My breaths shorten as my heart struggles.
“These rolls are delicious. What brand do the rich and arrogant buy? Can mere peasants afford it?” Mom challenges Lukas directly as he heaps food onto both our plates, starting with mine.
“Youcan’t,” he says, selecting a cut of meat for me. “Clara made them, and she makes what I want when I want for who I want.”
Disgust taints Mom’s expression, and so she shifts directions. “Gracious, honey. Are you really going to eat all that? No wonder you’re gaining weight. How dreadful. Lukas doesn’t care about your health. He mustlike‘thick’ women.” Refinement saturates her disdain. “That was your father, before I converted him. Men are so depraved until women teach them manners.”
She’s goading. For a reaction. For Lukas to snap so she can say,Look at the monster! Come home with me where it’s safe.
I’m her only leverage here. She wants to use me to control him.
She knew within three seconds that Lukas would not change his feelings about her, no matter how much disapproval she threw at him. So now all she can do is make me want to go home, get him to fight for me, then use that to get whatever terms and conditions she wants met.
Of course she’s not planning to actually spend the night.
Dad drives.
Why would she care if it’s long and tiring?
She’snot doing it…and the only person my mother cares about is herself.
She intends to coerce benefits out of Lukas as the price to pay for me, or she intends to bring her servant and secondary income back home.
She’s had me pay rent since my junior year of high school, when I got a part-time job, and thatrenthas always been nearly my entire paycheck, rising when I switched from part to full after graduation. It only occurs to me right now that it was probably a ploy—to keep me from being able to afford leaving.
She knows I’m careful. She made me so careful.
I wouldn’t dream of trying to move out without a cushion of savings.
So she took that freedom away the minute she could make it seem reasonable.
You’re old enough to pay.
Inflation, I’m sure you understand.
I wonder if she planned to use me like she has from the first moment she held me in her arms as a baby. I wonder… But wondering about these sorts of things isn’t really productive, is it?
“We’ve missed having you at home so much, baby,” she’s saying when my mind clears enough to realize I have beenstaring down at my plate and not listening to anything. “I can’t wait for you to come home and leave this big mistake behind.”
The big mistakeyoupushed me toward? Hollow, I ask, “Why?”
“Excuse me?” She saws into her slice of steak. Her favorite. If she’s even bothered to notice that I’ve made everyone’s favorite is anyone’s guess. She probably only recognizes her own, and maybe it’s made her smug. Maybe she thinks it means I’m still susceptible to her because I still care about her. “What do you meanwhy?”
I don’t lift my head. “Why can’t you wait for me to come home? Are the dishes piling up?”
Her mouth drops. “Clara, how dare you speak to me like that. I miss you! We all miss you.”
I bet the floors haven’t been swept or mopped for a month. I bet she’s been making Dad work overtime to cover the money I’m not bringing in. I bet she’s complained in every moment to her star child Brent while he ignores her to play his video games becausehewas never the one who listened to or comforted her in her tirades.
That was alwaysmy role.
I’ve been her comfort, her mortgage, her live-in maid.
“If everyone misses me,” I whisper, tempering the thunder and pressure of my heart pulling blood through my veins, “why hasn’t Brent said a word to me?”
“Because he’s your stupid brother.” Mom flails a hand toward him while he stuffs his face with macaroni. “Brothers are like that.”
“My brothers aren’t like that.” They leave me little thank-you notes. They look out for me. They saywe’ll stand by you, and then they do.
