2: 2

The air over the table froze in an instant.

Phineas stared at the bowl of foul-looking mush and forced out a smile.

"Ma'am… that's a pretty unusual flavor."

My mother's face went dark red, her eyes cutting into me like knives.

I scooped up a spoonful and made a show of holding it out to him. "Here, go on, taste it. Really nutritious stuff."

Phineas shot to his feet and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

"Uh… ma'am, I just remembered there's something urgent at the office. I have to head out first."

He grabbed his coat and rushed off.

Yara watched his sorry back disappear, shaking with rage. "Evelyn, are you sick in the head? You did that on purpose, didn't you!"

I couldn't be bothered to argue with them. I turned and went back to my room.

At ten that night, my father got home from his business trip.

The moment he stepped through the door, Yara threw herself at him in tears, pouring out the evening's events with every embellishment she could add.

My mother chimed in beside her, denouncing my crimes.

Over the years my father had indulged my mother and Yara, but on the big things, at least, he'd usually kept some sense of reason.

I thought he would at least come in and ask me what had happened, put in a fair word for me.

The door flew open.

My father walked in with a face like iron and, without a single word, brought his hand across my face.

The sting exploded across my left cheek, my ears ringing.

The blow knocked my head to the side, and I stared at him, unable to believe it.

"You worthless girl!" His roar broke over my head. "Your sister finally lands herself a boyfriend with real prospects, and you set out to wreck it? Not an ounce of thought for this family! Can't you stand to see your sister do well?"

The family again. The greater good again.

For the sake of this family's so-called greater good, I'd swallowed it for more than twenty years.

I no longer remember when my mother's baby act began.

She refused every responsibility a grown adult should carry, and turned herself into an overgrown child who needed to be looked after.

She couldn't cook, couldn't do laundry, couldn't handle a single household task.

Her greatest joy every day was dressing in clothes made for someone half her age, tearing open blind boxes, watching cartoons, cooing at me and my father that she was the baby.

The night before my SATs, my father suddenly doubled over, clutching his stomach, his face twisted in pain.

My mother stood beside him crying her eyes out, clinging to me. "Evelyn, sweetie, your dad's sick, but baby doesn't know how to take care of anyone, baby's scared. Go look after your dad, quick."

That night I sat at my father's bedside, feeding him water, wiping his sweat, rubbing his back.

My mother spent the whole night in the next room watching her girly cartoons.

The next day I walked into the testing center with a foggy, half-dead head, and in the end I missed a top-tier university by a few points.

Only later did I learn there had been nothing serious wrong with him that day. He'd just eaten something bad.

I looked at this man in front of me, this man I'd called Dad for more than twenty years, and suddenly he felt like a total stranger.

I stood up and looked at him calmly, and at my mother and Yara, who'd followed in to watch the show.

"Starting today, I won't give this family another cent."

"I can't manage your greater good anymore. This family, let's split it up."

3: 3

After I moved out, I shut off the family's shared accounts and subscriptions right away.

Everyone assumed I was just sulking.

Yara texted me, her tone dripping with charity. *Sis, I know you're jealous of me, but don't take it too far. Mom and Dad worked hard to raise you. Throw your little tantrum for a few days, then hurry back and apologize. Don't embarrass everyone.*

My mother went further, firing off dozens of voice messages into the family group chat, accusing me in that cutesy baby voice of hers.

"Mean big sister doesn't want baby anymore, baby's so sad, baby has no money to buy pretty dresses now…"

My father delivered an ultimatum.

*Evelyn Abbott, I'm giving you three days. Crawl back here and admit you were wrong! Otherwise don't blame me for disowning you as my daughter!*

I looked at the screen and blocked every one of them, my face blank.

Three days later, I hadn't gone home.

My mother finally realized I meant it this time, and she started to panic.

That day I was in a meeting at the company when the building management called to say the alarm in my apartment had gone off. They suspected a break-in.

My stomach dropped, and I rushed straight back.

I let myself in with the spare key. The living room was a wreck, and my bedroom door was flung wide open.

I ran into the room and found my mother crouched on the floor.

She had a big pair of scissors in her hand, and she was snipping away at a gown hanging on the rack, cutting off pieces of fabric and trying to stick them onto a doll.

That was the couture gown I'd had made at great expense, specially for an extremely important industry summit next week.

Hearing me, she turned around.

When she saw it was me, instead of panicking she held up the doll like she was showing off a prize.

"Evelyn, look! Baby made the dolly a new dress!"

"Isn't it super sparkly? Isn't it pretty?"

She was still wearing that ridiculous Lolita outfit, an innocent, delighted smile on her face.

I looked at the gown, completely ruined, and the blood shot straight to my head.

I walked toward her, one step at a time.

She seemed to sense the danger. The smile froze on her face, and she started shrinking back.

"I'm only a baby…"

"Baby saw the fabric all sparkly and wanted to make dolly a dress!"

Seeing my expression, she dropped onto the floor at once, ready to launch into her usual crying fit.

I let out a cold laugh and pulled out my phone, taking photos of the mess.

Then I turned, took the gown's purchase receipt and invoice out of the drawer, and spread them out in front of her.

"Three hundred thousand."

I pointed at the number on the receipt and said it slowly, one word at a time. "This gown. Three hundred thousand. Pay for it."

My mother's crying caught in her throat. She stared at that string of zeros in disbelief.

