Marriage On Hold by Mark Twain 10
Chapter 10 The Collapsing Cage
288 iVouchers
Chapter 10 The Collapsing Cage
They moved into an old, shabby rental apartment.
It was cramped and dark, with large, damp patches of mold spreading across the walls, and the air was always filled with a lingering stench of decay.
It took only a month to fall from the clouds into the mud.
Dad could no longer find a decent job; no company dared to hire someone with a ‘record’ of child
abuse.
He could only take odd jobs, doing the manual labor he used to look down on the most. Carrying bricks at construction sites, washing dishes in restaurant kitchens.
Mom’s spirit was completely broken. She spent her days in tears, constantly murmuring my name.
Barnaby’s leg, having missed the best window for treatment and lacking the money for imported medicine and rehabilitation equipment, recovered terribly. He became a cripple who would never be able to part with his crutch.
He vented all his resentment on our parents.
The once ‘neat and tidy’ home that Dad had been so proud of was now left with nothing but endless quarrels, blame, and despair.
“It’s all your fault! You old bastard! If you hadn’t come up with that stupid scale and tortured Syl every day, would she hate us? Would our family have ended up like this?” Barnaby shouted, pointing at Dad’s nose.
“And you have the nerve to blame me?” Dad’s eyes were red as he hurled the steamed bun in his hand to the floor.
“If it weren’t for you screwing up again and again, would I have needed Syl to make up for it? You’re a bottomless pit!”
Mom sobbed and screamed from the side, “Stop fighting! Both of you, stop fighting! Go find Syl! Bring Syl back! We’ll apologize to her, ask her to come home! She’s our daughter, she can’t just abandon us!”
They began desperately searching for me.
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Chapter 10 The Collapsing Cage
But I was no longer in the country.
With that money,
288 Vouchers.
I applied to a top university abroad, changed to a completely new environment, and started a new life.
I blocked all their contact information and got a new phone number.
Six months later, I received an international call from an unfamiliar number.
It was Mom.
Her voice was hoarse and humble, full of pleading. “Syl… my daughter… please come back… Mom knows she was wrong, we really know we were wrong…”
“Come back and see us, please? Your dad… he’s carrying cement at the construction site now, his hands are all torn up. Barnaby… his leg is crippled, he can’t find a job, he just drinks and yells at home every day…”
“Syl, the family scale has long been shattered… Come back, let’s start over as a family, okay?”
I listened quietly, not saying a single word.
On the other end of the line, Dad snatched the phone and shouted furiously, “Sylvie! Haven’t you caused enough trouble? Are you only satisfied if you drive the whole family to ruin? I’m telling you, you will always be my daughter, my blood runs in your veins! You must come back and take responsibility!”
Responsibility.
Even now, he was still lecturing me about his so-called responsibility.
I laughed, laughing so hard that tears came to my eyes.
“Mr. Ravenscroft,” for the first time, I addressed him with such unfamiliarity, “the accounts have already been settled in court. As for responsibility, my responsibility is to take charge of my own life. As for yours, you must bear them yourselves.”
With that, I decisively hung up the phone and blocked the number.
I thought that was the end.
But I never imagined they would reappear in my life in a way I could never have expected, in the most vicious way possible.
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