Chapter 3
Mom: [Esther, where the hell are you? Got some nerve, huh? You actually blocked me?] Mom's voice was sharp and angry.
Mom: [Get your ass back here right now, or I'll break your legs!]
Mom: [Are you trying to drive me crazy? How did I end up with such a little troublemaker like you?]
Mom: [Hey? Esther? Where the hell are you? The mortgage is due next week, do you hear?]
Mom: [What about Keagan's allowance next month? Are you trying to kill us all?]
I sat there with a blank face, deleting each voice message.
Mom's panic and fear didn't give me even a shred of satisfaction. If anything, I felt totally numb.
After more than twenty years of her emotional manipulation, I was completely empty inside.
I deleted all the messages, turned off the phone, and chucked that old thing right into the trash bin.
At last, the world was silent.
My disappearance was like pulling the rug out from under my family. Suddenly, the picture-perfect family was thrown into chaos.
A week later, the drama kicked off.
Keagan took his new girlfriend out shopping at the fanciest mall downtown.
At a luxury store, he set his eyes on the newest phone, priced at about 6 thousand dollars.
Like always, he smoothly whipped out my credit card and handed it over to the staff. "Swipe it."
The staff ran the card through the machine a couple of times, then handed it back with an apologetic smile. "Sorry, sir, your card's been declined. It's maxed out."
Keagan's face darkened in an instant.
The card had a 15 thousand dollars limit, and I always paid it off every month, right on time. There was no way it could possibly be maxed out.
"Try it again," Keagan said, getting impatient.
The staff gave it another shot, but the result was still the same.
The people waiting in line started gossiping, throwing curious looks at Keagan and his girlfriend.
His girlfriend's expression turned awkward, clearly embarrassed by the scene.
"Sir, maybe you could try another card?" the staff said, her smile a little strained.
Keagan didn't have any other cards. He relied on me for everything.
He called Mom, practically losing it. "Mom, the card Esther gave me got declined. Did she forget to pay the bill or what? I looked like a total idiot in front of my girlfriend."
On the other end, Mom was stunned.
She hung up and rushed to check her bank account.
She fully expected to see the usual 10 thousand dollars I'd wired over, so she could do her routine: pay off the credit card first, then throw the leftovers at the mortgage and car payments.
But staring back at her was a balance of under a hundred dollars.
She blinked in disbelief, frantically refreshing the page again and again, but that pathetic number just wouldn't budge.
Not only was the 10 thousand dollars for this month missing, but even the leftovers from last month were almost gone.
That was when it hit her. The mortgage was 2500 dollars, the car loan was 1000 dollars, Keagan's tuition and living expenses were at least 3000 dollars.
And then there were utilities, groceries, and all those little things that added up. In total, it was almost 10 thousand dollars.
But Mom and Dad's combined retirement income was barely two thousand dollars a month.
Before, my "salary" had covered everything perfectly, and there was even some left over for her to brag about at the card table with her friends.
But now, that money had vanished.
Mom broke out in a cold sweat.
She started frantically calling the small office I used to work at.
"Hello? I need to speak to Esther Chapman. Put her on the phone," Mom demanded, her voice sharp and impatient.
The receptionist, spooked by her nasty tone, stammered, "Uh, ma'am, Esther was fired a month ago."
"She was fired?" Belinda's voice shot up, full of disbelief. "How is that possible? She was working there just fine, wasn't she?"
"Ma'am, our company's been struggling, so we had some layoffs," the receptionist explained.
Belinda was completely dumbfounded.
She couldn't figure out how my supposed "1000 dollars a month" job was supposed to cover nearly 10 thousand dollars in family expenses.
Her mind was in complete chaos, but one thing was clear: she had to track me down.
Meanwhile, our family's dirty laundry started spreading like wildfire among the relatives.
It all began with Keagan's embarrassing scene at the luxury store, which one of his classmate's moms turned into a juicy story to share with everyone.
Next, Mom started calling up all the relatives, begging for money to cover the bills, but they just shut her down one after another.
"What? You need to borrow money? Belinda, it's not that I don't want to help, but things are tight for us too."
"Seriously, Belinda? Esther's so capable. How could you guys be broke?"
Rumors started swirling, getting out of hand.
"Hey, did you hear? The quiet-looking daughter from the Chapman family is actually their cash cow."