“We didn’t know!” my mother wailed, finally breaking under the unbearable weight of her guilt. She slid off the vinyl couch, literally falling to her knees on the cold, hard hospital floor. She crawled a few inches toward my bed, her trembling hands reaching out for the hem of my blanket. “Emily… Emily, my baby. Oh God, what have we done? We thought you hated us. The letters… she showed us the letters, they were so cruel!”
“The letters where I supposedly wished you’d die of cancer so I could get my inheritance?” I asked, my voice terrifyingly flat and devoid of emotion. “Did it ever once occur to you that the daughter who spent her entire childhood nursing stray animals back to health and volunteering at free clinics wouldn’t suddenly turn into a sociopathic monster overnight? Did you ever, even once, pick up the phone to call my university dean to check if I was actually expelled?”
“She… she intercepted the mail. She changed the passwords. She blocked your number on our phones,” my father choked out, burying his face in his hands, tears streaming into his gray beard.
“And you let her,” I replied, the truth cutting through the room like a scalpel. “You chose the comfortable, easy lie over the difficult truth because Chloe was always easier to love.”
“Please,” my mother begged, her voice hoarse, desperately grabbing the edge of my bedsheets. “We will do anything. We’ll tear up the will right now. We’ll leave everything to you. We’ll pay for the best defense lawyers for Chloe, we’ll fix this. Just… just forgive us. Let us be your parents again.”
I looked down at the pathetic, broken woman who had ordered hospital security to throw me away just hours before. I looked at the father who had fully believed I was a murderer. Then, I looked at Arthur, who gave me a slow, affirming nod of support.
I leaned forward slightly, the intense pain in my stitched abdomen a sharp, burning reminder of the literal flesh and blood I had sacrificed to keep this broken family breathing.
“You want my forgiveness?” I whispered, my eyes locking onto theirs.
“Anything,” my father pleaded, looking up with desperate hope. “Name it, Emily.”
“Sell the house,” I said.