The Night I Flipped the Dinner Table and Shattered My Family

“When the chicken wing fell on the floor, Mom said it would be a pity to throw it away. She said it was fine to give it to Emily so it wouldn’t go to waste.”

In an instant, everyone’s eyes turned to him.

Linda, who had just been chattering away in defense of my mother, froze with her mouth open, but didn’t speak right away.

Carol frowned, glancing from my mother to me.

Even the blazing fury on my father’s face seemed to cool, as if someone had thrown cold water over it. His momentum weakened.

My mother’s face went completely pale.

She suddenly turned and glared at my brother.

“Henry! What nonsense are you saying? When did I ever say that!”

My six-year-old brother was frightened by the look in her eyes. His little mouth trembled, and he burst into tears, scrambling behind Grandma.

That crying seemed to flip some kind of switch in my mother.

She stopped looking at me and my brother.

Instead, she suddenly covered her face, her shoulders shaking violently as she began to cry. The sound was suppressed and aggrieved, even louder than my brother’s.

“Wah… what kind of sin did I commit…”

She wailed, her voice leaking through the gaps between her fingers.

“I stayed up so many nights just so you could have a new sweater for the holidays. My hands are covered in calluses from knitting it.

“And for a single chicken wing, just a single chicken wing, you treat me like this. Emily, where is your conscience?”

She cried so hard she could barely catch her breath, as if she had suffered a terrible injustice.

I had heard this speech, that familiar crying tone, far too many times.

Every time her “good intentions” were questioned, those tears became her most effective weapon.

Sure enough, my father immediately took her side again.

He wrapped an arm around my mother’s shoulders, looking at her with heartache before turning a furious glare on me.

“Look at her! Look what you’ve done to your mother. That sweater was knitted stitch by stitch by your mom. Her hands were covered in blisters. Do you have any humanity at all?”

“Exactly, Emily.”

Linda immediately seized the new angle, her tone even harsher than before.

“Your mother cares so much about you. She was afraid you’d be cold, afraid you’d freeze, so she wouldn’t even buy herself anything new and stayed up late knitting that sweater for you.

“Can money buy that kind of love? And you’re making a scene over a chicken wing. How can you be so ungrateful!

“Olivia, tell them, how does your mother treat your little sister?” Linda even pulled my sister into it.

Olivia pressed her lips together.

Looking at my mother crying so miserably, she finally spoke, her tone tinged with reproach.

“Mom stayed up several nights knitting that sweater. Her neck problems even flared up because of it. Emily, you really went too far. Mom just spoils you too much.”

The accusations surged in again like a rising tide.

Listening to my mother’s aggrieved sobbing, I let out a cold laugh.

I reached down, grabbed the hem of the cream-colored sweater I was wearing, and yanked it off, tossing it onto the greasy floor.

Under everyone’s stunned gaze, I lifted the edge of the shirt underneath, exposing the skin across my waist and stomach.

“Oh my!”

Some relative let out a short gasp.

Under the bright lights, the skin along my waist and abdomen was covered in dense red rashes.

In some places, the skin had been scratched raw from repeated itching, thin streaks of blood seeping through. It looked shocking.

“I wore this sweater for three days, and the rash got this bad,” I said, pointing at the lump of yarn on the floor, my voice cold as ice.

My mother’s crying stopped abruptly.

She lowered her hands, her face filled with shock and guilt.

“Your skin being sensitive isn’t my fault!” she snapped, her voice sharp with anger at being exposed.

“I was only trying to be nice…”

I pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket, my fingers swiping quickly across the screen.