“The Family Secret

“You called me a doormat.”

“I was frustrated—”

“You wrote it down, Mom. You planned it. Every Friday I sent you grocery money while you told me pension wasn’t enough. Was any of it true?”

She did not answer.

Chinedu laughed, but it was nervous now. “Okay, okay. You made your point. We’re sorry. We’ll fix this. Just—turn everything back on, and we’ll talk like adults.”

“No,” I said.

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean no.” I folded my arms. “You are not sorry. You are scared. There’s a difference. And I am done funding people who mock me in secret.”

Ifeoma stood up and threw the envelope onto my coffee table. “So what now? You want a medal? You want us to beg?”

“I want you to leave.”

The room went still again.

“I want you to take your puff-puff and your beer and your performance of family love,” I said, “and I want you to walk out that door. From tonight, you figure out your own bills. You figure out your own emergencies. You don’t call me. You don’t text me. You don’t show up here pretending we are something we are not.”

My mother walked toward me. For one terrible second, I thought she would hit me. Instead, she grabbed her purse from the couch.

“You will regret this,” she said quietly.

“I already regret the six years I didn’t do it sooner,” I said.

She walked out. Chinedu followed, shoving the beer into his jacket pocket. At the door, he looked back at me like he was seeing a stranger.

Ifeoma was the last to leave. She stopped in the doorway and said, “You’re really going to cut us off? Just like that?”

“You cut me off first,” I said. “You just didn’t tell me.”

She shook her head and walked out into the hallway. The door clicked shut behind her.