Library
Maghanap
Home / The Game My Mother Rigged / Chapter 2

Share

Chapter 2

Author: Eternity
“Mom, I’m here.”

I rushed toward her and tried to throw my arms around her, but she walked straight through me. She felt nothing. Her familiar perfume lingered where her body had passed.

Mother picked up the club access card she had left on the entry table. As she crossed the hall, her gaze settled on the closed study door.

“Elena, how long are you planning to lock yourself in there?”

She turned the handle. The door opened only a few inches before my body stopped it. I tried to explain that I had not meant to ruin her rug and could no longer clean it for her, but she could not hear me.

Sofia hurried in from outside and caught Mother’s hand.

“Mom, come on. The ice show is about to start.”

Mother released the handle. “There’s half of Sofia’s beef sandwich in the kitchen. You can have it. I’m not making you draw today, so don’t accuse me of treating you unfairly.”

The front door closed, and their black car soon disappeared beyond the gates.

I drifted into the kitchen. The sandwich was cold, with Sofia’s bite marks still along one edge. The night before, I had touched it while helping Mother clear the counter. She slapped my hand away and reminded me that I had drawn black.

Now she had left it for me without making me draw, and the thought still made me happy.

When I reached for the sandwich, my fingers passed through the bread. A black cat slipped through the half-open window and landed on the counter. He often wandered through the alley behind our house. Nonna Rosa had called him Nero, and I had used the same name ever since.

Nero seized the sandwich and jumped onto the windowsill.

“That’s mine. Mom left it for me.”

I moved in front of him, but he passed through my legs and crouched outside to eat. His green eyes lifted once, as if he sensed something nearby. Then he swallowed the last piece of beef and licked the crumbs from his paw.

I sat beside the wall and watched the empty plate. Even if Nero had never come, I could not have eaten it. Dead girls did not need dinner, but I still wished Mother had left something for me before it was too late.

Darkness filled the windows before the car finally returned. Sofia entered first, laughing as she dragged a white tiger plush almost as tall as she was. Father followed with shopping bags from the arena, while Mother knelt to remove Sofia’s coat and kissed her forehead.

Sofia twisted away from the second kiss.

“We haven’t drawn yet tonight. Elena will say you only love me if she sees you kissing me first.”

She looked toward the study and hugged the tiger against her chest.

“She’s probably still crying in there. It is her birthday, after all.”

Mother’s expression shifted for a moment. She glanced into the kitchen and saw that the sandwich was gone. Whatever concern she might have felt disappeared.

“If Elena ever draws gold, I’ll kiss her too. Her bad luck is not my fault, and neither is her decision to sulk all day.”

Mother carried Sofia’s new toy upstairs. When she returned, she stopped outside the study but made no attempt to open the door again.

“Elena, I’m making a late dinner. Are you coming out to draw? If you refuse to answer, I’ll make Sofia’s baked macaroni, and I don’t want to hear you complain afterward.”

Father had already settled onto the sofa with a glass of whiskey. After Mother called my name several more times, he lowered his drink with an irritated sigh.

“Leave her alone, Bianca. If she wants to hide, let her. The Moretti name gives her a safe home, an education, and privileges most children will never have. She still behaves as though this family has failed her.”

Mother stopped calling me.

They ate beneath the warm dining room lights while Sofia described the costumes and music from the show. She sat close to Father, with the white tiger occupying the chair beside her. No one mentioned my birthday again, and no one wondered why the study remained silent.

Drawing would not have changed the meal. For ten years, our table had been filled with food Sofia loved. I ate bread, cold side dishes, and whatever she left behind.

Still, my parents had given me a bed and kept me inside their home. They had never truly let me starve.

That had to count as love.
Patuloy na basahin ang aklat na ito nang libre
I-scan ang code upang i-download ang App
Nakaraang Kabanata Susunod na kabanata

Pinakabagong kabanata

  • The Game My Mother Rigged   Chapter 9

    When the livestream began, Mother placed the empty wooden box in front of the camera.“I told Elena that drawing black meant she had bad luck. There was never a gold stick in the box. I decided every loss before she ever reached inside.”“I taught one child that she had to win food, clothes, and affection. I taught the other that she deserved everything whenever her sister lost.”After clinicians evaluated her following the suicide attempt, Mother entered a residential psychiatric treatment program. The neglect case ended in plea agreements. The court credited Mother’s inpatient treatment and placed Father on probation, allowing Sofia to remain with him under child welfare supervision.Father visited many times and asked her to come home. She refused each time.“I created that game and kept it going for ten years. I need to stay here and accept treatment.”Father had to raise Sofia alone.He threw away every remaining stick and ended all games based on winning and losing. The first tim

