Mom Montok

While picking up my parcel from the mailroom, I run into Ivan Judd, an underprivileged student from my grade who is working part-time there. While we chat, he finds out that I'd spent 128 thousand dollars during the Black Friday sales. Dumbfounded, Ivan cries, "I've never even seen that kind of money in my entire life! And you're spending it so casually? Did your mom send you to college to study or to blow money like this?" He yanks the parcel out of my hands and physically blocks the exit. "Return it immediately! Kids like you never understand how hard it is for adults to earn money! If you're this wasteful now, what man can afford to marry you in the future?" I can't help but laugh angrily at Ivan's ridiculous attitude. I retort, "What does me spending my mom's money have anything to do with you?" "How does it not?" He looks completely justified when he says, "I'm dating your mom. Every cent you spend counts as our future marital assets!" I am shocked. Isn't Mom a lesbian? Since when did she start liking men?

Right before I hit forty, my husband hit me with: "I want a divorce." For the past ten years, I had been driving a truck outside every day to support my family, while he had been cheating on me at home. Even our child was no longer close to me. "Bad Mom! You hit Jenny! Bad Mom!" Willy cried. "I don't want Mom. I want Jenny. I wanna stay with Dad and Jenny!" Jenny. The neighbor. Single mom. Her kid and ours were tight. Ten years of grinding, running myself ragged—for two ingrates? All right! Wish your family of four a happy life! I didn't want my husband or son anymore.

When the murderer tortures me to death, my criminal investigator dad and chief forensic pathologist mom are cheering at my brother's match. The criminal saws off my tongue. He answers my Dad's call with my finger. Just before the call ends, Dad's cold voice cuts through. "Playing dead, huh? We should never have brought him back." The murderer chuckles mockingly. "Looks like I grabbed the wrong kid. I thought they'd care more about their real son." When Mom and Dad arrive at the crime scene later, they stare at the mutilated body in shock and rage at the murderer's cruelty. But they never realize that the broken, bloodied body is their biological son.

Ever since my mom gave birth to her second child, everything in the household is tied to drawing lots. Everyone has to draw lots in order to decide whose favorite food will be served for each meal. We have to draw lots to see who among us gets a hug from our parents. Every time, I end up drawing the short end of the stick, so everyone automatically assumes that my younger sister, Anabelle Madden, gets the better lot. She easily reaps my parents' love without having to do anything at all. Whenever I feel like crying because of the injustice, Mom will scold me instantly. "I bought the lottery box because I was worried that you might feel upset about this. I'm doing this just to be fair to both of you. "If you want something, you have to be the one deciding who gets what. Your father and I won't interfere with your decision at all. Since you can't draw the better lot, that just means you have bad luck." Hence, I keep practicing my lot-drawing skills every day, hoping that I can eventually draw the better lot in order to obtain my parents' love. But for ten years, I never get to draw the better lot. Not even once. On my birthday, Anabelle wants to go to the amusement park, so Mom tells us to draw lots once again. I secretly glue two short lots together before giving it to Mom in an attempt to get her to stay with me. Instead, she slaps me and berates me for being a disobedient child who cheats in lot-drawing. Then, she leaves the house with Anabelle. When I fall to the floor, I feel the short sticks piercing through my neck.

Since I can remember, I have been a liar. That is the conclusion my mother made about me. After my twin brother, Daniel Benson, and I are born, she becomes obsessed with a so-called scientific parenting method. So, she puts a lie-detecting collar on each of us. Whenever we lie, the collar lights up in red. The moment it turns red, she presses a remote and shocks me. She says it will help form muscle memory to correct the bad character in me. Daniel's collar is always green. Even when he tears my mom's favorite clothes to shreds and calmly claims a dog does it, the collar still glows green. But I am different. Even if I just say, "Mom, I’m thirsty," The collar would suddenly flash a blinding red light. Then, a current shoots through my neck and into my body, making me tremble in pain. At first, I try to explain. But my mom always says the same thing. "The machine doesn't lie. You have to feel pain to learn. I'm doing this for your own good." After being shocked thousands of times, I slowly start to believe that maybe I am truly born a liar.

