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They Regretted Blaming Me After I Died

They Regretted Blaming Me After I Died

Maikling Kwento · Emotional Realism
By:  Sunny SteppeKumpleto
Language: English
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13Mga Kabanata
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Synopsis

After Death

Familial Bond

Bias

Family Emotions

Biological Family

When I was five, my elder sister, Mabel, lost the use of both legs saving me in a car accident. From that day on, there was one thing my parents said to me more than anything else. “You ruined Mabel’s life.” When I got into a top university, Mabel locked herself in her room and cried all night. My mother, eyes red from crying, tore my acceptance letter to pieces. “Wait until Mabel can walk again. Then you can go to college.” So I spent sixteen hours a day delivering food, saving every penny for Mabel’s rehabilitation. When my stomach pain became so bad I could barely stand, my parents accused me of being jealous of Mabel’s nutritional supplements and faking it for attention. I secretly went to the hospital. The diagnosis came back and showed that I had severe anemia, pelvic inflammatory disease and a stomach ulcer. The medication cost more than two hundred dollars. I did not have it. So I told myself I would get the medicine after I saved enough to buy Mabel a pair of knee braces. Then came the day of the torrential rain. Terrified of being late with a delivery, I ran a red light. A dump truck hit me and sent me flying. I lay there in the rain, still clutching the knee braces I had just bought. I never got the chance to hand them to Mabel myself.

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Kabanata 1

Chapter 1

When I opened my eyes again, I was already floating in midair.

I looked down and saw the dinner table below. There were three dishes and a bowl of soup, just like the meals we used to have at home.

I tried to push open the front door.

My fingers passed straight through the security gate.

I was startled for a moment.

It took me a moment to understand. I was dead.

Mom was busy in the kitchen.

She untied her apron and walked out carrying a plate of pork ribs as steam curled up from the dish.

She set it carefully in the middle of the table.

“Naomi loves pork ribs. I made this especially for her today.”

I stared at her face.

It was the first time in all these years that she had called my name in such a gentle way.

The last time was thirteen years ago.

I was only five.

The market was crowded that day. I slipped my hand out of Mom’s and ran across the street.

A truck came barreling toward me. The screech of brakes tore through the air.

Mabel lunged after me and shoved me out of the way. She was the one who ended up beneath the wheels.

The hospital hallway was freezing.

Mom collapsed to her knees outside the emergency room, sobbing uncontrollably.

When the doctor finally came out, he slowly shook his head.

“We can’t save both legs.”

Mom turned toward me. Her eyes were bloodshot.

She grabbed me by the shoulders so hard her fingernails dug into my skin.

“Naomi, Mabel’s life was ruined because of you. Remember that. You’ll owe her for the rest of your life.”

She repeated those words to me for thirteen years.

Today, thirteen years later, the resentment was gone from her face.

Mom glanced up at the clock on the wall. Dad walked in carrying four sets of cutleries.

He laid them out on the table and heaved a sigh.

“Naomi’s been complaining about stomach pain these past few days. Maybe we really shouldn’t have kept accusing her of faking it.”

Mom pulled out a chair and sat down.

“She really has looked terribly pale lately. I bought some ribs especially for her today. She needs to eat more.”

They both kept staring toward the front door, waiting for me to walk in.

However, I would never come home again.

I stared at the plate of ribs and remembered something from six months earlier.

That was the day I came home holding my acceptance letter from one of the country’s top universities.

I thought my family would celebrate with a dinner just like this.

However, the moment Mabel saw the acceptance letter, she locked herself in her room.

I could hear her crying inside. Then came the sound of things being smashed.

“From now on, Mom and Dad are only going to care about their college-bound daughter!”

Mom stood outside Mabel’s door, her eyes red from crying. Then she turned and walked toward me.

Her gaze fell on the acceptance letter in my hands. She reached out and snatched it away.

Rip!

She tore the acceptance letter in half, then ripped it apart again and again.

