Chapter 7: The Last Straw
Every instinct inside me screamed that a nightmare was unfolding as I descended the stairs. The house was a cavern of shadows, save for a narrow, sickly beam of yellow light spilling out from the kitchen doorway onto the living room rug. I crept forward, my breath shallow, the dread in my chest expanding until I could barely breathe.
As I reached the threshold of the kitchen, my mother's voice cut through the silence. It wasn't her usual maternal tone, nor was it the sharp voice she used during our arguments. It was a low, venomous, utterly sadistic hiss—a voice of pure, unadulterated cruelty. "Câm mồm lại (Shut your mouth) and clean up this mess! Wash the dishes and stop making that pathetic noise."
My heart stopped. I stepped into the doorway, and the scene that played out before my eyes made the blood in my veins turn to absolute ice.
Anna was standing before the kitchen sink. She was nine months pregnant, her massive belly pressing against the edge of the counter, her bare feet standing directly on the freezing tile floor. She was shaking so violently I could hear her teeth chattering. Both of her long sleeves were soaked through to the elbows with ice-cold water. Scattered across the floor around her feet were the sharp, jagged shards of a broken white ceramic dinner plate.
Standing directly behind her, looming like a demon in the dim light, was my mother. Her face was distorted with a terrifying, malicious rage. One of her hands was wrapped tightly around the back of Anna’s hair, viciously pulling her scalp back to force her face upward, while her other hand gripped Anna’s forearm, thô bạo (brutally) shoving her hands back down toward the soapy, freezing water in the basin.
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Anna was wincing in agonizing pain, her eyes squeezed shut as a torrent of hot tears streamed down her pale, exhausted face. My mother leaned in even closer, her lips practically touching Anna’s ear as she whispered: "Your precious, useless husband is upstairs sleeping like a log right now. He can't hear you. He doesn't care about you. Let's see who's going to protect you now, you miserable little girl."
In a final, desperate act of agony, Anna forced her eyes open and looked toward the doorway. Her tear-blurred gaze locked onto mine. For a fraction of a second, a brilliant, blinding spark of hope flared in her eyes. But it was instantaneously swallowed by an even deeper terror. She looked at me with a profound, tragic dread, as if she were fully expecting me to side with my mother yet again, to validate her abuse, and leave her to drown in her own torment.
