- 3.
A few days later, Jason was discharged. Mom
fussed over him, Dad had the car waiting,
Ashley wouldn’t even let him tie his own shoes.
On the way home, Mom grumbled, “That Jason
is unbelievable! He didn’t even visit his brother
once, let alone apologize. Just wait till we get
home!”
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Dad said, “I told you, keeping him around was a mistake. He was bound to cause trouble.”
The word “home” stirred complex emotions. I remembered how Mom always favored Jason, how I always had to give way. It was because when Jason was born, I’d knocked over some water, causing Mom to fall and go into
premature labor. Jason, in an incubator, became the family’s precious, fragile child. Dad
had slapped me so hard I’d ruptured my eardrum. “You little jinx! You almost killed your
brother the day he was born!” Mom, weak in
her hospital bed, had looked at me with
disappointment.
In elementary school, Dad had beaten me for
three days just because Jason and I fought over
a toy car. It was my favorite, even though it was
just an afterthought, a bonus gift Dad had
bought for Jason while on a business trip.
Jason had boxes overflowing with toy cars, but
hold deliberatalu takon minn During the
<
he’d deliberately taken mine. During the struggle, he’d screamed and cried. Mom had rushed to comfort him, yelling at me, “Jason, your brother has suffered enough because of you! What more do you want from him?!”
“It wasn’t me…” I’d tried to explain, but Jason, with crocodile tears, had said, “Mommy, don’t be mad. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have bothered Jason and taken his toy.”
Dad, arriving home, had seen the scene and started hitting me. “A cold–hearted kid like you should be thrown away! You’re nothing but
trouble!”
I’d cried and begged him to stop, but the more I cried, the angrier he got. Mom and Ashley
watched coldly, as if they’d be happy to see me beaten to death.
From then on, any time I made Jason cry, I was scolded and beaten. Eventually, I stopped
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competing for affection, stopped explaining,
stopped getting close. Until now, left alone on a
cold operating table.
