I dropped out of school to raise chickens, built a farm known for miles around, and through a matchmaker met a gentle woman who became my fiancee.
Then, on Valentine's Day, tens of thousands of chickens died in a single night. I was left millions in debt, and my fiancee walked out.
I threw myself into finding out what happened and discovered my cousin had done it. But on the drive back, a truck ran a red light and sent me flying.
In those last moments, I heard the driver make a phone call.
"Effie Mason, I got the evidence. But he's hurt too bad. He probably won't make it."
My heart stopped.
Because Effie Mason was my mother's name.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the day it all happened, my head full of questions.
...
The first thing I did was rush to the chicken farm, and there I saw my girlfriend, Antonia Henson, talking with a few of the workers.
"Miss Henson, it was Boss Gilbert's mother who told us to catch the weasel and throw it into the coop."
"I know. That's why I deleted the security footage. Be smarter next time. Don't leave anything behind."
It hit me like lightning, a roar in my skull, my vision going black, my legs nearly giving out under me.
Until now I'd half doubted the words I heard right before I died.
But now I knew the weasel that suddenly turned up at the farm last week was my mother's doing, and the fiancee who'd been so tender with me all year, so full of feeling, had chosen to cover it up.
Everything was telling me the same thing.
Past life and this one.
The people closest to me had stabbed me in the back.
But why?
Even the worker was baffled. He asked, "We don't really get it. Why do you have to destroy Boss Gilbert's farm?"
"Everybody knows he's a devoted son and a good boyfriend."
Antonia shook her head and sighed. "It's precisely because Peter is too good, too impressive."
"Elmer's a college graduate who can't find a job. Peter only finished high school, and he's famous for miles around."
"That eats at Elmer, and people talk about him behind his back."
"And the only reason I got together with Peter was to get closer to Elmer. Even if Elmer doesn't want me, he's still the one I've always wanted."
The tightness spread through my chest, and all at once I remembered the rumor that had gone around the neighborhood.
That my parents divorced because of my uncle.
So I turned and walked to a quiet spot, and for the first time in more than ten years, I called my father.
"Tell me the real reason you two got divorced."
He was silent for several seconds before he answered.
"Your mother loved your uncle, but she could never have him, so she settled for me as a replacement."
"I wanted to take you with me, but I lost the custody fight. All I could do was send the support money on time every month."
"The truth is, I should have told you long ago. But I was afraid you wouldn't believe me, and afraid you couldn't take it."
By the end, his voice had broken.
My eyes had gone red too.
I'd hated my father all these years, hated him for abandoning his wife and son, and in the end it had been my mother's doing all along.
No wonder she'd always favored Elmer, my whole life.
The one time we managed to buy a piece of meat, my mother picked out the lean part and gave it to Elmer.
She made me eat fatty scraps with the crust off a bun.
I'd bring home an award and get nothing.
Elmer would earn one line of praise from a teacher, and my mother would buy him new clothes and snacks.
When we both brought home awards, she only bought clothes for Elmer.
My freshman year of high school, my mother pushed me to drop out. She said the family couldn't manage, that they could only send one of us to school.
She said Elmer was so pitiful, his mother had run off early and his father had vanished.
She told me to be a good boy, to have an older brother's sense of responsibility.
She only liked obedient children.
I agreed.
I thought if I was good, if I was obedient, if I gave enough, my mother would finally accept me.
But she never did.
Instead, she did everything she could to bankrupt me, and to protect Elmer she sent someone to run me down with a car and take the evidence.
"Son, what are you going to do now?"
my father asked.
I wiped away the bitter tears, drew a deep breath, and said, "I don't want this mother anymore."
"And I don't want this fiancee either!"
"They're the same kind of person!"
