Chapter 2

Once outside the hospital, the cool evening air hit my face, but it didn' t clear the fog in my head.

Mark drove us home in silence, his presence a quiet comfort I clung to.

How could she? After everything?

The questions echoed in my mind, a relentless, painful drumbeat.

All those years, I' d told myself it wasn' t personal, that Mom just didn' t know how to show affection to me.

That Jack, with his easy charm and constant neediness, simply took up all her emotional space.

But this will, this final act, it was personal. It was a deliberate statement.

You are not valued. You are not loved. Not like he is.

I remembered being ten.

Jack, then twelve, wanted a new bicycle, a fancy BMX he' d seen in a catalog.

Mom worked double shifts at the diner for a month to afford it.

I needed new shoes for school; my old ones had holes in the soles.

"Make do, Emily," she' d said, her voice tired. "Yours can last a bit longer."

So I stuffed cardboard into my sneakers and walked carefully, avoiding puddles, while Jack zoomed around the neighborhood on his shiny new bike.

It was always like that. His wants, my make-dos.

Then there was high school.

My report cards were filled with A' s. I made the honor roll every semester.

I' d bring them home, a small flutter of hope in my chest.

"That' s nice, dear," Mom would say, barely glancing up from the TV, or from mending one of Jack' s ripped jeans.

Jack, meanwhile, was barely scraping by, more interested in his garage band than his grades.

When he failed algebra, Mom hired a tutor, sat with him for hours, coaxing and pleading.

When he finally passed with a D, she threw a small party.

My A' s sat uncelebrated on the fridge, held by a magnet shaped like a smiling cat.

After a while, I stopped showing her my report cards. What was the point?

College was the same story.

I got a partial scholarship to the state university. I worked two jobs to cover the rest – shelving books in the library, waitressing on weekends.

I lived on instant noodles and caffeine.

Jack decided he was going to be a rock star.

Mom cashed in a small insurance policy she' d had, one her own mother had left her, to buy him a top-of-the-line electric guitar and a powerful amplifier.

He dropped out of community college after one semester, saying it was "stifling his creativity."

She didn' t berate him. She told him to follow his dreams.

She never asked about my studies, my struggles.

She just assumed I' d manage. I always did.

The worst was the car.

My old clunker finally died right before my student teaching semester. I needed reliable transportation.

I' d saved up a little, but not enough for a decent down payment.

I swallowed my pride and asked Mom if she could lend me a few hundred dollars.

"Emily, money is tight," she' d said, that familiar, weary tone. "Jack' s had some... unexpected expenses with his band."

Later, I found out those "unexpected expenses" were for new stage outfits and a weekend trip to a music festival.

I ended up taking the bus, two transfers, an hour and a half each way to the elementary school I was assigned to.

I was exhausted, but I did it.

She never knew how much that rejection hurt, how it solidified the feeling that I was utterly on my own.

And for the last ten years, after Dad left and her health started to fail, who was there?

Me.

I was the one who took her to doctor' s appointments, managed her medications, cooked her meals when she was too tired.

I was the one who listened to her complain about the aches and pains, about Jack' s latest failures, his constant need for money.

Jack would breeze in for an hour, charm her, get a check, and disappear again for weeks.

She' d light up when he was there, her eyes following him around the room.

When he left, the light would go out, and she' d be quiet and withdrawn again, sometimes snappy with me.

I took it all, a dull ache of resentment always present, but buried deep.

She was my mother. I did what daughters do. Or what this daughter did, anyway.

There was one time, maybe a year before she got really sick, I came home from work, tired.

The house smelled of baked apples and cinnamon.

Mom was in the kitchen, a rare sight those days, pulling a pie from the oven.

"Thought you might like this," she' d mumbled, not looking at me. "Your favorite."

Apple pie was my favorite.

A small, warm feeling spread through my chest. Maybe... maybe she did see me, sometimes.

Then, the phone rang. It was Jack. His van had broken down. He needed money for repairs.

The pie sat on the counter, forgotten, as she fretted over the phone, already reaching for her purse.

The warmth in my chest died.

Soon after, the coughing started, the weakness that led to the diagnosis, the hospital, and now... this.

This will. This final, crushing dismissal.