4.
She flinched like a startled bird.
Then she dropped to her knees in front of me.
"Mom, Mommy, it's not like that. I did do my chemo."
"Look at the needle mark. I went."
"It was just this once. A woman said she'd overpaid, said she wanted to shed the bad luck, so she just put it on my bill and told me to use it."
"Really?"
She nodded over and over.
"It's true, Mommy. I'm not lying."
"You can go ask the doctor."
She knelt there in front of me, her voice shaking, bowing her head to the floor again and again.
"Mommy, don't send me there. I'll behave."
"I'll be good."
Watching her apologize like that, so afraid, something tightened in my chest.
I'm her mother. I'd never hurt her.
Did she really have to be this scared?
"You—"
"Do you think I'd actually eat you alive?"
"Forget it. Use whoever's money you want. But don't fall behind on your studies. If you need money, come to me."
She started taking her homework to the hospital.
At night she came home and shut herself in the study until every problem was done, and only then would she come out to say a word to me.
The dinner I set on the table, she wouldn't touch.
Ask her, and she'd say she'd already eaten.
Her treatment fee covered a meal.
"Coming home to eat at night wastes too much time, Mom."
"I'll just eat at the hospital. That saves time, and I can finish the plan right on schedule."
"You really don't have to push yourself this hard. Your health matters more."
I felt our conversations turning dry and hollow.
I meant to show her I cared.
Somehow the words came out contradicting myself.
"Forget it. Do whatever you want."
After that, things between us froze completely.
I cut fruit for her. She'd look at it, but she wouldn't eat.
Instead she pulled out a slip of paper and wrote it down.
"This plate has melon and strawberries. Converted into problems, the melon is ten, the strawberries are fifteen."
"I'll go finish them right now."
My body went rigid, and I hurried to explain.
"No, these last few days those don't count as problems."
She still didn't move. She shook her head.
"I can't eat fruit that isn't counted into the problem quota. You said so before."
"Everything in this house has to be traded by problem quota. That's the rule. It can't be changed."
"So I won't eat it for now. Thank you, Mommy."
The tight, suffocating weight in my chest grew heavier and heavier.
Finally I couldn't hold it in.
"Do you have to talk to me like this?"
"I'm your mother."
My voice startled her.
Her somewhat hollow eyes shifted and turned toward me.
Her voice was very small, very light, when she asked back:
"But Mommy, I'm only following your rules."
The anger burrowed right back down into my gut.
Once again I felt the failure of it.
"I understand."
Every piece of that untouched fruit, I threw into the trash.
The last round of chemo ended.
The test results came back. Her condition was completely under control now.
From here on, all she needed was to recover.
I wanted to share the good news with her, but I found a strange woman at the top of the stairs, stroking her head.
"My goddaughter's finally well. Once your exams are over, I'll take you traveling."
"Don't wear yourself out with studying lately. Your health matters most. You've got a godbrother now, too. When you're in college, if anyone bullies you, you come to him."
She was laughing, so happy.
Her eyes curved like crescent moons, and the hollow silence I always saw in them when I was around was gone.
I stood where I was and called out, my voice trembling:
"Selina?"
She turned toward the sound, and the smile on her face vanished at once.
"Mommy, I'll go home and do my problems right now. I'm the one who wasted time."
"This time, I'll add two extra as punishment."
