"Your sister's done eating. Wash the dishes."
It wasn't a request. It was the tone of something already settled.
A sudden tiredness came over me, so heavy that even one sentence drained everything I had.
"I'm tired. Can't she wash them herself?"
Before Maya could open her mouth, Michael cut in. "When have you ever seen her wash a dish?"
I lowered my eyes and didn't say anything, didn't move.
My mother's face darkened with irritation. "Why are you so lazy? I have to ask you three, four times just to wash a few bowls."
Even my father, who always watched family squabbles from the sidelines, stepped in this time. "Your mom cooks for all of you every day and never once complains. All we're asking is for you to wash a few dishes, and you drag your feet."
The second my father's voice hardened, my mother jumped in to smooth it over. "All right, now your dad's upset. It's two or three bowls, washing them won't kill you. You've been lying around the house all day."
And as she said it, she winked at me, telling me to back down quick and not ruin the nice family mood.
I looked at the four of them, lined up across from me, all watching me.
In that moment they were a family, united against an outsider. And the outsider was me.
Not one of them left me any room to argue. They just left their bowls sitting on the table.
Then they gathered in the living room and cheerfully started planning what to get Maya and Michael for the new school term.
One's a college junior, one's a high school junior. And I'm a college freshman, and somehow I'd become the least important person in the house.
I stepped over to clear the dishes. The cold tap water and my scalding tears hit my hands at the same time.
It took everything I had to press down the ache surging up from somewhere deep inside.
Outside the kitchen, the laughing and chatting went on.
Michael wanted a new pair of sneakers. Maya wanted a new tablet.
I heard my father say, awkwardly, "That's already a ten-thousand-dollar budget right there. I'd only set aside ten thousand total for all three of you, for back-to-school gifts."
I heard my sister let out a disappointed little "aw," and without a moment's hesitation my mother said, "Isn't Diana working a summer job? She can buy her own."
I heard the living room go quiet for a long moment, and then my father agreed. "All right. We'll make it up to her next semester."
But what my father didn't know was that in all my life, I had never once gotten a back-to-school gift.
Because my back-to-school gift was always coming next semester.
And I'd long since gotten used to it, the gift that would never come true. Argue about it too much and my parents would say I was being petty, keeping score over nothing.
I didn't storm out to fight with them. I set the dishes in the sterilizer, then opened my phone and checked my balance.
Six thousand dollars. It wasn't just a number. It was the seed money for my escape from this family.
I dried my hands and walked out of the kitchen. My mother looked up and met my eyes.
I didn't look away. I held her gaze and asked, "Mom, can you save me a plate tomorrow?"
My palms clenched tight. I'd braced for a no, or for a scolding out of nowhere.
But I didn't expect my mother to give a little laugh, the way you'd look at a child making a fuss over nothing. "Don't I save you food every day?"
"I mean save me food like you do for Maya."
Her smile froze for a second, but she still nodded without hesitation and said okay.
The warmth that had already frozen over put down roots in my heart again and began to sprout.
Maybe my mom just wasn't paying close attention. I'd been asking her to save me food a lot this month, so she'd missed the details.
That was how I comforted myself, and it carried into the next day at my summer job, lifting my mood more than a little.
I had a smile on my face all day. The girls I worked with teased me, asking if I'd fallen in love.
The moment my shift ended, I couldn't wait and rushed home.
Maybe it was from running so hard the whole way, but my heart was pounding like it might leap out of my chest.
Holding down my excitement, I opened the front door, and without even calling out a hello I ran straight for the table.
My mother watched me, amused. "I saved you your food. You'd think you were a starving ghost reborn."
But the moment I saw the table, my smile froze.
