Mom always said she wanted to be a good mother-in-law. Only then would her future daughter-in-law willingly take care of her in her old age.

But every time she got sick, even with something minor, neither my brother nor his wife ever lifted a finger to help.

Still, Mom thought they were good people. To her, they were family.

And me? I was like an outsider.

Mom could spend my money without a hint of guilt. No matter how much I gave or sacrificed, in her eyes, it was always something I ought to do.

When she saw that I had no intention of apologizing, she clutched her chest and pretended to faint, collapsing dramatically onto the floor.

It was her usual trick, one she’d used countless times to make me back down. But not this time.

Buck barked at me in a panic. “Look at what you’ve done! You’ve made Mom faint! Hurry and take her to the hospital!”

I threw him a cold glance. “This time, it’s your turn to take care of her.”

With that, I turned and walked away.

Behind me, Ethel shouted, “I’ve never seen anyone as heartless as you! Ignoring your own mother?! Do you even have a conscience?”

A sudden gust of wind swept through the yard. Though the sun still blazed high above, I felt a chill crawling up my spine.

No matter how harshly the sunlight beat down on me, the cold in my chest wouldn’t fade. The sadness was so deep that not even the summer heat could warm it.

That night, Mom mentioned me in the family group chat, launching into a lecture about morality and virtue, accusing me of being unfilial between the lines.

The so-called peacemakers in the group chimed in one after another, preaching about how I should apologize to my mother and my sister-in-law, as if they were teaching me how to be a decent human being.

I quit the group chat without hesitation.

For a moment, the world went completely silent.

But I didn’t expect that the next day, Mom would call my ex-husband to complain about how “immature and disobedient” I was.

That’s how she found out I was divorced.

I had gotten the divorce certificate just the day before Thanksgiving… after catching my husband in bed with another woman.

When I confronted them, he hit me. He actually did for his damn mistress.

I had wanted to tell Mom about the divorce right away, but she was hospitalized at the time.

Worried about her health, I decided to wait until she recovered.

But while I was at work one afternoon, she suddenly burst into my office, half crying and half furious, grabbing me by the collar.

“You useless child!” she shouted, her voice trembling. “Who told you to get divorced? Where are you even living now? Who’s going to take care of you?”

Then came the command—sharp and humiliating.

“Go and apologize to your husband right now! Beg him to take you back! My reputation is ruined because of you! Do you ever stop causing me trouble?”

I stared at her in a daze.

This was the woman I had loved for so long.

She had once been gentle, or at least pretended to be. She had given me clothes to wear, food to eat, and books to read—the bare minimum, yes.

But because of those small things, I tried so hard to be a responsible daughter.

Yet to her, my dignity and my happiness—none of it mattered as much as her reputation.

“It was he who cheated,” I said quietly. “Not me.”

The next second, her hand came down hard across my cheek, the sound echoing. Her furious face loomed before me, every wrinkle twisted in rage.

“So what if he cheated?” she shouted. “It’s not the end of the world! If he cheated, that just means he’s capable!”

Her words struck me harder than her slap ever could.

She jabbed a finger at me, her voice shaking with anger. “You went and divorced him. Did you even think about your sister-in-law?”

She huffed. “He promised last month to help your sister-in-law find an easy job! Now that you’ve divorced him, how is she supposed to get it? How could you do this to her?”

And just like that, I understood. All of this—her fury, her slap, her humiliation—was just for her beloved daughter-in-law.

In other words, my happiness was worth less to her than Ethel’s job.

Something in me snapped. I no longer cared about anyone’s disapproving stares or gasps.

I shouted, accusing her of being a bad mother.

“For your daughter-in-law’s sake, my happiness doesn’t matter?

“You’re a wonderful mother-in-law—the best in the world, even. But to me, you’re a terrible mother!

“You’re just like every mother who only values her sons—a parasite, sucking the life out of her daughter to feed her precious son’s family!

“When you were in the hospital, who paid your bills? Who stayed by your side day and night? It was me!

“When you needed living expenses or someone to check on you, who was always there? It was me!”

“You think your son and daughter-in-law have done anything for you! You don’t even know how to be a mother, so who are you to scold me, your daughter?”

She cut me off with a slap, then said something that hit me straight in the chest.

“If I’d known you’d turn out like this, I’d have strangled you to death! You’re completely inconsiderate! You don’t know how to care about your maternal family!”

She raged in the office for what felt like forever, keening and wailing as she accused me of being an ungrateful daughter.

She made me the talk of the whole company, shaming me in front of everyone.

Only when security physically escorted her out did her shrill voice finally subside.

That night when I came home, I found something else waiting for me: all my gold jewelry—the pieces worth twenty-one thousand dollars—were gone!

Panicked, I was about to call the police when my mother sent me text messages.

[Remember that twenty thousand I told you to return to your sister-in-law? You’ve stubbornly refused, so I gave your gold jewelry to her.]

[Listen to me. Go back and apologize. If you can reconcile with Lucius, do it!]

[Don’t make me lose face in front of our relatives. Don’t let your sister-in-law lose her job, or don’t bother coming home again!]

I stared at the messages, a suffocating mix of anger and cold despair rising in me.

My hands shook as I typed one line.

[Return my jewelry now, or I’ll call the cops!]

Then, I deleted it, deciding words were pointless. Instead, I directly dialed the cops.

They brought my mother to the station. When I went to reclaim my jewelry, Ethel pointed at my nose and cursed.

