“And another thing,” she bellowed into the bullhorn. “If you’re so desperate for cash, why don’t you just spread your legs and sell it? Stop playing the victim and teaching your bastard child to do the same! Who do you think you’re fooling?”
My mom is a gentle person. She’s never won a fight in her life. If she had, she wouldn’t have been kicked to the curb with nothing the second my dad’s business took off, replaced by his mistress.
Seeing my mom like that, so humiliated, my scalp tingled with rage. I wanted to tear Sharon to pieces. She could attack me all she
wanted, but she was not allowed to touch my mom. I lunged forward to protect her.
The moment Sharon saw me, she pointed a triumphant finger.
“Well, well, well!” she crowed. “Look who it is! The little bastard has arrived!”
She aimed the bullhorn at me. “Everyone, look! This is the one! She’s a legal adult, but she still finds ways to leech money off my husband every month. The little bit of money he manages to save isn’t even enough for our own family, and now he has to support
her and her mother on the side!”
“I ask you,” she cried, playing to the crowd, “could any of you tolerate this?”
With a few twisted sentences, she had completely flipped the script. She painted my mom and me as the home–wrecker illegitimate child, tearing her happy family apart. The crowd immediately turned on us, their whispers turning into pointed
ions.
and the
My White Man Ccusat-
“That girl looks so clean–cut. I can’t believe she’d do something like that! Ruining a family is a one–way ticket to hell!”
“Exactly! And look at her daughter. She has a nasty look about her. The poor wife must have been pushed to her limit to make
scene like this.”
“To think someone like that works right in my neighborhood… I’d better keep a closer eye on my husband. Who knows when a sna-
ke like that could slither in.”
“I’m writing a complaint to her HR department this afternoon. There’s no way a mistress should be allowed to keep her job!”
The words were like stones. My mom cared about two things in this world: her dignity, and me. Years ago, to avoid battle and to protect me, she had signed an unfair divorce agreement, leaving with nothing.
apartment ever since.
I saw every struggle, every sacrifice she made.
And now, to see it all twisted by Sharon’s lies, I was about to explode. I started toward the
ready to fight, but my mom grabbed my arm.
I turned and saw her eyes, red and swimming with tears. She shook her head. “Let it
“The truth will speak for itself,” she whispered.
go,
a
messy public
She’d been raising me in a tiny rental
Jessica.”
who were all
the loudest,
My own tears threatened to spill. I wanted to scream that the world doesn’t work that way, that truth and dignity have to be fought
20.17
