Part 2: The Audit of Blood
The flashing red and blue lights of the ambulance outside cast frantic patterns against the kitchen cabinets. Within ten minutes, paramedics had Emily stabilized on a stretcher, rushing her down the narrow apartment stairs due to stress-induced premature contractions. I stood in the center of the ruined kitchen, the shattered pieces of the plate still littering the floor, staring at my mother, Teresa, and my three sisters who had finally retreated into the living room.
"Ethan, honestly," Teresa sighed, wrapping her blanket tighter around her shoulders as she reached for another potato chip. "The paramedics were an exaggeration. You're letting that girl control you. I told you, women these days—"
"Pack your bags," I said. My voice wasn't loud, but it carried a finality that made Brittany drop her new phone onto the coffee table.
"Excuse me?" Lily scoffed, crossing her arms. "It's midnight, Ethan. Where are we supposed to go?"
"I don't care," I replied, stepping out of the kitchen and into the living room. I reached down and ripped the television plug out of the wall, plunging the room into a sudden, heavy silence. "For two years, I have worked fourteen hours a day, checking inventory, loading pallets, and destroying my body because you told me the family foundation was collapsing. I paid your rent, Lily. I paid your prescription costs, Mom. I am still making monthly payments on the very phone Brittany is using to take selfies while my wife bleeds in the kitchen."
"We're your family!" Kayla argued, her voice rising in a high-pitched, defensive screech. "You owe us! Dad told you to take care of us before he passed!"
"Dad told me to protect the family, Kayla. And my family is the woman carrying my son in the back of an ambulance right now," I said, pulling my wallet from my pocket. I extracted four separate plastic cards—the supplementary credit cards I had foolishly provided to each of them for "emergencies."
I threw them onto the table, directly into an open pizza box.
"I called the bank from the hallway while the paramedics were lifting Emily," I stated clearly, my eyes locking onto my mother’s pale face. "Every single line of credit linked to my income has been deactivated. The apartment lease is in my name alone. You have exactly twenty minutes to gather your clothes, your phones, and your trash before I have the building security remove you for trespassing."
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Teresa stood up, her fake-victim persona rapidly taking over as her lips trembled. "You would throw your own mother onto the streets of South Chicago? Over a few unwashed dishes? You're a monster, Ethan!"
"No, Mom," I said, walking toward the front door and throwing it wide open to the cold night air. "A monster is a woman who watches an eight-months-pregnant girl scrub her greasy frying pans while crying silently, and calls it sensitivity. Your twenty minutes start now."
