The Daughter They Threw Away

1. When I went to the bridal shop to pick up my gown, my mother suddenly turned to me and said, "I won't be coming to your wedding." "Your cousin just told me she booked her wedding for the same day. Both her parents are gone, so I have to be there to help her save face." I froze. It took a long moment before I managed a small, bitter, "Okay." When she saw I wasn't going to react, she visibly relaxed. She took an even more lavish gown from the clerk's hands and said, almost carelessly, "You know how your cousin is. She's proud. It's been eating at her ever since she realized she married worse than you." "So I used your dowry money to book this high-end gown for her. Think of it as your apology to her." "You're cousins. Don't make such a fuss over things. And if something ever happens to you down the road, she's the one who'll take care of me in my old age." I nodded. She still didn't know I was moving abroad for good. From now on, back home, it really would only be my cousin left to care for her in her final years. ... "I've already drawn up a support agreement, exactly the way you wanted." "Every clause sits at the legal minimum. A monthly support payment, just enough to cover her most basic living." "For medical costs, it only covers fifty percent of her personal share after insurance." "No visits. No emotional support. No extra obligation to see her through old age." In the study, my husband, Elwin Henson, looked at my pale face and tightened his grip on my hand. My own sorry state stared back at me from his dark eyes. "Arlene Harding, are you sure you want to do this?" I looked at him, my voice shaking. "Do you think I'm cold-blooded? Drawing a legal line even against my own mother?" Elwin sighed, leaned in, and pulled me tight against him. "I'm not questioning you. It just hurts me to watch you go through this." "I know your past. I know how much pain it took for you to get to this point." That one sentence shattered every defense I had. My mind drifted back to the distant past. Even as a child, I knew that between me and my cousin Barbara, my mother loved Barbara more. Fifth grade, parents' night. Every other kid had their mom and dad sitting beside them. Only my seat was empty. After the teacher finished speaking at the front, she came over to me on purpose and, with pity in her eyes, patted my head. "Arlene's mom didn't come again today?" I clutched the hem of my shirt, my face burning, wishing the floor would open up and swallow me. Ever since my father died, I'd had to live with humiliation like this, all because my mother went to the class next door every time for Barbara's parents' night instead. Some kids at school laughed that I was a stray nobody wanted. I charged at them and got into a fight, then ran home crying, cut and scraped. I thought my mother would comfort me, would dab medicine on my scrapes, would tell me those kids were talking nonsense. But when she heard me sob it all out, there was no anger on her face, no ache for me. Instead there was relief. She let out a long breath, patted her chest, and said, "Thank goodness it was you they picked on." "Our Barbie has thin skin, she's so sensitive. If someone said that to her, she'd have been too heartbroken to even eat." In that moment, I looked at her and felt nothing but a terrible strangeness. Another time, I saved my allowance for three months and bought my mother a lipstick she'd been going on about for ages, as her birthday present. I handed it to her, brimming with joy. She took it, glanced at it, and before the smile could even reach her face, Barbara poked her head out of her room, her eyes lighting up. "That color is so pretty!" My mother put the lipstick straight into Barbara's hand without a second's hesitation. "Take it if you like it. A young girl like you looks lovely in this." She never once asked what I thought. As if that lipstick, and the heart I'd put into it, meant nothing at all, and could be handed off to someone else on a whim. There was too much of this. At meals, she'd put meat only in Barbara's bowl. When new clothes were bought, the pretty ones always went to Barbara first to choose. Even after the SATs, she went off traveling with Barbara to unwind, and never once cared how lost I was, filling out college applications all alone. I was like a lodger living on someone else's charity, forever off to the side, watching the two of them and their mother-daughter closeness. I used to hope, once. I hoped that one day she'd turn and look at me, that she'd realize I was the one who was actually her daughter. I studied like my life depended on it, ranked first in the whole school, wanting to make her proud. I learned to do the housework, kept the whole house in perfect order, wanting her to see how good I was. I got a job and earned money, gave her ten thousand a month, wanting her to know I was the daughter who could take care of her when she was old. I kept trying to please her, to win her over, like a little dog wagging its tail and begging, just for a scrap of her affection. But it wasn't until today, in that bridal shop, when she traded the dowry my father left me for a more lavish gown so my cousin could save face, that I finally understood it completely. In her heart, I really would never measure up to Barbara. Not in this whole life. Maybe that was for the best. At least I didn't have to hold on to any unrealistic dreams anymore. I pulled back out of Elwin's arms, wiped my tears dry, and my eyes held a calm and a resolve I'd never had before. After all, whatever bond we'd had as mother and daughter in this life ended right here.