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Walang Komento
13 Kabanata
Chapter 1
When I opened my eyes again, I was already floating in midair.I looked down and saw the dinner table below. There were three dishes and a bowl of soup, just like the meals we used to have at home. I tried to push open the front door.My fingers passed straight through the security gate.I was startled for a moment.It took me a moment to understand. I was dead.Mom was busy in the kitchen.She untied her apron and walked out carrying a plate of pork ribs as steam curled up from the dish.She set it carefully in the middle of the table.“Naomi loves pork ribs. I made this especially for her today.”I stared at her face.It was the first time in all these years that she had called my name in such a gentle way.The last time was thirteen years ago.I was only five.The market was crowded that day. I slipped my hand out of Mom’s and ran across the street.A truck came barreling toward me. The screech of brakes tore through the air.Mabel lunged after me and shoved me out
Magbasa pa
Chapter 2
The torn pieces of paper fell to the floor.“Naomi, once Mabel can walk again, you can go to university, okay?”Mom asked me that with tears in her eyes.I said nothing. I crouched down and picked up the scraps of paper, one by one. I shed no tears.From that day on, I never mentioned going to university again.The living room fell silent. Mom and Dad stood with their backs to the hallway.“From now on, we need to treat Naomi better,” Mom said in a soft voice.Then came a soft creak. The sound of wheelchair wheels rolling across the hardwood suddenly filled the room.Mom and Dad spun around. Mabel had somehow wheeled herself out of her room.Their expressions changed instantly. They thought she had overheard them and was about to lose her temper.Mom hurried to her feet, suddenly feeling awkward.“Mabel, Mom didn’t mean it like that…”Mabel lowered her head and remained silent. Instead, she wheeled herself over to the table.Her eyes fell on the plate of ribs. Then she sai
Magbasa pa
Chapter 3
I walked over to the pharmacy counter.A number appeared on the screen: [$236.]I reached into my pocket. I searched every pocket I had.Forty-three dollars. That was all I had.I stepped out of line, found a quiet corner of the hospital and folded my diagnosis sheet carefully before slipping it into my pocket.Then I walked out through the hospital doors.The cold wind brushed against my face.A few days earlier, she had told me how badly her legs ached in the winter cold. She had been eyeing a pair of imported knee braces with built-in heating pads, talking about them for days with a quiet look of longing.I told myself that I would buy her the knee braces first. Once I bought them, I would come back for my medicine.Mom put down her phone. She looked at Dad and shook her head.“No answer.”Mabelr’s brows drew together. She swiped through her phone.“Naomi didn’t text me today.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “She always sends me pictures when she’s out making deli
Magbasa pa
Chapter 4
It was pitch-black outside.Only the dim glow of the streetlights remained, reflecting off the wet pavement left behind by the rain. There was nothing else.Mabel pressed her lips together until they turned pale. She lowered her head and looked at her legs.“My right leg has been hurting all day.” Her voice trembled slightly. “Whenever my leg started hurting, Naomi would always come home early to be with me. She’d massage my leg for me. But she still hasn’t come home.”A deathly silence fell over the living room. None of the three of them spoke. The only sound was the steady tick-tock of the clock on the wall.I stood beside the dining table. I looked at the plate of ribs that had gone cold twice.I wanted to pick it up. I wanted to set it down in front of Mabel. I wanted to tell her to have her dinner first and that she did not have to wait for me.However, my hand passed through the bowl.…A typhoon swept through the city that day, bringing torrential rain.I went out to
Magbasa pa
Chapter 5
Dad’s hand suddenly jerked.The soup spoon slipped silently from his fingers. With a soft clink, it fell into the bowl of soup, sending a few drops of oil splattering across the table.The phone slipped from his hand next. It struck the tabletop with a dull thud.His face drained of color in an instant. He looked as though he had aged ten years in a heartbeat.Mom stared at the phone. Her voice came out faint and unsteady, trembling with barely contained panic.“Dominic, what did he just say? Who’s dead?”Mabel’s fingers tightened around the arms of her wheelchair until her knuckles turned white.I stood beside the dining table. I looked at the plate of ribs, slowly going cold.I reached out. However, there was nothing I could hold.The hospital corridor stretched endlessly before them, washed in the cold, flickering glare of fluorescent lights. The sharp scent of disinfectant lingered in the air, sterile and suffocating.Dad walked ahead of them. With every step, his pace gr
