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My mother came from the countryside. Not long ago, hoping to ease the money pressure at home, she came to the city to look for work.
She took a job as a live-in housekeeper for a retired employee, caring for the man's mother, who was in her eighties.
The day I went with her to sign the contract at the employer's home, that same afternoon they called the police and accused my mother of abusing the old woman.
To pay the settlement, my mother had no choice but to sell our old house without telling my father.
When he found out, the shock hit him too hard. He suffered a sudden heart attack and died.
The people in our village called my mother a curse, a bringer of disaster. The vicious things people wrote online crushed the breath out of her, and in the end she couldn't take the pressure. She drowned herself in the river.
After Nellie Edwards got her settlement money, she started livestreaming her sob story, pulled in a huge following, and lined up plans to sell products on her streams.
On the day of my mother's funeral, Nellie leaned close to my ear and sneered, "Society always rewards clever people like me. Never poor people like you and your mother."
I got to live it all over again. I woke on the day I went with my mother to sign that labor contract.
……
I snatched the pen out of her hand. "Mom, we're not taking this job."
Nellie's face changed. "Didn't we already agree on everything?" she snapped. "Backing out now? You people have no sense of a deal at all."
My mother nudged my arm and murmured, "Carol James, this job wasn't easy to find. What are you doing?"
"You need money for school now, and your father's medical bills are a big expense too. I need this job."
I looked at her hands, covered in old calluses, and something in my chest twisted.
Remembering everything she'd suffered in the life before, my voice broke. "Mom, I can get a summer job and help carry the money pressure at home. Let's just go."
Nellie lifted her chin, all pride. "Your mother's an old woman fresh out of some village. Landing a job that pays six thousand a month, she got dumb lucky."
"Don't say I didn't warn you. Miss this and there won't be another chance."
My mother pulled her hand out of mine, frowning. "Carol, why are you being so difficult?"
"Your mother doesn't steal and doesn't cheat. I make a living with my own two hands. What's wrong with that?"
"Or is it that you're ashamed of your mother working as a maid? Embarrassed by me, is that it?"
I shook my head quickly. That wasn't it at all.
Nellie folded her arms across her chest and said coldly, "Your mother already pressed her fingerprint on the contract just now. Even without the signature, this contract is already in effect."
"Your mother is a lowly person. Born to wait on others, that's all she is."
I slammed my hand down on the table, looked Nellie dead in the eye, and said each word slowly. "People are born equal. You've got no right to look down on anyone. My mother is not your slave."
I took my mother's hand and walked us straight out of there.
We'd only just reached the stairwell when glass shattered somewhere back inside the apartment.
Nellie shouted after us at the top of her voice, "Your mother already signed a contract with me. If she doesn't show up for work this afternoon, I'll take her to court for breach of contract."
My mother stopped walking and looked at me, torn.
I thought of the life before, of the state my mother had been in when the online mob hounded her to death, and my eyes stung.
I pulled her along and choked out, "Mom, we don't owe that kind of person any deference. Didn't you notice? Everything out of her mouth, there wasn't a shred of respect for us."
"Didn't you tell me since I was little, a person can be poor but can never lose their backbone? There are plenty of jobs out there. Worst case, we find another one."
It was my mother's first time in the city, so I decided to show her around and took her to a nearby park.
We sat on a bench, and I pulled out my phone to show her.
"Mom, my grades this semester were top of the class. I got the school scholarship, so it'll cover part of my tuition."
"And I'm working on a project right now. If the patent application goes through, there'll be a big bonus. By then you won't have to work so hard."
My mother looked at me with tears in her eyes and stroked my hair.
"Carol, you've been smart and sensible since you were little. As long as you have a good life, your mother will have no regrets in this world."
Then her phone rang. It was Nellie.
The second she picked up, the woman was screaming, "Lydia Lambert, you abused my mother. Get yourself back here right now."
"We signed a contract. If you don't come today, I'm calling the police, and I'll see you rot in jail!"
The line went dead. My mother's hand shook and shook around the phone.
"But I didn't do anything. She's just making it up out of thin air. Carol, what do we do?"
I gripped her hand and said calmly, "Mom, don't be scared. We're going to go deal with her."
"This time we have an alibi. Let's see how she keeps spinning her lies now."