My mother has volunteered at our neighborhood church for over a decade. Christmas drives, Sunday service, any neighbor in trouble, she's the first one there. Everyone says God sent her to us. She thinks so too. She says God wants her to be generous, so she is. The thing is, when no one's watching, the generosity always comes out of my pocket. After she remarried, she doted on my half-sister Serena. Serena picked up a box of cold medicine for her, and Mom handed Serena the keys to my Tesla. Serena mentioned she needed to renew her car insurance, and Mom wired her the surgery fund I'd been saving for two years for my daughter Emma. That afternoon, Emma collapsed on the floor, lips turning blue, gasping for air. Her medicine was crushed into the carpet. Mom fished the last pill out of her pocket and dangled it in front of me. "Apologize to your sister, and I'll give Emma the pill." I got on my knees. But that same day, she gave away the cardiology appointment I'd spent three months getting. She gave it to Serena. What she didn't know was that the name on the appointment was her own.

Orlando and I had been together for ten years. I'd looked after his sick mom, sweating out a fever of my own, and where was he? Knocking back drinks with Rosalind, playing therapist to her broken heart. I swallowed my pride at work, getting chewed out by my boss, while he spent the night companying Rosalind because she had cramps. Then, when I got the news my mom had passed, I tried calling him, desperate for support. But nope—phone off. After a wild goose chase, turns out he was at Rosalind's graduation. That was it. I gave up. But Orlando wouldn't let go. Red-eyed, he begged me for just one more chance.

Sabrina defends her mother after her father, lying lifeless on the floor, followed what Sabrina's mom ordered her to do with a gun in her hand. After hearing the police siren, her mother left her alone at the door with the gun in her left hand. As her mom says out, the police did not do anything to her, simply because she was a child. Even though they sent her to an orphanage, an older gentleman arrived and took her out, offering Sabrina to stay with his family at their mansion. Sabrina met the mafia's son but he walked away. He was always rude to her and he always pushed her away, but before his parents died, his father left him on a mission in order to protect Sabrina, even if he was the Mafia Bos's son.

My son, Jasper Cole, won the gold prize in an art competition. When I took off my apron and rushed to the award ceremony, I found that the painting titled 'Mother' was not of me but Maeve Leighton, my husband's secretary. Maeve pretended to be troubled as she told my son, "Your mom will be sad when she sees this painting." However, Jasper was unperturbed. "What does her sadness have to do with me? She's an ordinary-looking and incompetent housewife, always nagging me about what I can and can’t do. She's too strict with me. It's annoying! Maeve, I wish you were my mother. My dad doesn't like my mom at all. He's only happy when he's with you. He's only with my mom because he feels obligated." My heart broke at that moment. Since he no longer wanted me as his mother, it was pointless for me to stay. I called my dad. "Dad, I want to go home. Can you pick me up?" My dad could not believe it. He answered after a long pause, "Of course. I'll come pick up my brilliant daughter in three days."

While preparing for the SATs at the library, my brother is accidentally shot and injured, causing him to bleed profusely. I pass by this scene but turn a blind eye and quicken my pace to leave. This is because in my previous life, when I saw him, I rushed him to the hospital in a panic. He had intracranial hemorrhaging, and he urgently needed surgery. I quickly called my mom, the top neurosurgeon in the city, begging her to come to the hospital as soon as possible. However, she thought I was jealous that she had taken my adopted sister to the beach instead of spending time with me. She also believed I had fabricated the story about my brother's injury, and thus refused to return. By the time my dad and the rest of the family hurried to the hospital, it was too late for rescue efforts—my brother had passed away. The whole family blamed me for his death. They were convinced that I had deliberately misled my mom and delayed his critical treatment. When my mom returned from out of town, she lost her composure and pushed me down the stairs, watching coldly as I bled to death. After opening my eyes again, I had returned to the day my brother was shot at the library.