The moment I heard Janice say the surgical equipment would cost a hundred thousand dollars, I knew they'd come looking for me.
I just never imagined they'd come all the way to my company.
I'd barely stepped down into the ground-floor lobby before they were on me, demanding the hundred thousand.
"Loretta, your sister's still short a hundred thousand for the surgical equipment. Just front her the money to tide her over."
When I only stood there stone-faced, giving them nothing, their faces twisted with displeasure. My mother went further, plopping straight down onto the floor and breaking into loud, wailing sobs.
"What a wretched life I have! Raised an ungrateful daughter who lives high on the hog and couldn't care less whether her own sister lives or dies!"
My father stood beside her, sobbing his story out to the crowd of people leaving work around us.
"Everyone, be the judge! Her sister's working on an international research project, wanted to borrow a little money for an experiment, and this so-called older sister won't part with a single cent. She's trying to ruin her sister's whole future!"
The people around us murmured among themselves, but every look was scornful.
Money that working people earned through sweat and toil, who'd want to just hand it over to a stranger?
Seeing that no one was taking her side, my mother threw all restraint aside, shot to her feet, and jabbed a finger in my face.
"Hand over your paycheck card! Your sister needs that money now. If you hold up her big project, can you afford to make it right?"
I only told her calmly,
"Mom, this month's pay hasn't come in yet. Last month's, half went to rent, half went to paying off installments. There's six hundred dollars left on the card."
"Six hundred?" My mother's eyes went wide. "Who do you think you're fooling? You've been working almost ten years, forty-five hundred a month. Where's the money?"
"I gave it to you," I said, laying out the plain facts.
"Three thousand transferred to you every month, to fund Janice's studies abroad. Four years of it. Nearly a hundred and fifty thousand."
For a moment, everything went quiet.
"And there was that fifty thousand in dowry money." I pulled my phone from my pocket and brought up the acknowledgment. "Aunt Daphne transferred it to Janice yesterday at noon, as research funding. Mom, I've been flat broke for a long time now."
My mother choked on her words.
My father's face went ugly with shame. He came over and yanked at her. "That's enough, let's go home first——"
Being dragged off by him, she still turned back at the last moment to warn me,
"This time I'll find a way to cover this money for Janice myself. But from now on, your paycheck card goes to me, until you've paid back the full hundred thousand!"
I watched her retreating back, the pressure in my chest almost unbearable.
This woman who gave birth to me, who raised me, could be this cruel to me for the sake of her other daughter.
After work, I got on the bus back to my rental, wanting to see how Janice's experiment was coming along.
The second I opened the recording app, Janice's impatient voice came through my earbuds.
"What are you so scared of? It's a minor procedure, just cutting away some excess tissue. Girls in South Africa get it done at three years old. You're young and strong, what's there to be afraid of?"
So my mother really had moved fast. In half a day she'd gotten Janice the equipment.
A timid girl's voice.
"But... but I'm scared of the pain... won't it be dangerous?"
"How could it be dangerous?" Janice's tone shifted. Maybe she was afraid the girls would back out. "Tell you what. I'll do a run-through on my own sister first, so you can watch. If this experiment were dangerous, would I use my own flesh-and-blood sister? You see my point, right?"
"Then... how are you going to get your sister here? Didn't she move away?"
Janice laughed.
"My sister's got a bad temper. She'd never go along with it, so I'll have to trouble you girls to bring her to me tied up. I'll throw in some extra cash for you then."
Through the earbuds, I heard the delinquent girls agreeing, happy about it.
Watching the cars stream by on the street, I felt cold all over, even though it was the height of summer.
Since Janice refused to ever let me go, she had no one to blame but herself.
I opened my phone, sent a single text, and got off the bus, walking step by step back down that same road to death from my past life.
