Chapter 2 of The Caregiver Who Poisoned My Mother's Recovery

It took just one week for Aunt Loretta to make herself the master of the house.

She started by pouring out the crucian carp soup I got up early to cook for my mother every morning.

That day I'd risen extra early and simmered a pot of crucian carp and tofu soup for two hours, kept it warm in a thermos, and told my mother to drink it at noon.

But when I came home from work at lunchtime, the thermos was empty, and half a pot of milky white fish soup had been dumped into the trash, the fish flesh thrown out along with it.

My hands shook with anger. "Aunt Loretta, you poured out the fish soup?"

She was sitting on the couch copying out scripture and didn't even look up. "A whole fish boiled down for one bowl of soup, a life traded for a mouthful to drink. That's a grave sin."

"If your mother drinks it, the karma all falls on her."

"I made her cabbage and tofu soup instead. Just as nourishing, and no killing involved."

"The doctor said her hemoglobin is low, she has to have meat broth to build it back up!" I snapped.

"What gives you the right to touch the food I make for my own mother?"

She set down her pen, lifted her head, her voice thick with sorrow. "Gloria, how can you be so stubborn?"

"A weak body is a small matter. The karma on the soul is what really counts."

"Your mother suffers like this in this life because she carried too much killing-sin in her last one. If she doesn't build up good karma now, she'll be reborn a beast in the next."

I was so angry I could have hit someone. "All I know," I said loudly, "is that if she doesn't get proper nutrition now, she won't make it through this life at all!"

We were still arguing when Ruth Chavez, our neighbor across the hall, knocked and came in to drop something off. The moment she saw us squared off like that, she rushed to smooth things over with a smile. "Oh dear, what's going on here? I could hear you all the way next door."

"Ruth, you tell us who's right." Aunt Loretta stood up at once, a sob in her voice. "I'm helping my sister clear her karma and build up good deeds, and she insists on making her drink fish soup. Isn't that doing her harm?"

"I only mean well!"

Ruth was the building's famous soft touch, and she ate this kind of thing right up.

She turned to me. "Gloria, your aunt means well too, she's just being a little hasty about it."

"Older folks believe in this sort of thing, it's normal. She's doing it for your mother's sake."

"Bear with her a bit. Don't talk back to your elders."

Two more neighbors had wandered in from the hallway, and they all chimed in. "That's right, your aunt means well!"

"Her heart's in the right place, it's just the method that's off. Talk it out nice and slow!"

"You're the younger one here. How can you speak to an elder with an attitude like that?"

Aunt Loretta kept her head down, wiping at her tears, the picture of someone who'd been terribly wronged.

And somehow I'd become the cold, unfilial, disrespectful villain.

I looked at my mother's shut bedroom door, afraid we'd disturb her rest, clenched my teeth, and forced the anger back down.

I thought if I gave a little ground, we could keep the peace.

It was only later that I learned: once you let your line slip back, the other person will only push in further.

Not two days later, she threw out my things again.

The medical scar cream and collagen serum I kept on the vanity, along with my mother's scar cream, all of it went into the trash.

She said it without a shred of doubt. "These things all have animal extracts in them, and chemical additives too. Rub them on your skin and your body absorbs the toxins."

"A woman should be pure and natural, no artificial touch-ups. Using industrial stuff like this only drains your blessings."

I stared at the thousands of dollars of skincare in the trash, so furious my vision went black. "I paid for that with my own money. What gives you the right to throw it away?"

Her face was all compassion. "Money is just an external thing. Building up sin over a few items like these isn't worth it."

"You're young, you don't understand. When you're old, you'll see that blessings matter more than anything."

Right then, a weak cough came from the bedroom.

I rushed in and found my mother covering her mouth as she coughed, her face flushed red, barely able to catch her breath.

"Mom, are you okay?" I asked quickly.

"I'm fine, it just felt a little stifling just now." She caught her breath and tugged at my hand. "Gloria, don't fight with your aunt. She means well for us too."

"Well, my foot," I said through gritted teeth. "Keep this up and your health will collapse!"

That afternoon, I took my mother back to the hospital for her follow-up.

When the blood work came back, her hemoglobin was even lower than at discharge, and the doctor's face darkened on the spot.

"What's going on here?" the doctor said sternly. "Didn't I tell you to build up her nutrition?"

"If her hemoglobin keeps dropping like this, the wound won't heal. How is any follow-up treatment supposed to go?"

"The patient just had major surgery, she has to get enough protein. A vegetarian diet is absolutely out of the question. What kind of care are you people giving her?"

I stood there, guilty and furious at once.

Coming out of the hospital, I clutched the lab report, and the anger inside me was past holding down.