Marriage On Hold by Mark Twain 12
Chapter 12 Priceless Freedom
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Chapter 12 Priceless Freedom
The police arrived quickly.
In front of everyone, I calmly presented the court’s judgment and all the documents required for my application for a restraining order to the police and the school security personnel who had
rushed over.
The moment the truth was revealed, the air around us seemed to freeze instantly.
Those neighbors and classmates who had just been angrily accusing me now looked at my parents with eyes that shifted from sympathy to contempt, shock, and disgust.
My father was still kneeling on the ground, his face flushing red and then turning pale, as if he had been stripped naked in public, overwhelmed by shame and humiliation.
His carefully orchestrated, self-righteous tragedy had turned into a complete international farce.
“No… it’s not like that… please listen to me… this is a family matter…” he stammered, desperately trying to explain.
But I gave him no further chance.
The police sternly warned them for harassment and defamation, and then ‘invited’ them to leave my community.
This farce quickly spread throughout the entire local American community in the city in an even more explosive way.
They became the infamous parents everyone talked about-those who traveled abroad to throw tantrums just to force their daughter to submit-becoming the biggest laughingstock.
Even after being warned by the police station, they did not leave.
They rented a dark, damp basement not far from my school.
After their visas expired, they became undocumented immigrants.
My father could no longer find any work and had to secretly wash dishes in the restaurant, earning only a meager amount of cash.
My mother worked as an undocumented housekeeper, but because she was clumsy and couldn’t
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Chapter 12 Priceless Freedom
speak the language, she was often fired and insulted
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Barnaby’s leg grew worse and worse; he became completely disabled, forced to stay in that sunless basement every day, surviving like a maggot on the meager income of my parents.
One day, my lawyer contacted me and said my father wanted to see me. He said it would be the
last time,
I went.
I met him in a cheap cafe.
He looked even older than the last time I saw him, his back completely hunched, wearing an ill- fitting, grease-stained chef’s uniform, and reeking of sourness.
He didn’t look at me, only stared fixedly at the cheapest cup of black coffee in front of him.
“Both sides of a scale must have something on them to be balanced,” he began, his voice hoarse ast if scraped by sandpaper. “I used to think one side was your brother, and the other was you.”
“Now, I finally understand.”
He slowly raised his head to look at me, and in those eyes that once held only calculation and control, there was now nothing but dead gray ashes.
“From the very beginning, both sides of that scale were you. On one side, your sacrifice. On the other, your value.”
“So, no matter what you do, it can never be balanced.”
“And I am the one who thought I was the god controlling the scale, but in reality, I was just the most ridiculous fool, futilely fiddling with the weights on the side.”
This was the first time I had ever heard such clarity from his mouth.
He shakily took something out from his pocket, placed it on the table, and pushed it toward m
It was a signed body donation agreement.
There was also a newly effective, high-value personal accident insurance policy.
In the beneficiary column, my name was written in bold.
“This is the last thing I can put on the scale,” he said, a trace of relief in his voice. “My life, my organs, and this insurance that can be turned into money. Syl, let me beg you one last time. Your mother and your brother-they are useless, but they don’t deserve to die. Use this money to send
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Chapter 12 Priceless Freedom
them back home, let them live.”
He looked at me, and in his eyes was a plea that bordered on humility.
“If I do this, will what I owe you finally… be balanced?”
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Even at the very end of his life, he was still calculating, still thinking about how to ‘balance’ that damned ledger of his.
I looked at the insurance policy stained with grease, then at his face, utterly defeated by life. I did not touch those documents.
I simply stood up, looking down at him from above.
“You are wrong,” I said.
“My life, my future, my freedom-they have been priceless ever since the moment I left that
home.”
“Something priceless cannot be measured by any weight, nor does it need anything to balance it.”
I turned and walked toward the blinding sunlight outside the door.
“So, Mr. Ravenscroft, your ledger will never be balanced.”
I stepped out of the café and never looked back.
Behind me was his world, completely collapsed, and that cup of cold coffee that had never been
touched.
At last, with my own hands, I shattered the invisible scale that had haunted me for half my life.
From now on, the world is vast and open, and I will live for myself.
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