Chapter 3 of Dad Promised Me Everything , Then My Brother Pulled Out a Second Will

Modern

I delivered food during the day and pitched my homemade snacks to every customer I could.

Four more years ground past like that before Joe finally graduated.

Without tuition hanging over my head, I let out the deepest breath I'd drawn in a decade.

Mom and Dad asked me to move back home. Their health was failing, and they wanted me close enough to look after them.

Ten years had changed the little town I'd left behind. It had grown, filled in, caught up with the rest of the world.

So I came back. Rented a stall on the main strip.

Mornings I sold fresh rolls. Afternoons, fruit. Nights, I ran a barbecue stand.

Aside from covering Joe's rent and living expenses whenever he came up short, I spent the next two years scraping together $166,000 for his bride price. Every other dollar went toward the debt.

Finally, in the thirteenth year, I paid off every last cent of the $1.09 million I owed, principal and interest combined.

I walked home clutching that debt-clearance certificate with a joy I hadn't felt since the day I'd held my college acceptance letter.

But Dad was sitting at the kitchen table, holding a diagnosis report in his trembling hands.

Stage-four lung cancer.

So I strapped my father onto my back, figuratively speaking, and set off down yet another road—this time from hospital to hospital, doctor to doctor.

There had been someone once. A man I liked. He'd wanted to take me away from all of it.

But my parents said:

"You're the oldest. Family comes first. Once your brother's settled, then you can think about yourself."

Everything I wanted had to yield to this family.

And just like that, fourteen years slipped by. The wide-eyed girl who'd once clutched a college acceptance letter had weathered into a woman in her thirties.

Half a lifetime spent running myself ragged for this household, and not a single day lived for myself.

I didn't know how long I'd been sitting there in the dark when my phone buzzed. Mom.

Her voice was laced with irritation:

"It's pouring out there. Why aren't you home yet?"

"It's cool outside," I said. "Helps clear my head."

"What's gotten into you now? My legs are killing me. Get back here and rub them."

I drew a long breath and swallowed the bitterness rising in my throat.

"On my way," I said quietly.

When I got home, the courtyard was a wreck.

Joe and Christine were sunk into the couch, faces lit blue by their phones.

Mom was slumped in her chair, groaning softly.

Nobody was tending to her. Nobody had bothered to clean up the mess left over from the funeral.

The second she saw me, Mom's mouth opened:

"Finally. Go cook something. We've been starving all afternoon."

I didn't answer. I dragged the rain-soaked table and chairs under the awning, swept the garbage into a pile, changed into dry clothes, and walked into the kitchen without a word.

At dinner, Mom picked up a piece of meat with her chopsticks and placed it in Joe's bowl. Only then did she turn to me, her tone as casual as if she were asking me to pass the salt:

"Blanche, clear out your room. Your nephew's due any day now. He'll need a nursery."

"You can string up a curtain on the balcony and set up a cot. You'll manage."

Something inside my skull buzzed, sharp and white, like a wire snapping under too much tension.

My fingers tightened around my chopsticks. Then, slowly, they loosened.

"Fine."

Mom smiled, satisfied, and turned to Joe and Christine.

"See? Told you she'd agree. Your sister's devoted to this family. She's not the type to throw a fit over some inheritance."

So she'd known all along how much this family meant to me.

Well. Not anymore.

Because I didn't have a family. Not anymore.

My appetite was gone. I set my chopsticks down, went to my room, and started packing.

Mom called after me: "There's no rush. Stay a few more days."