Melody ate with relish and my mother even picked croissants from her own plate to give her. The two of them chatted away, completely leaving me out.
I could not help but complain, "Mom, I want to eat more croissants."
My sudden outburst shattered the warm mother-daughter moment.
I was usually not so tactless, but after working so hard, I just wanted a few more croissants. Surely, my mother shouldn't blame me.
She glanced at my empty plate and frowned.
“Are you some kind of glutton reincarnated? You've already finished everything and now you want more? Look at your sister—she's not nearly as greedy as you."
But my sister's plate was practically overflowing.
In the past, I might have just let it slide, but remembering the diary I'd seen earlier, I felt compelled to argue. "But I only ate two, while Melody ate sixteen."
I pointed at my sister's still-full plate, making my mother stare at me in disbelief, her face flushing red with anger.
"You even counted how many croissants your sister ate? You're so calculating!"
"How did I end up with such a calculating daughter? So greedy?"
I just wanted to say that I didn't mean to count them. I was just trying to work out what had happened to all the freshly baked croissants for three people — had I made too few?
But before I could explain, I saw my mother stormed into the kitchen, packing up the unbaked croissants.
She grabbed my sister and even took the croissants left in the plates. "Melody, Sylvia is so petty! Let's go—we're not eating here anymore!"
Tears blurred my vision.
The thunderous slam of the door shook the tears from my eyes.
Mom called me calculating, yet she wouldn't even give me the croissants left on my sister's plate. It turned out it wasn't that I made fewer croissants—there simply wasn't any portion for me at all.
After my mother left, she never came back. Not even a phone call. And I didn't call her either.
Later, I saw Melody updated her social media feed. It was a photo of her and my mother eating croissants together.
Instead, my sister called me, "Sylvia, you need to be more generous. Why make mom unhappy over a few croissants? She's staying with you all the time, so you can always eat her croissants."
"Why be so petty? Do you think I ate them all? Look how upset mom is!"
My sister immediately started to criticise.