading.

But Chester understood.

Sweat broke out across his forehead in an instant.

He was genuinely afraid I'd air all our mom's outrageous stunts in public.

He rushed to make excuses. "Mom didn't have any money back then either... You're her daughter, how can you nickel-and-dime her like this..."

"Mom had no money?" I laughed.

I pulled up the photo from my drawer, the one of the bankbook my mom used to hide under her pillow.

I'd stumbled across it the year before college and snapped a picture on impulse.

I held the photo up at the door so everyone could see the number and the date clearly.

"The year I got a near-perfect SAT score and my Ivy League acceptance, I owed eight thousand dollars in tuition. But my mom said the family couldn't afford two kids in college, called me a worthless girl who'd only end up benefiting some outsider, said I had no business going to college at all. If I wanted to study, I'd have to figure it out myself. She forced me to take out student loans. But on move-in day I found out the old house had been cleared for redevelopment ages ago, and the relocation compensation came to a hundred and eighty thousand dollars! Chester, you say Mom had no money then? Then let me ask you: whose broke family has a hundred and eighty grand sitting in their bankbook?"

The moment I finished, the crowd exploded.

Every pointing finger and whisper turned on Chester.

"So that's what really happened. I said Dr. Whitney didn't look like the ungrateful type."

"That's beyond playing favorites. The daughter gets into an Ivy League school and they won't even cover tuition?"

"If you ask me, Dr. Whitney's got a real conscience offering to pay half. If it were me and I had a mom that biased, forget half, I wouldn't put in a single cent!"

"Right, and how does this brother have the nerve to still come demanding money from his sister? What is wrong with the two of them?"

The crowd had Chester red in the face, but he still dug in. "Old folks can give their money to whoever they want. How's that playing favorites... And besides, no matter how wrong a mother is, she's still the one who gave birth to her, isn't she? Doesn't she owe our mom care in her old age?"

"I never said I wouldn't take care of Mom. Don't stand here changing the subject." I put my phone away, my voice cold as ice.

"The law says children share the duty of caring for a parent. I agree with that, which is exactly why I offered for us to split the surgery bill fifty-fifty. But you coming into my office today, smashing my things, and trying to trash my reputation, that you owe me an explanation for!"

The second Chester saw I was serious, he panicked.

What he'd pulled today wasn't huge, but it wasn't nothing either.

If I really pressed it and turned him in, he'd get a record.

And then how would his son ever land a government job.

He lunged over, begging. "Scarlett! I was wrong, I really was wrong. Don't let the cops take me away, okay? I... I'll go scrape the money together right now, all right?"

I stood where I was and looked at the sorry sight of him, letting out a helpless sigh.

"Fine. I'll let you off this once. But if there's a next time, don't expect me to show you any mercy."

Seeing that I'd agreed, Chester sagged with relief.

He waved his hands over and over. "Okay, okay, thank you, Scarlett... Don't worry, there won't be a next time, I promise." And then he fled my office like his life depended on it.