“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.