The next second, she burst into a wailing sob.

"Boo hoo hoo… mean big sister's bullying baby! Baby just saw the fabric all sparkly and wanted to make dolly a dress! Baby didn't know it was so expensive! Boo hoo hoo…"

She cried and kicked her feet against the carpet, like a spoiled brat rolling around because she didn't get her candy.

Right then, my father and Yara arrived too.

Seeing the scene inside, my father exploded, but the person he was screaming at was me.

"Evelyn Abbott! Have you no decency at all! She's your mother! She's just an old child, she doesn't know any better, why are you fighting with her!"

Yara chimed in. "Sis, aren't you overreacting? It's just one dress. Mom didn't do it on purpose. Do you really have to call the police?"

I looked at this family and their faces, and all I felt was disgust.

"She didn't do it on purpose?" I pointed at the scissors. "She used the spare key, pried open my bedroom door, and destroyed my most important gown with scissors. That's not on purpose?"

My father and Yara had nothing to say, their faces flushing a deep, ugly red.

"Three hundred thousand, not a cent less." I looked at them. "If you won't pay, fine. I'll see you in court."

With that, I walked out the door without looking back.

I moved straight into a hotel and contacted a lawyer first thing, sending him the photos and the purchase receipt.

Early the next morning, a lawyer's letter was delivered into my parents' hands.

But before I could catch my breath, my assistant knocked and came in, alarmed. "Ms. Abbott, there's a problem. Someone's making a scene at the front desk and won't leave no matter what…"

4: 4

I frowned and stepped out to see what was happening downstairs.

My mother was sprawled flat on her back on the marble floor by the reception desk, wearing that most eye-searing puffy Lolita dress of hers, rolling around and wailing.

"My daughter won't take care of her poor baby anymore! Won't buy her baby anything, and now she wants to throw her baby in jail! Boo-hoo-hoo…"

Yara stood off to the side, dabbing at fake tears.

"How can my sister do this to us? My mom's old, she's not right in the head, can't you just treat her like a child and let a few things go? And my sister actually wants to press charges. Is she trying to drive us to our deaths?"

She wept and choked out every word, and a fair number of coworkers who had no idea what was going on started to point and whisper.

I walked over slowly. But I didn't panic and drag them away like they expected.

Instead, I calmly called over the building's security guard.

"Turn on your body camera."

The guard blinked, but he did it right away, switching on the camera clipped to his chest.

"And make two calls for me." I looked at my mother's face, makeup smeared from all the crying.

"One to the nearest police station. Tell them someone here is disrupting normal business operations. The other to the closest psychiatric hospital. Tell them there's an elderly woman here, apparently mentally unwell, making a scene in public."

My mother's wailing cut off in an instant.

Yara's face changed just as fast. "Evelyn! You wouldn't dare! She's your own mother!"

"Precisely because she's my mother, I have all the more reason to think about her health."

I looked at her without expression. "Her behavior right now is severely abnormal. As her child, I suspect she's suffering from a mental illness. Sending her to a professional facility for evaluation and treatment is my duty and my responsibility."

Just then, a familiar figure appeared in the lobby.

It was Phineas.

He took in the chaos and froze for a second too.

Yara lit up like she'd seen her savior and rushed straight over, grabbing his arm. "Phineas, you're just in time! Look, my sister's gone way too far. She's trying to drive my mom to her death!"

Phineas looked at me, then at my mother throwing her fit on the floor, and his brow furrowed.

But he seized the chance to perform in front of an audience fast enough.

He cleared his throat and stepped up to me. "Evelyn, isn't there some kind of misunderstanding here? Dragging the police into this is bad for everyone. If word gets out, there's no telling whether you'll even keep this job. Don't you think?"

I looked at him and found it almost funny.

An intern, and he actually had the nerve to threaten me with losing my job.

Seeing Phineas willing to stick his neck out for her, Yara suddenly found her nerve.

She hung on his arm and looked at me with her chin in the air. "Evelyn, let me tell you something. Phineas isn't just anybody. The higher-ups here think highly of him! One word from him to your boss and you won't be able to stay here at all!"

My mother climbed up off the floor too and brushed the dust off her skirt.

"Exactly! Our Phineas is going to make something of himself! Not like some people, no ambition and rotten to the core, hurting her own mother!"

The two of them flanked him, one on each side, and gushed nonstop about how capable he was, how much of a man he was.

Phineas puffed out his chest and looked at me like he'd already won.

"Evelyn, for Yara's sake, I'll give you one more chance."

"Right now, this instant, you bow and apologize to your mom and Yara in front of everyone, and you promise to drop the charges immediately and let it go. Otherwise, all I have to do is say a word to Manager Lambert in our department…"

Before he could finish, a middle-aged man in a suit came hurrying out of the elevator, his face tense.

It was their department's Manager Lambert.

He took one look at the ugly scene in the lobby and his expression went dark.

"What's going on here? What's all this shouting about?"

Phineas immediately stepped forward to tattle. "Manager Lambert, this employee of ours, Evelyn Abbott, she abuses her parents, her character is despicable. I recommend we immediately—"

Before he could finish, Manager Lambert had already brushed past all of them and crossed the floor in a few quick strides to stand in front of me.

Under everyone's stunned gaze, Manager Lambert bowed to me respectfully.

"Ms. Abbott, what are you doing here?"