1: 1
The tenth year of my family's punishment, and I was still invisible in that house.
When my acceptance letter from the university arrived, I stood in the living room holding it for a long time.
My mother was picking out a necklace for my older sister. My father was busy ordering a new computer for my younger brother.
Nobody looked up.
I asked again, quietly. "The school needs confirmation paperwork. Could you help me look it over?"
My father turned up the volume on the TV. My mother got up to slice fruit for my sister.
I called out to each of them in turn. Still no one answered.
In the end I carried the letter back to my room and opened it alone.
Outside the door, my mother was still reminding them.
"Don't go soft just because she got into college."
"She was stealing money at eight years old. If we don't fix that for good, there's no telling what she'll turn into."
I leaned against the door and let the tears fall, one after another.
When I opened the window, all at once I wanted to go back to the day I was eight.
If I could do it over, I'd sweep that hallway forever before I'd take those five dollars.
But there was no going back.
So I turned around and stepped off the eighteenth floor.
This time, I finally didn't have to wait for them to answer.
1
They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die, every happy moment of it passing by.
But the first scene I saw was the year I turned eight.
That fall, the class bought workbooks together.
Fifteen dollars each.
When the teacher read my name, I lowered my head and said I hadn't bought one.
The whole class turned to look at me.
The teacher frowned and shoved a broom into my hands.
"No workbook, no sitting here."
"Go sweep the hallway. You wouldn't follow the lesson anyway."
After that, every math class, I swept the hallway.
No one knew what it cost me to walk out of that room, step by step.
I had to pass through the sneering eyes of forty-eight classmates.
And carefully dodge the teacher's impatient looks.
Through the window I stole glances at my classmates bent over their problems.
Some laughed and called me the janitor.
Others swept eraser shavings onto the floor on purpose, so I'd have to come clean them up.
I didn't dare tell my mother.
My sister had a dance competition coming, my brother had just signed up for soccer, and every day at home was about how there wasn't enough money.
To buy a workbook, I started doing other kids' homework.
Fifty cents a page.
I lay under my blanket writing until midnight every night, and in half a month I'd saved ten dollars.
Five short.
That night, I worked up the nerve to go to my mother.
"Could you lend me five dollars?"
"When I have money someday, I'll pay you back, I promise."
She waved my hand away, annoyed.
"Your sister needs a new dress, your brother needs sneakers. Where's the spare money for you to waste?"
But a few minutes later she sent my sister five thousand dollars.
Because my sister had her eye on a new necklace.
I stared at the wallet my mother had left on the table, and stood there a long time.
In the end, I took five dollars out of it.
The next day, I finally bought the workbook.
I held it against my chest, unwilling to bend even a corner.
And on the first page I wrote my name, one careful stroke at a time.
But after school, my sister saw the workbook and asked, offhand,
"Didn't Mom say she wasn't giving you money?"
That night, my father called me into the living room.
The moment I admitted I'd taken the money, he raised his hand and slapped me.
Then, right in front of me, he tore that brand-new workbook to shreds.
The pages scattered across the floor.
My name was still on them, freshly written.
My mother called my sister and brother in front of her and announced that from that day on, no one in the family was allowed to speak to me.
"It ends when she's truly changed. Not before."
I thought all I had to do was admit I was wrong.
That night I knelt in the living room and wrote three pages of apology.
Over and over, I wrote that I was wrong.
That I would never steal again.
But the next day, the apology went in the trash.
No one told me when the punishment would end.
At first, I chased after them every day, apologizing.
When my mother cooked, I stood in the kitchen doorway calling to her.
When my father came home from work, I fetched his slippers.
When my sister and brother watched TV, I sat beside them, begging them to acknowledge me just once.
But they never spoke.
They wouldn't even let their eyes land on me.
The year I ran a high fever, I was burning so badly I could barely stand.
I felt my way along the wall into the living room and called for my mother a dozen times.
She was sitting right there on the couch, and all she did was pick up the remote and turn up the TV.
In the end, in my slippers, I walked to the community clinic alone.
The next day, though, my mother sighed to the relatives.
"This child has too much going on in her head."
"She'll even fake being sick, just to force us to pay attention to her."
After that, the relatives started ignoring me too.
On holidays, when I greeted them, they acted like they hadn't heard.
If someone brought something valuable to the house, they'd deliberately hold their bag tighter.
Others counted the money in their wallets right in front of me.
One time, Aunt Deborah couldn't find her gold ring.
Everyone looked at me at once.
My mother didn't ask a single question. She just turned out my pockets and dug through my backpack.
The relatives sat on the couch, watching with those half-smiles.
As if they were all waiting to see when this little thief would finally slip up.
In the end, the ring turned up inside Aunt Deborah's own glove.
She patted her chest and laughed. "Would you look at my memory."
No one apologized to me.
My mother just threw my ransacked backpack down at my feet and reminded my sister and brother, "Put your things away from now on."
Little by little, even the kids my age learned to steer clear of me.
They'd split candy and play games right in front of me.
If I came near, they scattered at once.
"Can't talk to a thief."
"She'll steal your stuff."
All I could do was retreat to my room, again and again.
But then my mother would tell the relatives I was naturally gloomy, that I didn't like to talk and had no manners.
First they forbade me to speak.
Then they used my silence as proof that something was wrong with me from birth.
For ten years, I did all the housework, ranked first every single year, and never once touched anything that wasn't mine.
I always believed that if I was obedient enough, one day they'd end the punishment.
Until I was eighteen, holding my acceptance letter from the university, calling out every one of their names.
And still they didn't answer.
The wind roared past my ears.
And I finally understood.
Those ten years of silence were never about the five dollars.
Those five dollars had only given them a reason to feel justified in not loving me.
