My Family’s Love Became the Cage That Killed Me

“Why is it so quiet? Your mom didn’t cook?”

Percy stepped out of his room, worry flickering across his face.

“Dad, I think Mom ran away from home. She didn’t even take her phone; it’s been ringing in the room this whole time.”

“Ran away from home?”

Chase scoffed, as though the words were too absurd to take seriously. He sneered and shook his head, disdain etched across his features.

“With that fiery temper, she explodes at the smallest thing! Must be another petty quarrel over nothing. Forget it, don’t waste your time with her! I’m starving, what’s there to eat?”

Saying that, he headed straight for the fridge, pulled it open and found nothing but a few cold leftovers.

Finally, he searched the cupboard, dragged out a few cans of beer and a vacuum-packed bag of marinated chicken feet and began to eat and drink by himself.

The smell of food drifted through the air, pulling my daughter from her room. She came quietly to the table, sat down and wordlessly picked up a chicken foot to gnaw on.

Percy came over to sit with them.

Chase’s expression darkened as he looked at the two children treating that low-quality marinated snack as dinner.

“Your mom is getting more and more unreasonable! Fine, let her throw a tantrum if she wants, but not cooking for her own kids? What kind of mother does that? Is there such a mother in this world? When she comes back, I need to talk to her!”

His voice carried only blame and complaints and my heart turned even colder.

Day after day, I spun like a top around this household, cooking, scrubbing, cleaning, worrying over each of their needs and health.

And yet, none of it was ever seen.

Just one missed meal and suddenly I became a sinner beyond forgiveness.

If not for his years of neglecting the family, for his indifference toward our daughter’s education, always meeting problems with violence, how could she have turned so cold, so extreme?

They ate and complained just a few steps away, but no one gave even a passing glance to the punching bag standing silently in the corner.

Soon, the chicken feet and beer were gone.

Chase let out a satisfied burp, then glanced at the darkness outside the window.

“Alright, I’ll head out for a while, see if I can find your mom. Such a nuisance she is!”

“Oh, and turn off the AC in the living room! She’s not even home, leaving it on is just a waste of electricity!”

My heart clenched violently.

The inside of the punching bag was sealed tight, like a suffocating, steaming cage.

Until now, I had been breathing only through the faint trickle of cool air seeping in from the zipper at the top.

If the air conditioning were turned off, on such a sweltering summer night, the heat inside would climb quickly. I would suffocate, roasted alive.

Help! Don’t turn off the AC! I beg you!

I screamed silently in my heart, praying someone would notice something was wrong.

Just then, my phone in the bedroom began to ring insistently again.

Chase clicked his tongue in annoyance, turned into the bedroom and picked it up.

“Chase, is Stella not there? It’s nothing urgent. I just saw a health supplement that they say is good for the heart. It’s not too expensive, only twenty thousand dollars. I thought Stella and Nathan could each pay ten thousand.”

Chase’s expression darkened at once. My mom was again trying to bleed us dry.

She had given all of my father’s inheritance to my younger brother Nathan. Yet, whenever money was needed, it was always me she expected to cover half.

Chase gave a bitter laugh.

“Twenty thousand? You’re bold. I don’t have that kind of money. Wait for her to come back and ask her yourself. That’s enough, I’m hanging up.”

He ended the call roughly, threw my phone back onto the bed like it was worthless and cursed under his breath.

“A family of leeches, the lot of them! Never-ending! Do they really think I’m a money-printing machine?”

He gave up completely on the idea of going out, stomped toward the front door and slammed it shut with all his strength, venting his fury on it.