9. Shoua
CHAPTER 9
shoua
My mom called yesterday and demanded I come over. With summer being my busiest season as a realtor, I used the home showings I did every weekend as an excuse until last night. She was insistent on the phone that I needed to go over today, and I already knew exactly why since she was being vague.
Once I was back in my parents’ home after a long day at work, I immediately helped my mom make dinner even though I hadn’t planned on staying. I figured it was just best to be there to hear whatever my mom had to say and then get out of there. That was typically how I handled our visits for years now.
“So, I was thinking,” she started, as I stirred a boiling pot of herbs and chicken. “Why don’t you ask Anthony if your brother can work for his company?”
My face pinched in uncertainty. My mom kept pushing me to ask Anthony to do my younger brother a huge favor by hiring him. Again . We had been at this before last year and it didn’t work out. In fact, it was his dad’s company that ended up with the short end of the stick.
“You mean have their company hire Sai back?” I asked.
Sai, my younger brother, had been unemployed for years. After he dropped out of college during his freshman year, he hadn’t bothered to get a job at all. Technically, he could have a career. He could make some kind of income from streaming all those video games he kept playing for practically eighteen hours a day. There was an avenue there for him to explore, but both he and my parents always brushed me off as if all I ever said was nonsense.
Last year, my mom pressured me into asking Anthony if he could give Sai a job. To which he graciously did. My lame brother was supposed to take care of mundane and minor office work as a part timer.
When the office couldn’t get a hold of him for a shift after barely working there for a few days, Anthony notified me. He was worried something might have happened to Sai and so was I. I used my lunch break, worried something horrible happened to him, and drove home to check on him. Well, to no one’s surprise, he was playing video games.
Without even batting an eye, he said simply, “Tell them I quit . ” It was such a waste of everyone’s time, especially Anthony’s because he tried his best to pull strings to create the position for Sai.
“Mom, he’s not built to do general contracting work,” I pointed out.
There was no way the receptionist would ever want to hire him back after what happened. The only job he could be considered for was manual work, which Anthony and any of the project leads always needed help with.
My mom flashed me an offended look, as if I had insulted both her and my brother. “Who ever said anything about manual labor? I’m talking about office work.”
I was quiet for a moment as I began to sweat from the heat of the stove. I didn’t know why my parents never bothered to turn on the air conditioning on triple digit days like this. Even with the sun dipping into the horizon, the heat still lingered in the air and the stove being turned up to full blast only made the kitchen more unbearably hot and stuffy. My head began to spin as I made my way to the fridge to grab a glass of ice-cold water.
“No one in the office is going to let him work there ever again after how he just quit without saying anything,” I said as a matter of fact.
Sai had never held down a job in his life. Last year’s part-time job would’ve been his first. My older brother, Lee, and I had part-time jobs all throughout high school and college, while Sai never did anything aside from studying and playing his video games.
“He could do computer work, couldn’t he? Maybe answer phone calls and such,” my mom suggested, trying to act clueless. “He’s always on the computer, so he should be good with them, right?”
I let out a sigh. I know my parents understood what was happening with Sai. I think this was their way of trying to push him to do something with his life aside from eat, sleep, or play games all day. They meant well. But I didn’t think this was the way to do it. Not with my younger brother at least.
“He’s only on the computer all day because he’s playing video games the entire day, Mom. They won’t hire him back into the office. He’ll have to do manual work. That’s the only thing they’d probably hire him for. But that’s if he’s willing to work hard.”
My mom’s eyes narrowed at me. “No, I want him to work in the office. Not doing all that demanding work. I want him to only work a respectable job.”
I bit my tongue to keep from saying what was on my mind. Instead, I said, “There’s nothing wrong with manual labor.”
I knew Sai would never want to work for Anthony or do plain office work. After my parents pressured him into going to college for a biochemistry degree the way Jonathan did, he just shut down and quit. They are the same age, and, because of that, my parents often compared him to our cousin.
Whatever Jonathan did, why couldn’t Sai do the same or better? If Jonathan could get into one of the top colleges on the West Coast, why couldn’t Sai do the same? If Jonathan could be a pharmacist, why shouldn’t Sai be a doctor? That was just how my parents were. They’d always look at other people and their successes and then turn to my brothers and me and ask, “Why aren’t you successful like them? Where did you go wrong?”
My mom let out a sigh so angry I could hear her ribs rattle. “Are you trying to say that your brother isn’t good enough for some measly office job?”
“No, what I’m trying to say is that Sai is lazy.” I gave her a pointed look. If he couldn’t even take a part-time job where he only went in three times a week for four hours seriously, then how could she expect him to hold down a full-time job with more demands?
She narrowed her dark eyes at me as she raised her voice. “Your brother had amazing grades and graduated at the top of his class! He’s an amazing worker. That job they gave him made him stand for four hours straight! That’s why he didn’t want to do it anymore!”
I let out a loud, frustrated breath as Sai waltzed into the kitchen with two empty cans of energy drinks. He acted like he didn’t hear us just talking about him as he casually threw his used cans into the bin my parents had for recyclables. His hair was shaggy and oily, and I doubt he had even properly showered in days.
“Do you want to work for Anthony?” I asked him pointedly.
His only answer was a snort. He never voiced what he wanted ever to our parents. He just let them tell him what he should or shouldn’t do and it always irritated me to no end.
“If you don’t, then tell Mom right now,” I demanded.
Sai took one look at her and then glanced back at me. “No, you say it.”
