4: 4
I took the disownment agreement out of my bag.
Two copies.
"You just need to sign," I told them.
Veins bulged at my father's temple. "You went and got the papers ready? You ungrateful girl, what is going through your head all day long?"
I gave a bleak smile. "The day I got the results back from the hospital, I made a plan for both outcomes."
"If you won't pay for my treatment, then we cut ties. Neither of us drags the other down."
My mother dissolved into tears. "Nora, don't do this. How could I ever bear it?"
She cried like her heart was breaking, yet with everyone urging her on, she signed anyway, half resisting, half giving in.
My father, like a man acting out of spite, scrawled his name in a fury.
But I saw it clearly. Right after he signed, he let out a quiet breath of relief.
As for Emma, she bit her lip and said, "Sis, I don't want to cut ties. But I know you don't want to be a burden to us, so I won't make things hard for you."
Once the signing was done, I gave them one copy and kept the other for myself.
I slung my bag over my shoulder and walked out without looking back.
Twenty years I'd lived in that house, and in the end everything I owned fit into one small bag.
It took me a day to rent a little place in the city.
For the next month I'd keep up my tutoring, save enough money, and quietly wait for the semester to start.
But a week later, one evening, my mother and Emma showed up.
My mother said through tears, "Nora, I had to ask around for ages before I found out where you're living now."
I frowned and said nothing.
She grabbed my hand. "Here's a little money. Go buy yourself something nourishing."
I glanced at it. Around five hundred dollars.
My mother sighed. "I've thought it over and over. You still have to go to college."
"Only with a degree can you get a good job, earn money, pay for your treatment."
"You mustn't give up. Your father and I are working on a plan too. All that talk about cutting ties, that was just anger in the moment. Don't take it to heart."
She kept insisting we weren't really cutting ties, yet she never once told me to come back home.
Emma's voice went thick with tears. "Sis, promise me. No matter what happens, you'll go to college, all right?"
I nodded slowly.
Then Emma pulled out a pledge and said, "Sis, then would you sign this? Just promising you'll definitely go to college and never give up. Otherwise you'll owe me two thousand dollars a month, all the way until you pass away, okay? Honestly, the money's nothing. I just don't want you giving up on yourself."
And then it hit me. They were afraid that once I got my community college acceptance, I'd fall apart and just drop out.
Because then Emma wouldn't have her free live-in maid during her own college years.
I signed it without a second thought.
My mother took Emma's hand and left, pleased.
Time ticked by, minute by minute, and soon the deadline for college applications arrived.
At the very last minute, I changed my choice to the aerospace university I really wanted.
My dream was the stars and the open sky. I would never let myself be trapped in that cold, loveless house.
The start of the semester was almost here when Emma suddenly called. "Sis, did you get your acceptance letter?"
"Mm," I said. "Got it."
I'd gotten it long ago. The acceptance from a top-tier university comes far sooner than the one from a community college.
Emma probed further. "So are you... going to go?"
"Of course I'm going," I said, as if it were obvious.
Emma let out a breath. "Good. Then it's a date, we'll see each other there."
I packed my things and boarded a train heading north.
After I finished checking in, a flood of texts came in all at once.
Some from Emma, some from my mother, some from my father.
Looking at them, I smiled in contempt.
