Chapter 1

01

My mother favored sons over daughters.

When my brother scraped a 60 on a test, she'd reward him with new sneakers.

When I came home with perfect scores, every single time, I couldn't even get a plate of braised pot roast.

The year of the SATs, I scored near-perfect and got into an Ivy League school.

I ran to tell her the good news, thrilled. She just looked at me with disgust and said, "What good is it for a money-drain like you to get into the Ivy League? You'll only end up married off to some other family anyway. If you want to go to school, figure it out yourself. This family won't put in a single cent!"

I thought she was joking.

It wasn't until the day I went to register for classes that I realized she meant it.

But that time, I didn't drop to my knees and beg her like before.

I took out student loans instead.

Years later, my mother lay gravely ill, paralyzed in bed, begging me to save her.

I calmly pushed my glasses up and said, "Mom, this money-drain got married. I have to think of my husband's family. Better go find your precious eldest son to save you."

1

The words were barely out when she started thrashing violently on the bed.

Her withered hand flailed toward me, a wheezing rasp leaking from her throat. "Nia... my good daughter... Mom was wrong... Mom was foolish before, you save Mom... save Mom, won't you..."

I stood a yard from the bed, looking at this woman who had once ground me into the dirt.

I felt nothing.

If she hadn't tracked down where I worked and come sobbing and shouting to camp outside my department door, I don't think I'd ever have seen her again in this life.

I glanced down at my watch. Ten past two in the afternoon.

Half an hour before I was due in the OR.

I couldn't be bothered to waste more time on her, so I said flatly, "Be specific. If you want me to save you, what exactly do you want me to do? Pay the money? Or use my connections to find a specialist for the surgery?"

She hadn't expected me to be so blunt.

She froze for a second, then a flicker of hope broke across her eyes.

"Nia! I knew you were still a good, dutiful girl! Here's what we'll do. You get your chief to do the surgery for me, and as for the cost, you front it first, and once your brother has money later he'll—"

"Stop." I cut her off with a wave of my hand before she could finish.

"Getting our chief to operate, the surgery alone is at least two hundred thousand, plus post-op care and the ICU. It'll run to three hundred thousand at minimum. Legally, yes, I do have a duty to support you. I'll pay half. But the other half has to come from my brother."

The light on her face went out at once.

She mumbled under her breath, "Your brother... your brother really can't come up with the money right now... He just enrolled your nephew in a private elementary school last month, and he's in debt too. Nia, you make over twenty thousand a month now, your family's well off, three hundred thousand is nothing to you. Why are you so fixed on your brother..."

"I'm not fixed on him. I'm stating a fact." My face didn't change.

"This family hasn't spent one cent on me since I started college. Me standing here talking to you about this at all is already more than fair. I'd advise you not to push your luck."

The moment I finished, she started up again, whimpering on the bed.

She wailed at the top of her lungs, saying I had no conscience, that I'd grown my wings and forgotten where I came from.

It didn't take long to draw a crowd of patients' families, all craning to watch, pointing our way.

I'd long since gotten used to this routine of hers.

When she was young she loved making scenes like this at the mouth of the alley, guilt-tripping me.

Saying I was ungrateful. Saying I'd been raised for nothing.

Back then my face would burn, and I'd have given anything for a crack in the floor to crawl into.

But after all these years, she'd trained me until nothing could touch me.

I folded my arms and leaned against the wall, and I just watched her cry.

Only when she'd tired herself out did I speak, slow and unhurried. "I have half an hour before I'm in the OR. I don't have time to sit through your sob act. I'll say it one last time. I can cover half. The other half has to come from my brother. If he won't pay, then you can keep lying here wearing it out. Counting on me to pay the whole thing isn't going to happen, so give it up." And with that, I turned and left.

She slapped the bed and cursed me for being unfilial, but I didn't stop, walking toward my office without looking back.

Because I knew.

The price of giving in wouldn't be gratitude. It would be an abyss where she bled me dry for the rest of my life.