Chapter 3
Friday was my twenty-sixth birthday.
I didn't expect anything from my family, but Ethan had been my boyfriend for eight years, and I thought he would remember.
After work, he sent me a message.
Ethan: [Hey, Silly, are you free tonight?]
My chest lifted, and I answered right away: [I am.]
Ethan: [Great. Brooklyn has a blind date tonight, and I'm going along so she isn't nervous. Tell your mom for me so she doesn't worry.]
I stared at the screen for a long time.
I asked: [Ethan, what's the date today?]
Ethan: [The eighth. Why?]
I replied: [It's my birthday.]
There was a long silence on his end.
Ethan: [Oh.]
He sent an embarrassed sticker.
Ethan: [Sorry, Silly, work has been brutal, and it slipped my mind. I'll make it up to you another day. Brooklyn needs me more tonight, and I can't let her go to a blind date alone.]
She needed him more.
We had been together eight years.
And Brooklyn's blind date mattered more than my birthday.
I remembered when we first started dating in college, when Ethan ran across the whole city in the rain to buy me a limited-run strawberry cake.
Back then, he looked at me and said, "Claire, I'll remember your birthday every year.
"I'm going to spoil you for the rest of your life."
After Brooklyn got into our school, he started to drift.
From then on, everything he used to remember for me went to her.
I ate a bowl of chili alone and added so much hot sauce that my eyes ran.
By the time I reached my building, my stomach seized up.
My stomach had been bad since I was small, and when it flared, I usually couldn't straighten up.
I made it home and went down on the floor the moment I got through the door.
"Mom," I called toward the living room, barely holding together. "My stomach hurts. Can you get my medicine?"
In the living room, Mom was on video with Brooklyn, looking at photos of her date.
"Oh, this one is a good-looking boy." Mom couldn't stop smiling. "You have taste, Brooklyn."
"Mom."
I was flat on the floor, and my voice shook. "I don't feel well."
Mom didn't turn around, and she sounded annoyed.
"All right, all right. The medicine is in the cabinet. You're a grown woman. Do you need waiting on? Can't you see I'm busy?"
I pushed at the floor to get up, and everything went dark for a second.
I pushed at the floor to get up, and everything went dark for a second.Michael came out of his room, stepped over me, and went to the kitchen for a drink.
"Stop the act. Every day it's a performance with you. Brooklyn never carries on like this."
I lay on the cold floor and listened to them work through Brooklyn's date in the living room.
Right then, I couldn't tell which hurt worse, my stomach or my chest.
I got through the pain, found the medicine, and swallowed it with cold water.
I stayed curled on the floor a long time before I could get myself up.
Then I moved inch by inch back to the windowless storage room.
Mom had already emptied my room out, and everything I owned was stacked in that little room full of junk.
In the dark, I sat with my eyes open until it got light.
The next day, I went to the hospital for an endoscopy.
The doctor frowned as he looked over my report.
"Have you been eating things that irritate it? This comes from long-term stress and irregular meals. If it keeps up, you're heading for real trouble," he said.
I nodded, thanked him, and walked out with the report in my hand.
My phone rang. It was Mom.
"Claire," Mom said.
Her voice was unusually gentle.
"I need to talk to you. Your brother is getting married, and her family wants 300 thousand dollars down on a house.
"We can't pull that together at once. You've saved from your salary. Put in fifty thousand so he doesn't look poor."
I stood at the hospital entrance holding the report.
"Mom, I just had an endoscopy. My ulcer is bleeding," I said.
"Oh, that's your usual stomach problem," she said, sounding indifferent.
Her tone turned cold.
"I told you to eat properly. Now it hurts? Everyone your age has stomach trouble. Your brother's wedding is what matters."
"I don't have any money," I said.
"Don't lie to me."
Her voice got louder.
"Your brother says you barely spend a dime, so you must have plenty. You're his sister. What's wrong with helping with his wedding?"
So they had been counting my savings all along.
"That money is for my treatment," I said.
"What treatment?"
She was clearly impatient.
"You're soft, that's all. Is your brother's whole future worth less than a stomachache? Claire, I'm telling you, if you won't put the money in, don't call me your mother."
I stood there without moving, and in that moment, something in me died.