Chapter 4

A laugh slipped out of me. Complain about me?

Even if I did work at the hotel, I'd taken the day off. On what grounds could she possibly file a complaint?

Faith kept relaying what was happening in the private dining room.

"Your dad's had too much to drink, your mom looks pleased with herself, and your brother and his girlfriend are having the time of their lives."

I snorted. They wouldn't be smiling once the check came.

"Millie, your mom actually went to the front desk to file a complaint against you. When they asked her the reason, she said it was because you never came to apologize."

"The girl at the desk was completely lost. She told your mom a day off isn't a complaint matter, that family business isn't something they handle. Your mom's face went black! Ha!" Faith was laughing so hard she could barely get it out.

"Mildred! I'm saying this one last time. Get to the hotel right now!"

"You will apologize today! You have no idea how hurt Zelda is. If you ruin your brother's marriage, your dad and I will not let this go!"

"Are you even there? Dead or something? Answer me!" My mother's tone was getting more impatient by the second.

I left the group chat, and blocked every one of them on my way out.

The world went quiet all at once. I stood at the floor-to-ceiling window, watching the people strolling below after dinner.

In groups, in families, all of them together. The picture I'd wanted for as long as I could remember.

I'd known from the start that my parents played favorites.

My brother's grades were bad, not good enough for a decent high school, so my mother paid and pulled strings to get him in. He barely scraped into some no-name community college in the end.

When it was my turn, I'd actually gotten into a four-star high school.

My mother went behind my back and enrolled me in a culinary trade school instead.

She didn't understand any of it. All she knew was that going to that school came with a thousand-dollar reward.

I cried and asked her why. She put the money into my brother's account and told me, "What does a girl need all that schooling for? You're just going to get married off anyway!"

"The program I signed you up for lets you learn to cook. Your future in-laws will thank us for being so farsighted!"

I made something of myself on my own. From a lowly kitchen helper, I clawed my way up to today, head chef at a five-star restaurant.

Because I grew up unloved, I always wanted to prove I was the one my parents should have cared about most.

Once I started earning, I began buying them things. Clothes for my mother, gold jewelry.

Cigarettes and liquor for my father, a car too, though the car ended up in my brother's hands the very next month.

No one ever praised me. They said all of it was simply what I owed them.

"We raised you all these years. Now it's your turn to pay us back." That was my mother's favorite line.

My phone rang. My mother's call.

"Mildred, why is the front desk saying the bill can't be signed today? What trick are you pulling now?" She was shrieking down the line.

"No trick. I just don't work there anymore." I gave a cold laugh.

That sixteen-thousand-dollar tab? Whoever wants to pay it can pay it.