My Parents Sold My Future For Her Convenience Chapter 03
The three of them swept past me, cozy and warm, heading
into the living room together.
I could still hear Bianca’s syrupy voice.
“Mom, Riven already got me the laptop, tablet, and phone,
but you and Dad gotta chip in too, okay? I’m going out
with friends, so help me out with a thousand bucks for
travel, pretty please?”
My mother laughed and called her a little money–grußber,
but her fingers were already flying over her phone,
transferring the cash.
Bianca checked her phone, shrieked, and launched herself
at our mother. “Oh my god, three thousand! Mom, I love-”
Our mother clapped a hand over her mouth before she
could finish.
My phone buzzed too. I opened it, a hundred dollars from
my mother.
She turned, shot me a look, and said flatly. “There. Now
you’ve got a gift too, same as your sister. So drop that
sour look on your face and get in the kitchen.”
I didn’t accept the transfer. And for the first time, I didn’t
obediently follow her to the kitchen.
I retorted. “Aren’t you always saying Bianca’s so
understanding of how hard you two work? Why don’t you
get her to help instead?”
Her face went ice–cold. “Try that tone with me one more
time. Think you’re too big for your britches now that
you’ve got your SAT score?”
My brother Riven frowned. “Celia, you’ve always been the
one in the kitchen. Bianca’s clumsy and she’s never set
foot in there. You’re the reliable one.”
Bianca whipped her head around, looking wounded. “Celia,
don’t drag me into your fight with Mom. I was just sticking
for you.”
up
“Guess Mom and Aunt were right about you. You really are
an ungrateful wretch.”
I turned slowly and locked eyes with my mother. Repeated
the words, “An ungrateful wretch?”
No wonder every relative’s gaze on me had always felt so
strange.
So that’s how she’d been selling me to the whole family.
My mother’s eyes flickered with something like guilt, but
only for a second. Then the self–righteousness came
roaring back.
“Fine, fine. I’ll do it myself.”
She clattered toward the kitchen, muttering loudly, “Oh, I
was born to be a mule. Pop out one daughter and she’s too
lazy to lift a finger…”
I used to dread this act the most.
Every time I needed tuition money, she’d launch into the same performance–how hard she and Dad worked, how
much they sacrificed, her back, her legs, the disrespect
she took at her job.
Six hundred–dollar bills, counted out one by one in her hands, each one weighed down by her complaints. By the time they reached me, those six bills felt like a boulder on
my chest.
Later, every time I had to ask her for money, I’d choke on
guilt.
Like my very existence was what made their lives so hard.
I’d put off doctor’s visits when I got sick. Never went to the hospital. Didn’t want to spend their money. Didn’t
want to be called a burden.
But then I caught her slipping a thick wad of cash into
Bianca’s hands one day.
“Quick, take this. Don’t let that gold–digger spot it. Spend
it on yourself. No need to hold back, your father and I have
savings.”
Bianca wrapped her arms around our mother, squealing:
“Mom, I love you so much!”
That’s when it hit me.
She didn’t always make paying into a guilt trip.
And the one receiving didn’t always have to shrink into
silence breathing so lightly she barely existed
I set the sunflowers I’d been clutching so proudly down on
the entryway table.
Went back to my room. Closed the door. Shut out their
laughter and chatter.
Dinner came and went. No one called me.
Only my father, Robert, back from work, asked flatly.
“Where’s Celia? You’re the only one running around?”
My mother slammed the dishes down. “She’s playing
princess in her room. She thinks she’s too good to lift a
finger now, I wouldn’t dare ask her to do a thing.”
My nose still stung. My heart ached with a dull, familiar throb.
Did other mothers talk about their daughters like that?
I didn’t know. But I did know I’d had eighteen years of it.
That was more than enough,
I pulled out my phone and booked a ticket to New York.
The next second, a knock came at my door.