2: 2
The air over the table froze in an instant.
Phineas stared at the bowl of foul-looking mush and forced out a smile.
"Ma'am… that's a pretty unusual flavor."
My mother's face went dark red, her eyes cutting into me like knives.
I scooped up a spoonful and made a show of holding it out to him. "Here, go on, taste it. Really nutritious stuff."
Phineas shot to his feet and wiped his mouth with a napkin.
"Uh… ma'am, I just remembered there's something urgent at the office. I have to head out first."
He grabbed his coat and rushed off.
Yara watched his sorry back disappear, shaking with rage. "Evelyn, are you sick in the head? You did that on purpose, didn't you!"
I couldn't be bothered to argue with them. I turned and went back to my room.
At ten that night, my father got home from his business trip.
The moment he stepped through the door, Yara threw herself at him in tears, pouring out the evening's events with every embellishment she could add.
My mother chimed in beside her, denouncing my crimes.
Over the years my father had indulged my mother and Yara, but on the big things, at least, he'd usually kept some sense of reason.
I thought he would at least come in and ask me what had happened, put in a fair word for me.
The door flew open.
My father walked in with a face like iron and, without a single word, brought his hand across my face.
The sting exploded across my left cheek, my ears ringing.
The blow knocked my head to the side, and I stared at him, unable to believe it.
"You worthless girl!" His roar broke over my head. "Your sister finally lands herself a boyfriend with real prospects, and you set out to wreck it? Not an ounce of thought for this family! Can't you stand to see your sister do well?"
The family again. The greater good again.
For the sake of this family's so-called greater good, I'd swallowed it for more than twenty years.
I no longer remember when my mother's baby act began.
She refused every responsibility a grown adult should carry, and turned herself into an overgrown child who needed to be looked after.
She couldn't cook, couldn't do laundry, couldn't handle a single household task.
Her greatest joy every day was dressing in clothes made for someone half her age, tearing open blind boxes, watching cartoons, cooing at me and my father that she was the baby.
The night before my SATs, my father suddenly doubled over, clutching his stomach, his face twisted in pain.
My mother stood beside him crying her eyes out, clinging to me. "Evelyn, sweetie, your dad's sick, but baby doesn't know how to take care of anyone, baby's scared. Go look after your dad, quick."
That night I sat at my father's bedside, feeding him water, wiping his sweat, rubbing his back.
My mother spent the whole night in the next room watching her girly cartoons.
The next day I walked into the testing center with a foggy, half-dead head, and in the end I missed a top-tier university by a few points.
Only later did I learn there had been nothing serious wrong with him that day. He'd just eaten something bad.
I looked at this man in front of me, this man I'd called Dad for more than twenty years, and suddenly he felt like a total stranger.
I stood up and looked at him calmly, and at my mother and Yara, who'd followed in to watch the show.
"Starting today, I won't give this family another cent."
"I can't manage your greater good anymore. This family, let's split it up."