Magbasa pa
Chapter 6
Dad reached out with trembling hands.He took the evidence bag from the officer. It was almost weightless, yet in his hands it seemed to weigh a thousand pounds.He tore open the evidence bag and drew out the bloodstained bundle within. Layer upon layer of plastic had been wound tightly around it, as though whoever had wrapped it had been determined to keep its contents safe at all costs.His hands trembling, Dad slowly peeled away each layer.At the very heart of the bundle lay a pristine cardboard box, untouched by the chaos around it. Foreign lettering adorned the lid.The box was immaculate. Not a drop of rain had seeped through, and not a trace of blood had touched it.Dad opened the box.Inside lay a brand-new pair of imported knee braces, fitted with heating pads in the lining.Beneath them was a crumpled receipt. The total came to eight hundred dollars.Mabel sat motionless in her wheelchair.Her eyes locked onto the braces. Her pupils suddenly contracted.She recogn
Magbasa pa
Chapter 7
He picked up the medical report and glanced at it. Then he tapped a few keys on the computer.“Oh. This little girl.”The doctor adjusted his glasses. His tone was calm, as though he were simply recalling a fact.“I remember her pretty clearly. She came in about two weeks ago. She was running herself into the ground. She was so pale, she looked almost ghostly. I told her she needed to start taking her medication immediately. She couldn’t afford to wait.”Dad’s fingers tightened around the edge of the desk.“Did she get the medicine?”The doctor shook his head. He let out a quiet sigh.“I wrote her a prescription. It was only a little over two hundred dollars, but she stood at the payment window with the bill for a long time. I watched her empty every pocket she had. “In the end, she gathered up a handful of loose change and counted it over and over. She couldn’t even come up with two hundred dollars.”The doctor looked back at the computer screen.“She didn’t pay. She folded
Magbasa pa
Chapter 8
Dad fumbled for the light switch.The dim bulb overhead flickered twice before finally coming to life. Its weak glow barely reached the corners of the room. The space was so cramped there was hardly enough room to turn around.A narrow wooden bed stood against the wall, covered by an old quilt gone stiff with age.There was no wardrobe. A few battered cardboard boxes were stacked in one corner, with two faded delivery uniforms draped over them, their colors washed nearly white from years of wear.This was where I had lived for more than a decade. In this house, I had been little more than a shadow kept out of the light.Mom stumbled inside.She made it to the bed before her legs gave way. She sank to her knees.Her head lowered, and her eyes fell upon the darkness beneath the bed.She reached underneath and felt around blindly.Then she pulled out a large black plastic bag. The mouth of the bag had been tied into a tight knot.Mom tore it open. Inside were rolls upon rolls of
Magbasa pa
Chapter 9
Mabel finished reading the final line. Her voice broke completely.She snapped the diary shut and covered her face with both hands, her shoulders shaking violently.Mom was still on her knees. As the words from the diary sank in, she suddenly raised her hand and slapped herself across the face.“I never should have called you a liar… I’ll hold you, baby… I’ll hold you right now…”She reached desperately into the empty air, waving her arms as though she could somehow find something there to hold.I hovered beneath the ceiling.I watched Mom unravel before me, watched her arms close around nothing.She did not spare me so much as a glance when I was alive.What good were all these tears now that I was dead?Mabel lowered her hands. She rested the diary on her lap.Just as she was about to close it, her fingers suddenly stopped. Something hard was wedged inside the back cover. It was a thick paperboard. She ran her fingers along the seam and carefully pulled it free.…It
Magbasa pa
Chapter 10
“You guilt-tripped her into sacrificing her whole life, and you guilt-tripped me into letting you do it!”Mabel pointed at the bloodstained toilet paper on the floor.“Look at this! Look at what she was reduced to! We’re all monsters. We’ve been feeding off her for years! We killed her together! We’re all murderers!”Those words landed like a series of blows.Dad staggered backward. His back struck the doorframe. His lips trembled, but not a single word came out.He had always believed Mabel hated me. He always told himself that hurting me was the price of keeping her happy.Now he understood that it had never been about her. Those were simply the excuses they had used to justify themselves.They had grown accustomed to taking every ounce of their pain, frustration and resentment and pouring it onto the daughter they loved least.Mom remained crumpled on the floor as she watched Mabel come undone.Then her eyes fell on the acceptance letter she had painstakingly pieced back to
Magbasa pa
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