“Gosh, Beulah, you really outdid yourself this time! You actually called the cops on your own mother?! What a daughter you are! Watch out—your father might crawl out of his grave in the middle of the night to look for you!”

Buck was so mad that he wanted to hit me, but an officer held him back.

I stood my ground and asked my mother calmly, “You took all my gold while I wasn’t home. If that isn’t theft, what is? You stole a daughter’s things and gave them to your daughter-in-law. No matter how you spin it, I didn’t do anything wrong!”

Her face flushed with rage; she bared her teeth and handed the chat logs to the police to prove she hadn’t stolen them—that she’d asked for permission. After she spoke, she fainted.

It was critical.

The officers immediately rushed her to the hospital.

I wouldn’t have gone if not for them; they insisted I come along.

Under the doctors’ care, my mother came to; the medical bill, after insurance, was only less than a hundred bucks.

When the nurse came to collect payment, Mom wore a scowl and ordered me, “Go pay now! Do you want to die out of anger here?”

Her precious son just stood by with no intention of paying.

I didn’t soften. “If you want me to split this hundred bucks with you, then pay back the twenty thousand you owe me from your last medical bill. I’m your daughter, sure. But your son isn’t dead! It’s not right that I always pay while he sits back and enjoys himself!”

The officers saw what was going on and made Buck hand over the money.

Ethel wasn’t satisfied. She planted herself in the hospital corridor and loudly proclaimed, “My god, I’ve never seen anything like this. You made your own mother sick, called the cops on her, and you don’t even pay a cent for her medical bill. If you were my daughter, I’d beat you to death! I’d rather have been childless than have a daughter like you!”

I turned to an officer and asked, “Is publicly insulting someone a crime?”

That question shut Ethel up finally.

In the end, I got all my gold jewelry back and left the hospital.

Buck demanded that I accompany Mom and take care of her, but I snapped back at him.

The next day, unwilling to “bother” her precious son, Mom discharged herself from the hospital in a hurry.

She was always like this. In front of me, she was either in pain here or hurting there. No matter how busy I was, I had to take time off to look after her at the hospital, spending both my money and my effort.

On one hand, she called me “thoughtful.” On the other hand, she sucked me dry relentlessly.

After growing completely disillusioned with her, I poured all my energy into my work.

But less than a month into a peaceful routine, something happened again.

Just because Ethel liked to eat wild mushrooms from the mountains near Lake Cushman, Mom had taken a train for an entire day and night to get there and personally pick fresh mushrooms.

She had spent several days on that mountain gathering mushrooms.

By the time she returned home with a big sack slung over her back, she had injured her waist and now needed to be on bedrest for two months.

One evening, as I was leaving work, Buck and Ethel blocked me at the company entrance. They were pushing Mom in a wheelchair.

Standing there, utterly self-righteous, Mom declared, “I’m sick now. You’re my daughter, so it’s only right for you to take care of me. And your sister-in-law’s pregnant.”

As if reading from a script, she added, “According to tradition, as the aunt, you’re supposed to give a cash gift of 3,000 dollars.

“Your sister-in-law needs someone to take care of her during pregnancy, and I also need someone to take care of me. I thought about it and came up with two choices for you.

“First, you give Ethel 30,000 dollars. She can use it to hire a nanny and buy supplements.

“Second, you quit your job to take care of the two of us. I feel like it’s not great for you to be unemployed, but if you give us the money, we can hire someone instead. That way, it’s a win-win.”

It was right at rush hour; a crowd had already gathered to watch the drama unfold.

I was so furious that I actually laughed.

“What does her pregnancy have to do with me? I’m not her mother! And that child she’s carrying isn’t mine! Why the hell should I take responsibility?”

I jabbed my finger toward my mother in the wheelchair.

“And why is your back injured? Isn’t it because you felt sorry for your beloved daughter-in-law? You traveled all that way just to pick wild mushrooms for her! You got hurt because of her, so go to her for help!”

I tapped my forehead sharply.

“Do you see the words ‘pushover’ written here?”

Ethel stomped her foot in rage, turning to Buck with a trembling voice.

“Look at your sister! Look at how she treats me! I’m not having this baby anymore!”

She went on, her tone rising. “What kind of family doesn’t take care of someone pregnant? Your mother’s already injured, and as a member of the Gillbergs, your sister’s supposed to take care of me! But look at how stubborn she is!”

Buck, acting like a bootlicker, tried to soothe her while turning on me with anger.

“Beulah, are you even human right now? The child in my wife’s belly is a Gillberg. Don’t you have the same last name? Shouldn’t a family help one another?”

“Stop whining,” he said with finality. “You have two choices: quit your job and take care of Mom and your sister-in-law, or hand over 30,000 dollars so we can hire a nanny. You don’t get any other options!”

I snorted coldly. “Just because I have the same family name, you think you can dump responsibilities that aren’t mine onto me? Fine. Tomorrow, I’ll go change my last name! I don’t care about that damn family name, nor do I like it!”

Mom, clutching her chest as if she were about to have a heart attack, hurled a string of vicious curses at me and then hissed her threat.

“If you don’t hand over the money, I’ll ruin your job! That job of yours—didn’t you win it against twenty thousand other applicants? I don’t believe you don’t care about it!”

See? She always knew exactly how to grab me by the throat.

I gave a bitter little laugh.

“Fine. Let’s tear the mask off, then. Let’s see who ends up humiliated. I’ll help you air this family scandal for the whole world to see!”

What they didn’t know was that half a month ago, I had already submitted my resignation. I’d accepted an offer from another city—an annual salary of 300,000 dollars.