That year, I carried my father—stage four lung cancer—across half the country on my back.
Traditional remedies, Western medicine, folk cures. I tried them all.
Even when the doctors said he had three months left, I refused to give up. I fought tooth and nail to keep him alive for a full year.
Joe didn't check on him once in ten months.
And yet, at the very end of his life, my father changed his will.
The pressure in my chest kept building until I could barely breathe.
I needed air.
Christine stepped in front of me, arm outstretched to block my path.
"Blanche, why don't you sign something real quick before you go?"
"Sign what?"
"A guarantee that you won't come after the inheritance later. Get it in writing now, save everyone the hassle down the road."
A stabbing pain shot through my heart. I forced myself to stay calm.
"There's no need. I'm not going to fight for it."
Joe cleared his throat.
"Sis, I think it's better if we make it official. You know what they say—even family should keep clean books."
When I didn't respond, he added in a lower voice:
"Christine's about to have the baby any day now. She can't handle stress. Just sign it so she can relax."
I looked up at this brother I had raised with my own two hands, and a strange laugh slipped out of me.
"Fine. I'll sign."
My hand was shaking. I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth ached, willing it to stop.
The moment I finished signing, my mother's expression softened. Her tone turned light, almost casual.
"Don't stay out too long. Come back and clean up the yard once the guests leave."
I walked out the front door, and the sky split open with rain.
Water hammered against my face. I couldn't tell what was rain and what was tears.
I sat on the concrete ledge of the dam at the edge of the village, staring into water so dark I couldn't see the bottom.
And suddenly I was eighteen again.
I'd just finished my SATs. I was holding the acceptance letter from my dream college in both hands, practically running home to share the news with my parents.
But when I got there, the house was surrounded by strangers.
They'd broken my father's leg. They'd taken everything worth taking and smashed the rest.
It turned out my father's business had failed. He owed eighty thousand dollars and couldn't pay a cent of it.
After they patched him up, he looked at me with bloodshot eyes and said:
"Blanche, sweetheart. Your old man's no good. I can't afford to send you to school anymore. Go find work. Help me pay off the debt."
I shook my head over and over, sobbing, begging him to let me go to college.
His iron grip clamped around my arm so tight I thought the bone would snap. He ground the words out through his teeth:
"You see this leg? It's done. If I don't pay them back, they'll break your brother's next. You want to stand there and watch your little brother end up crippled too?"
I hid under my blanket and cried the entire night. My mother crawled in beside me and cried with me.
We cried until our eyes were so swollen we couldn't open them.
She said:
"Blanche, baby, your father and I have failed you. If you really don't want to go work... there's Clyde Lambert in town. He's willing to pay twenty thousand for a bride price..."
She couldn't finish the sentence. She just covered her face and wept.
Clyde Lambert. The welder's family. He was forty years old. I had just turned eighteen.
I understood exactly what my mother was saying.
The next morning, I tore up my acceptance letter, packed a single bag, and left for a city where I knew no one.
During the day, I worked fifteen-hour shifts on a factory assembly line. At night, I set up a street cart and sold food until the small hours.
More than once, the city inspectors chased me down and I ended up crouched inside a dumpster, hand clamped over my mouth, sobbing.
Four hours of sleep a night. Never a single day off.
Every payday, I kept two hundred dollars for living expenses. Every last cent of the rest went home.
To pay off the debt. To put my brother through school.
Those days were so bitter that even now, just thinking about them made my chest tighten and my eyes sting.
I endured that life for six years.
Then Joe started college, and tuition plus living expenses doubled overnight. What I earned wasn't enough anymore.
His first year of tuition went on a loan I took out in my own name.
After my shifts, I started teaching myself how to make trendy street food.
