She opened the ledger. Every page was crammed with entries recording every cent spent on me from the day I was born to the end of the college entrance exams.
"May 12th, 1999. Hospital delivery fee. Three hundred and eight dollars."
"July 1st, 2005. Elementary school tuition. Two hundred dollars."
"September 2010. Fever, injection. Five hundred dollars."
"2018 to present. Monthly food expenses. Three hundred dollars."
...
She'd even logged last New Year's, when I ate two chicken wings. The note beside the entry read: chicken wings, qty 2, $8.
Grand total: $48,400.
Mom closed the ledger without any hurry and slid it across the table to me.
"Take your time. You know me, I'm the fairest person there is. I didn't overcharge you by a single cent."
Her fingertip tapped the tabletop. Knock. Knock.
"Once you're done looking, give me a straight answer. When do you plan to pay it back?"
A dull ache split through my chest, slow and grinding, like a blunt knife dragged across raw flesh.
"Where's Adrian's ledger?"
The expression on Mom's face froze. Then her skin flushed a mottled red, her features twisting.
"Your brother is family! Of course there's no ledger for him!"
"But you? You're an outsider! Sooner or later you'll marry into someone else's household!"
"This family raised you, fed you, clothed you, put you through school all the way to graduation!"
"What, you expect us to take a loss?!"
Her chest heaved violently. She snatched up the ledger and swung it toward my face.
But she stopped mid-air.
She just glared at me, eyes burning.
"Enough!"
She slammed the ledger back onto the table so hard the surface shook.
"Cut the crap! Just tell me how you're paying this back!"
I reached out, took the ledger from the table, and lifted my head to look her straight in the eye.
"Every cent. I'll pay back every single cent."
A flicker of satisfaction crossed the bottom of her eyes.
"That's more like it. Tomorrow's the college enrollment meeting at school. Don't bother going. It's got nothing to do with you anyway."
"Go straight to the burger joint and find Mrs. Wang. I already talked to her. You start work tomorrow."
I straightened up. My fingers tightened around the mop handle.
I kept my voice level.
"The school requires every graduating student to attend. They're taking roll."
"So they take roll. Just tell them you're not going to college, that your transcript file got lost. What are they going to do, force you?"
Mom waved her hand, annoyed. "Fine, go. But the second it's over, you're at the burger joint."
I didn't say another word. I went back to mopping the floor.
That same day, I went to the most expensive gated community in the city, the kind surrounded by top-rated school districts, and pinned a few handwritten flyers to the bulletin board.
"Incoming Ivy League freshman. Available for middle and high school tutoring, all subjects. Targeted strategies for breakthroughs. Proven results."
The handwriting was neat. Beneath it, I'd listed my total exam score and my statewide ranking.
At first, nobody paid attention.
Then a woman in gold-rimmed glasses walked by with her child in tow and glanced over.
She stopped. Pushed her glasses up. Leaned in close and stared at the score and ranking for a solid thirty seconds.
Then her head snapped up to look at me. "This... this is YOUR score?"
"Yes."
I nodded and pulled out photocopies of my exam admission ticket and ID from my backpack.
She took them, looked back and forth between me and the documents, her fingers trembling slightly.
"Top five in the state! Oh my God!"
She grabbed my arm, her voice shooting up about three octaves.
"Teacher! No, wait, miss! Please, you have to tutor my child! I'll pay whatever you want!"
Several parents who'd been hovering nearby closed in immediately.
"Is that score real? I think I saw that name on the news!"
"Could we see your original transcript?"
"Tutor my kid too! We'll pay double!"
