She started with a forced smile. "Oh, you're back. How much did you make today?"
My heart tightened, gripping the money in my palm, too scared to respond.
It was my only hope.
My silence infuriated her.
She pulled out a stack of neatly folded bills from her pocket.
It was my money. I hid under my pillow!
"Oh, you've learned to steal, have you? After all we provide for you, and even sending you to school, and this is how you repay us!"
I couldn't understand why she was so furiously acting as if I really had stolen the money.
She grabbed a broom from the corner and started hitting my hands, cursing, "Wretched girl, a few days of education and you've become wild! You dare to steal my money!"
I tried my best to dodge, tears streaming down my face, still trying to reason with her to give me back my money, "Mom... that's my money, I earned it, I want to go to school."
"Your money? We feed and clothe you, what money do you have? It's all mine!"
My five-year-old brother watched the whole drama, laughing and clapping his hands in amusement.
6
Trapped with no escape, I approached my two aunts in desperation.
They listened to my plea with pained expressions, expressing sympathy but not lending a single cent.
They relayed their response to my mother.
"Oh, Angela has been such a help at home over the years. If Amber were here, she wouldn't bear to see her sister like this."
"If it weren't for my two sons, I definitely would have given some money!" one aunt lamented.
"If my own child got into high school, I'd sell everything to send him, because sons and daughters are just the same, right, Nora?"
A chill ran through me as they flaunted my misery in front of my mother.
Furious, my mother dragged me into the yard and beat me. "You've become so clever, huh? I told you not to go to school, but you stole money, and when caught, you turned to deception. How can you be so vile?"
Her heart-wrenching cries quickly drew the neighbors, who formed a half-circle at a distance, smirking behind their hands.
The stick fell repeatedly on my body, and my aunts, terrified, tried hesitantly to intervene.
My mother shrugged off their hands, cursing more fiercely and striking harder, venting years of resentment towards the family on me.
I dared not run; where could I escape to?
Beyond this family threshold, there was nowhere I belonged.