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3

Her mother glanced over, but she didn't walk to the window.

"She must have slipped out at some point."

"Nobody is to go looking for her."

"She doesn't have a single friend, and she doesn't have any money on her. When she gets hungry, she'll come back on her own."

Her father didn't object.

Her younger brother only asked one thing: "So who's doing the dishes tonight?"

Her older sister looked toward my cramped little bedroom.

"She's about to move into the dorms anyway. Let me use this room for my clothes from now on."

Her mother nodded.

"Fine by me. Saves her coming back and piling junk everywhere."

They didn't even wait for me to come home before they started clearing out my room.

My brother packed my old books into a cardboard box.

My sister took one look at my shabby clothes, didn't even bother to sort through them, and dumped them straight into a garbage bag.

From the very back of the desk, my father dug out a tin box.

Inside were all the notes I'd written to them over ten years.

*Punishment, day three: Mom, I really know I was wrong. Can you give me a hug?*

*Punishment, day one hundred and eighty: Dad, I came in first today. Can you just look at it once?*

*Punishment, year four: Mom, my fever's up to a hundred and two. I'm a little scared.*

*Punishment, year ten: I got into the university. Can we be a family again?*

My sister flipped through a few of them and laughed out loud.

"How does she milk it this hard?"

For a second my mother's face went stiff.

But she recovered fast, snatched the tin box away, and tipped every note inside into the trash can.

"Stop reading those."

"She wrote all that just to guilt us into going soft."

I lunged for them, desperate to gather the pages back up.

But my hand passed through them, again and again.

I couldn't hold on to anything.

All I could do was watch my brother toss an empty drink bottle in on top, pressing down every apology that had never once been answered.

I used to think that if I just died, they would be sorry.

That they'd cradle my things and cry, that they'd remember how I once trailed after them, begging them to look at me just once.

But my death didn't even interrupt them picking out a computer and a necklace.

They were still talking about how selfish I was, how scheming, how I never knew my place.

They'd already started dividing up the room I left behind.

So it turned out death didn't end my pain.

It only made me see it clearly.

There really was no one in this world who loved me.

And in that moment, a sharp, urgent knock came at the door.

"Excuse me, is it your child who fell?"

The color drained from her mother's face in an instant.

She spun around, threw her arms around the older sister, and looked her over from head to toe.

The father bolted into the living room too and hauled the younger brother in front of him.

Only when they were sure both were unharmed did they let out a breath at the same time.

Hand pressed to her chest, the mother opened the door and said,

"You scared me half to death."

"Both my kids are right here. The one who fell isn't mine."

The neighbor outside faltered.

"But don't you have three children?"

The panic slowly left the mother's face.

She threw a glance at my empty room and gave a cold laugh.

"You mean Patricia?"

"She's been a little liar since she was small. Nobody plays pitiful better than her."

"A girl with that little shame, you think she'd actually go and die?"

The older sister nodded along.

"She just got into a top university. She's dying to rub it in our faces."

"She's probably hiding somewhere, trying to force us to go looking for her."

The neighbor looked at the open window, then at the acceptance letter by the bed with dirty footprints across it.

She seemed about to say something.

But faced with the mother's certainty, in the end she only sighed, turned, and left.

The door shut again.

The mother was still grumbling about the neighbor bringing bad luck.

The father went back to picking out a computer for the younger brother.

Standing in the middle of the living room, I suddenly found it almost funny.

Behind me came the sound of chains dragging across the floor.

I turned.

Two figures stood in the doorway, one black, one white.

The White Reaper opened the ledger in his hand and looked at me for a long time.

"Patricia Manning, eighteen. Her natural years unspent, life ended by her own hand."

"By the rules, she must be sentenced to the boiling cauldron."

The Black Reaper lifted the chains. His voice was cold.

"You knew those who take their own lives find no release after death. Why did you jump?"

I paused.

In ten years, the first person to speak to me in earnest turned out to be a spirit-warden come to collect my soul.

I smiled faintly.

"Because I've had the same nightmare for ten years."

That nightmare began the night I turned eight.

All these years, almost every night I dreamed of the moment they caught me taking the money.

Dreamed of my father raising his hand and knocking me to the floor with one slap.

Dreamed of a brand-new workbook being torn apart, page by page.

Dreamed of my mother leading the older sister and the younger brother off, declaring that no one was allowed to speak to me again.

I chased after them, apologizing over and over.

"Mom, I won't ever do it again."

"Dad, please, look at me."

"I really know I was wrong."

But no matter how I cried out, none of them ever turned around.

Every time I jerked awake, I was soaked in sweat, my heart slamming like it would burst through my chest.

My fingers would clench the corner of the blanket so hard my nails cut bloody marks into my palm.

After a while, I started to fear sleep.

I'd sit at the edge of the bed all night, arms around my knees, watching the dark outside turn to light.

By day I still had to get up as usual, make their breakfast, wash the clothes, and carry my backpack to school.

No one knew I hadn't slept all night.

No one cared why my face was so pale.

The sound of a wallet zipper made me tremble.

If I saw cash on a table, I'd go out of my way to avoid it.

When relatives came over, I never dared go near their coats or handbags.

Even paying at a store, I'd turn out every one of my pockets, terrified someone might suspect I'd taken something extra.

But no matter how careful I was.

In their eyes I was still the child who'd stolen money at eight.

The year I turned ten, I slipped away to the temple for the first time.

With money I'd earned collecting scrap, I bought the cheapest stick of incense.

Others prayed for health, for their studies, for wealth.

Kneeling before the Buddha, I prayed for only one thing.

I prayed for my mother and father to forgive me.

I prayed for the older sister and the younger brother to say a single word to me.

I copied out scriptures, knelt up the long stone steps, and pushed every bit of pocket money I'd saved into the donation box.

I even asked the Buddha, again and again,

"An eight-year-old child stole five dollars. How long, exactly, is she supposed to be punished?"

No one answered me.

Just like at home.

In those worst years, I tried to save myself.

Over and over I coaxed myself.

"Patricia, you have to be strong. Once you finish college, you'll earn many times over that five dollars."

"By then, no one will overlook you anymore."

But once the words were out, I'd look at my own pale face in the mirror, and I couldn't stop the thought.

Someone so poor she didn't even have her parents' love, was there really any need for her to stay alive?

My thoughts circled back, and I looked at the two Reapers and calmly held out my hand.

"Take me."

"The cauldron, my soul scattered, whatever it is, I accept it."

"I'd rather have no next life at all."

"Than go on with this nightmare."

The two Reapers looked at me in silence, and in their eyes was a pity I had never once seen on my family's faces.

After a long moment, the White Reaper said softly, "Come."

The chain settled onto my wrist. It didn't hurt.

I followed them through the doorway.

But behind me came another burst of frantic knocking.

Someone was pounding at the door with everything they had, the sound fast and loud.

"Open up!"

"The girl who just fell is your daughter! Her name is Patricia Manning!"