2.

The second the words left my mouth, my mother blew up on the other end of the line.

"You won't give it? How can you not give it! Your father's right, you're a heartless, ungrateful wretch we could never raise into a decent person!"

"That's your own little sister. You're just going to sit there and watch her die?"

Her words got uglier and uglier. I lowered my eyes to the phone in my hand.

Two lifetimes of grievance and confusion pressed up in my chest, and I couldn't hold it back anymore.

I asked the question I had always wanted to ask. "Am I even your real daughter?"

I didn't need her to answer. I already knew. I was.

All four of us in that family looked like we'd been carved from the same mold.

But then why me? Why lie to me, why refuse to let me go to school?

And why fool me like an idiot for all these years?

My mother's voice sounded furious, then cornered, choking down the sob rising in her throat.

"I'm begging you, this is your own little sister, she's still so young."

"If you won't take care of her, who will!"

Her voice was worn and thin, pleading with me, her daughter, through tears. It wasn't as if I'd never refused her in my last life.

But every time, my parents would block me with one excuse after another, until I had no choice but to hand over the money like a good girl.

And after handing it over enough times, I got used to it. I stopped feeling like anything was wrong.

But now I bowed my head and gave it the smallest shake. "I'm not giving you money anymore. And don't call me again."

After I hung up, I tipped my head back and looked at the sky for a while, then locked my phone in my locker, pulled on my dust suit, and went into the production floor.

I'd barely sat down at my station when the person beside me leaned in close.

"Your parents called you again? See, I told you, doing so well out here, of course your parents are thrilled to hear about it."

I whipped around and looked at the woman I would have gone on treating as a best friend for decades.

"You're the one who told my parents I got a raise?"

Gloria Glass nodded. "Yeah. Things are so hard at home for your family, shouldn't you be giving them more?"

"Besides, if you're doing well, your parents can hold their heads up back home."

I stared straight at her and didn't miss the little flicker of glee in her eyes.

"Didn't I tell you not to spread it around that I got a raise? You know how hard I've had it."

Gloria's eyes shifted. "What's it got to do with me? I just kindly mentioned you when I was on the phone with my family."

"How was I supposed to know it'd turn out like this?"

I looked at the face in front of me, and slowly it lined up with a face from my last life. The one in bed with my first love, tangled up together.

The one I'd caught in the act, the one that cried and begged me to forgive her.

After a moment, I got up, found the line leader, and asked to transfer stations.

From that day on, Gloria never said another word to me.

And I never sent another cent home. The savings in my hand grew slowly, bit by bit.

I counted my money one bill at a time. Soon. Soon I'd be able to quit and leave the factory.

I could move to another city and live a normal life, keep going with school, and stop being their blood bag the way I had been in my last life.

I would never live that life over again.

At noon, when I got off and was heading out to eat, someone gripped my arm hard.

"Gillian Gray, you heartless thing, your sister's about to die sick in her bed!"

"And you've still got the nerve to be out here living the good life? You're set on driving us all to our deaths, aren't you!"

3.

My mind went blank. It was the end of shift, everyone streaming out to eat, and the crowd was thick on every side.

The woman in front of me kept it up, shouting her grievances against me for everyone to hear.

I tried hard to pull my arm back, but the grip only tightened.

My mother had one hand clamped on me and the other pounding at her own chest, sobbing so hard her face was wet with it.

My father crouched off to the side with my sister curled in his arms, saying nothing, puffing on his pipe.

People pointed and muttered around me. "Our factory's really turned out someone special. So young and already this cold-hearted."

"Right? Look how weak that little sister of hers is."

"Whatever the reason, that's her own flesh-and-blood sister. To just cut her off like that."

Gloria pushed forward, took my mother's hand, and turned to me with a face full of righteousness. "Gillian, your mom knows you want to save a little money. She's already being so understanding about it."

"But you can't be this heartless and not give a single cent."

"Look at your sister in your dad's arms, look at the state she's in!"

"And you wouldn't even pick up when your aunt and uncle called. You made them wait out at the gate all this time."

"You've really gone too far this time! I can't even stand to watch it!"

The crowd heard that and started in on me again, one after another calling me unfilial, calling me an ungrateful wretch.

And saying how kind-hearted Gloria was, worlds better than someone like me.

At Gloria's little speech my mother threw herself onto her and clung to her.

Weeping and wailing about how hard it was to be a parent, about how they'd been forced to beg me, driven to it by me.

More and more people gathered, and standing there, all I felt was wave after wave of dizziness.

Right on cue, my sister let out a fit of coughing loud enough to wake the dead.

The crowd hushed for a second, then went back to loudly condemning me.