  • The Game My Mother Rigged   Chapter 8

    Father feared that Mother might hurt Sofia again, so he took her to his sister’s house that night.The funeral home needed to be cleaned after the fire, and Mother temporarily returned to the Moretti house. Broken glass and torn clothes still covered the floors, while unwashed dishes filled the kitchen sink.The house had always looked clean again by morning, no matter how much of a mess the family made.Mother finally remembered that I had cleaned the kitchen after school, straightened the living room, and carried Father’s abandoned jackets to the laundry room. She had never asked Sofia to do any of it, and she had rarely asked whether I was tired.“Marco comes home and thinks only about the club. Sofia waits for everyone to serve her.”Mother knelt beside my little bed and clutched the old blanket.“Elena, you were the only one who ever helped me.”The fire had ruined my casket, so Mother ordered another one made from walnut. It was wide enough for me to lie comfortably, with a dark

  • The Game My Mother Rigged   Chapter 7

    “Your parents regret what they did,” Nero said as he sat beside me.I was surprised too. Mother had cried when she smashed the family portrait, although I had always believed the unluckiest child in the house was not worth her grief.After the medical examiner released my body, my parents sent it to the funeral home used by the Moretti family. The mortician recommended a closed casket, but Mother insisted on seeing me first.She bought armfuls of new clothes and asked to dress me herself. My body had decayed too badly, and the pale fabric quickly became stained. The staff could only arrange the clothes beside my casket.Sofia covered her nose as she approached.“Why is Elena so ugly now? She smells terrible too.”Mother turned and slapped her.Sofia pressed a hand to her cheek and said nothing else. When she lowered her head, her eyes remained fixed on the gifts surrounding my casket.Father brought dolls, books, and jewelry, as if he could replace thirteen years of neglect before the

  • The Game My Mother Rigged   Chapter 6

    “Your sister has been crying for hours. Does that make you happy?”Nero’s voice came from behind me. I turned and found his body as pale and transparent as mine.“You can talk now?”“Death does that.”He sat beside me and licked a paw that no longer touched the floor.“Sofia remembered that I scratched her. While Mrs. Donnelly was calling child services, Sofia slipped into the yard and chased me into the alley with a baseball bat.”My happiness at having someone beside me disappeared.“I’m sorry.”“Cats in alleys rarely live long. Following you might be useful. We may even find Nonna Rosa. She used to leave roasted chicken for me behind the church.”I wanted to find Nonna too, but whenever I tried to move far from my body or the Moretti family, an invisible force pulled me back.Sofia was still crying in the living room. Watching her lose our parents’ attention gave me a small, shameful sense of satisfaction. Perhaps I had never been such a good child after all.The autopsy confirmed m

  • The Game My Mother Rigged   Chapter 5

    The officers’ faces changed the moment they saw my body. Mrs. Donnelly covered her mouth, but a sob escaped before she could stop it.Mother and Father stood outside the study without moving closer.“I told you that smell was wrong,” Mrs. Donnelly said. “Elena lay in this room for four days. You walked past this door every day and never found her.”Mother slowly shook her head. “That is not Elena.”While the medical examiner’s team examined me, they found a crescent-shaped birthmark on my ankle. The skin around it had begun to decay, but the mark was still clear.Father stared at it. His lips moved several times, though no sound came out.“She was born with that mark,” Mrs. Donnelly said. “This is Elena.”Father looked as if he might laugh or collapse. Neither he nor Mother cried. I waited for one of them to call my name or step forward and touch my hand, but neither moved.They had both cried when Nonna Rosa died. Father had stood alone outside the church after her funeral, while Moth

  • The Game My Mother Rigged   Chapter 4

    Every stick scattered across the floor was black.I counted them one by one, but there was not a single gold stick among them.The game had always been a lie. The only gold stick I had ever held was the one I painted for my birthday, and Mother had punished me for creating the chance she had denied me since Sofia was born.She had always known I could never win. For years, she watched me practice and blame every disappointment on my terrible luck while she gave Sofia everything.A coldness settled through me that even death had not caused. For the first time, I no longer wondered what I had done wrong.Over the next few days, Mother and Father treated me like empty space. No one set a place for me at the table, and Mother stopped calling me to draw. Sofia received every meal, kiss, and gift without reaching into the wooden box. With no one left to lose, Mother no longer needed the game.She told my school that I was upset over my birthday and refusing to leave the house.Meanwhile, the

Higit pang Kabanata

Maaari mong magustuhan

Galugarin at basahin ang magagandang nobela
Libreng basahin ang magagandang nobela sa GoodNovel app. I-download ang mga librong gusto mo at basahin kahit saan at anumang oras.
Libreng basahin ang mga aklat sa app
I-scan ang code para mabasa sa App
DMCA.com Protection Status