My jaw tightened as my throat dried up. “I’m not your middleman. You’re twenty-six, Sai. Speak for your own self.”
I pursed my lips into a thin line as I took off the apron I was wearing. I threw it on the moment I walked into the house because I knew my mom expected me to help make dinner. Whether I stayed for dinner or not, that was never any of her concern. I stalked over to the kitchen counter where my tote bag sat and grabbed it.
“Do you want to work for Anthony or not?” I asked again.
He blinked slowly at me, unaffected by the frustration I was emitting. “No.”
I turned to my mom. “If this is all you need me for, then I’m leaving,” I said. Her face turned bright red as I slung my bag over my shoulder.
“You ungrateful bitch!” my mom instantly yelled out. I turned to her with tears burning the corners of my eyes. Her face pulled into a menacing scowl. “Oh, are you going to cry now, Shoua? Are you going to act like you’re the victim and manipulate me with your tears? Isn’t that what you always do to make me the bad person?”
I almost couldn’t breathe as I turned away from the woman who I call my mother. She was the reason why I couldn’t cry in front of others. It was because of these things she would always say about my tears—about how I used them to make her the horrible person—that I couldn’t bring myself to cry unless if I’m alone. Because of my mom, I couldn’t allow myself to be vulnerable in front of others. In case they used my tears against me like my mom did.
Without saying another word back to her, I stormed out of that house. If I didn’t, then I was going suffocate in there.
“Do you know how hard I had to work to feed you three kids and you can’t even look out for your own brother?” my mom screamed after me as she followed me from the kitchen to the living room. “I don’t know whose daughter you are, but you’re not mine! I didn’t give birth to you, you fat and conniving wench! You?—”
That was the last thing I heard before slamming the door shut so hard I could hear it echo through the quaint, quiet neighborhood. I clamored into my car with heavy breaths as I held back my budding tears and drove away.
My parents loved me, but I always knew they loved my brothers more. I’m the middle child and grew up with both of my brothers clearly being my parents’ favorites. My perfect older brother, Lee, was my dad’s and Sai, the smartest, was my mom’s.
I wasn’t the ideal daughter my parents always wanted. I never listened to them. Not because they weren’t in the right, but because I didn’t want to live my life the way they wanted me to. I didn’t pursue a life in the medical field, either as a nurse or doctor, or marry the supposedly good man they thought Pierre was. Since I always marched to the beat of my own drum, I was also often at odds with them.
My heart beat harder as my mind replayed what just occurred over again. I hated it when my mom expected me to magically make things work out for Sai when she refused to address the elephant in the room. I hated it when threw insults at me just because I couldn’t do what she anticipated from me. She always said the most horrible things to me when things don’t go exactly the way she wanted, whether I was a child or an adult.
As I pulled up to a stop light to make a left turn into my neighborhood, my heart began to pound louder in my ears. It was all I heard over the random summer pop music I put on the radio.
My heightened dread settled heavily in the pit of my stomach as the lights turned green. On any normal day lately, I’d make a left turn completely fine. But today with my argument with my mom and ending it with her calling me a bitch, I couldn’t make that left turn as I shook and desperately wheezed for air. I was having another anxiety attack behind the wheel.
Am I going to die this time? I grasped for whatever moments I still had left of this life with each sharp breath I tried to take in, but to no avail. Every breath I took was short and shallow, making me feel worse.
Traffic was low now that it was getting close to seven p.m. There were two cars driving toward me from more than a block away. They were going at a moderately slow speed and I had enough time to turn before they reached me, but I couldn’t do it. My hands got clammy as I gripped my steering wheel so tight my knuckles became white.
The driver behind me tooted their horn, but I still couldn’t turn, and that same driver began to blare the horn loudly and impatiently. Although I wasn’t mentally ready, I turned anyway. I made the turn in the nick of time just as I was pushed over the edge of my building anxiety. My chest squeezed tighter and tighter. I haphazardly pulled to the curb with a loud screech as my tire rims scratched along the concrete. The other driver sped off past me and into our neighborhood as I struggled to breathe.
Behind the wheel, I sobbed and panted loudly while my body shook.
My lungs burned with each constricted breath as I tried to focus on calming down. Count random things. Count things like I do with Anthony.
My heart pumped wildly in my ears now as I glanced down at the pastel orange water bottle Anthony bought for me last summer to keep me hydrated during my drives around the city. “O-one orange water bottle. Two trees . . . three cars,” I said out loud, trying to count anything I could focus on. My trembling voice became stronger despite the tears streaming down my face with each answer. “Three houses. Two kids. One dad. Two dogs.”
My breathing slowed as I glanced back down at the orange bottle. I could practically hear Anthony’s laughter over a stupid joke he said echoing in my ears. “One orange water bottle,” I repeated in a whisper. “One Anthony Hughes.”
My favorite ice cream popsicles were orange creamsicles. Anthony said that whenever he saw a color like the pastel orange popsicle, he always thought of me and our long summers together. Our fridges were usually full of this frozen treat all season. We would eat them for dessert every night during Sunset Valley’s unfathomable hot summers.
My mind wandered to how we always shared the last popsicle together and the way Anthony’s elbow would bump into mine when he stole the first bite. Then . . . I thought of those honey brown eyes glittering back at me, amused and full of mischief.
I let out a shaky breath when my lungs finally let me breathe properly. I immediately grabbed my phone, tears still falling, and called the only person I wanted to talk to the most right now.