I stood there watching all of it, and suddenly I was just tired.

I shook off my mother's hand and walked step by step up to my father, and reached out to touch my sister's forehead.

Her eyes were squeezed tight shut. She was nervous, even, the lids fluttering and twitching against it.

Something rose in my chest, a deep, hard hatred. Hatred that they'd treated me like a fool, hatred that they'd used family to chain up my whole life.

And more than that, hatred for why they couldn't love me the way they loved her.

"Dad, did the two of you ever once feel sorry for me?"

"Is she the only daughter you have?"

At that my father froze, the pipe going still in his mouth, and he looked up at me.

"Has she really been sickly since she was small?"

I looked straight into my father's eyes, and I didn't miss that flicker of panic in them.

When did it start?

When my sister didn't want to haul firewood down the hill or cut pigweed, or didn't want to feed the chickens or wash the dishes, and started faking it?

They'd caught on and never called her out, had even kept it from me together.

Tricked me into playing the family's workhorse my whole life, and glad to do it.

The commotion was too big; management came over fast and scattered the crowd.

My parents and I were shown into an office, and the section manager smoothed things over with a smile.

"Gillian Gray, I know you. You're a hard worker, aren't you? Good-natured too."

"Your family's in this much trouble, just lend a hand. Work hard and the factory won't do you wrong."

"You're a young girl. Don't wreck things with your own family like this."

My mother, as if she'd found her anchor, plopped down flat on the floor and started to wail.

"Raised this daughter for nothing, she's an ungrateful wretch! Her sister's still so little, how could she do this!"

"Why is my life so bitter! I can't handle her anymore, you leaders handle her for me!"

"Do you know your sister almost didn't make it out of the hospital! We had no choice either!"

"Mom's begging you. Show some mercy, save your sister!"

I looked at the faces around me, every one of them false, the scheming and the coldness right out in the open, and I laughed.

My voice came out perfectly calm. "Fine. I'll give it."

4.

The moment I finished speaking, the whole room lit up.

Even Sonia, who'd been curled up in Dad's arms playing sick, cracked her eyes open.

I set my savings book down in front of them. "These past few months, I've saved eight thousand dollars."

Mom's eyes went bright at the sight of it on the table, and her hand shot out to grab it.

Eight thousand dollars, back in the nineties, was no small fortune.

I pulled the book back into my hand. "But I have one condition."

"Go on, go on, Mom's good girl, whatever you want, your mom and dad will agree."

She was smiling all over her face, so eager the wrinkles around her eyes stood out.

I looked away and kept going. "We cut ties."

I ignored the shock on every face in the room and said it slowly.

"If you want this money, we cut ties. My name comes off the family register, and after that we have nothing to do with each other."

"Otherwise, none of you gets a single cent out of me."

The room went quiet for a moment. Legally cutting off all family ties was still a strange, new phrase then.

Dad, who hadn't said a word this whole time, clutched his chest on the couch and kept heaving for breath.

"Cut ties!"

"Fine, fine, fine. So I, George Gray, really did raise an ungrateful little snake."

"I should've strangled you the day you were born."

I said nothing, just watched them quietly. Cutting ties was the only way I could think of right now.

This life, I wanted to live once for myself.

Dad opened his mouth to say something, but Mom tugged at his sleeve.

"Agree to it. You really think a little slip of a girl can pull off anything out there? She'll be back before long, crying and begging us."

"We'll see how we deal with her then!"

"If I don't peel a layer of skin off her, I'll call her my mother!"

I took leave from work and rode the train back home with them.

When I took the sheet of paper from the town mayor, the red ink of the stamp still not dry.

Mom and Dad kept looking my savings book over and over, my sister tucked in their arms.

Her face wasn't pale anymore, and she'd stopped coughing.

Then Mom cleared her throat.

"All right, take your things and go. You're not this family's daughter now, so what are you still doing living in our house?"

"Didn't you want to cut ties? Quit clinging on like you've got no shame."

I lowered my head, silent for a moment, then gathered my luggage. "Okay."

Just before I stepped out the door, I heard laughter drifting in from the yard.

"Sonia wants those little leather shoes from the mall, doesn't she? Mom'll buy them for you!"

My sister laughed, delighted. "I want braised pork and a big breakfast sandwich from the restaurant too!"

"Okay, whatever my precious girl wants, Mom will buy it for you."

Inside, everything was warm and easy. My feet didn't slow, and I didn't turn back to look.

I carried my thin bundle of luggage and walked forward, one step at a time.

Gillian Gray, you finally saved yourself, for once.

This time, I'm going to live a life that's nothing like the one before.