Chapter 1

Every time I didn't do as I was told, my mother would kneel down and slap her own face.

In elementary school, my sister stole the whole class's activity fund, and my mother wanted me to take the blame.

When I refused, she knelt right there in front of my entire class and slapped herself, sobbing that she'd raised me wrong.

So I became the thief in everyone's eyes, and I was frozen out for five straight years.

Before the SATs, my sister and I were competing for the same college recommendation, and my mother told me to give it up.

When I wouldn't, she knelt in front of the whole school and accused me of loose morals, of trying to trade my body to bribe the principal and the teachers.

In the end my sister got her guaranteed admission, and I fell apart so badly it wrecked my SATs. I had no choice but to move away and redo the year somewhere else.

Then over the fall break, the whole family went in for physicals, and I was diagnosed with cancer.

My mother knelt down and slapped herself again.

"Layla, it's all my fault, I'm useless, I never could earn much money."

"But your sister just got her heart broken, she's so down, she wants to book a tour group and go abroad to clear her head. Just give her that three hundred thousand."

But that was every dollar I had. That was the money keeping me alive.

I said no.

So she secretly slipped me sleeping pills and, while I was out, transferred all of it away.

I cried and demanded to know why my life was worth less than one trip for my sister.

My mother couldn't have cared less.

"What's the problem? I gave birth to you, I raised you, so what if I take a little something of yours?"

"And look at you, giving me attitude on top of it!"

"Let me tell you, that illness of yours is just from you working yourself into it. I just went and got a folk remedy. It's guaranteed to cure you."

But when it actually came time for me to take that remedy, she changed her mind.

...

Seeing that I wouldn't say anything, my mother's voice shot up.

"Layla Swanson, let me make one thing clear, I still run this house!"

"Your sister just got dumped, she's miserable, she's going out to clear her head. She's your own flesh and blood. What's wrong with you putting up some money for her?"

I looked down at my phone.

The balance on my card was six hundred and eighty-two dollars.

That three hundred thousand had taken me five years of work to save.

At the worst stretch of a project, I flew to five cities in one month, doubled over with stomach pain, and still had to drink with clients.

Rewriting a proposal at three in the morning and presenting it at seven was routine.

I made myself wait for the sales before I'd buy even a two-hundred-dollar dress.

And now all of it had turned into a plane ticket on my sister's social media.

I asked, "What's the remedy?"

My mother perked up.

"There's an old herbalist on the west side of town who's cured several cancer patients."

My father chimed in from the side.

"Hospitals these days just scare people. They rush you into chemo, everything they use is Western medicine."

"What our ancestors passed down works better than any of those Western drugs."

I opened the plastic bag.

Inside were a few packets of dark brown herbs. No prescription, no label, no doctor's name.

I picked up my phone to call the police.

The three hundred thousand had been transferred without my knowing. As long as a case was opened, there was still a chance of getting it back.

But before I could even dial, my mother knelt in front of me again.

Her hand came up and struck her own face.

That familiar sound of the slap rang through the living room.

My father had already rushed over to grab my phone.

"What are you doing!"

"She's your own mother, and you'd send her to prison?"

I kept my grip on the phone.

"She drugged me. She transferred away the money that's supposed to save my life."

"That's family money too!"

My father shouted until his neck went red.

"You're an unmarried girl. Who else are you saving your earnings for, if not this family?"

My mother shuffled forward on her knees and wrapped her arms around my legs.

"Layla, I was wrong."

"I'm bowing my head to you, just don't call the police."

And then she really did slam her forehead against the floor.

A hard thud.

I stepped back without thinking, and all those childhood memories came rushing up again.

Classmates whispering.

Teachers' disappointment.

And her, kneeling at the front of the classroom, saying she'd failed to raise her daughter right, while everyone turned to look at me with disgust.

All these years, one bend of her knees and I became the guilty one.

My father pointed at me.

"Your mother has high blood pressure, a bad heart. If she actually goes in there for a few days, do you think she comes out alive?"

"Are you only going to be satisfied when you've watched us both die in front of you?"

I looked at them.

One kneeling and crying, one standing and cursing.

No one asked whether I was afraid to die.

Seeing that I still hadn't pressed the call button, my mother's crying slowly softened.

She knew me too well.

She could even calculate exactly how long I'd hold out.

"Layla, you've always been the sensible one. Don't tear this family apart over a little money."

The hope of saving my life was, in her mouth, just a little money.

The phone screen went dark.

In the end, I didn't call the police.

My mother let out a breath at once, stood up, and, for once, gave me a smile.

"That's more like it. A family dragging things to the police station, how ugly would that look."