12
That afternoon, Mom paid my school fees.
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When we got home, we ate the cake. I cut
Mom a piece first.
Imagining Ethan’s tantrum made me smile.
The birthday boy, who’d been eyeing the cake
all afternoon, was left with nothing.
He finally knew what it felt like to have
something taken away.
When I unwrapped the cake, I saw a large
chunk missing on Ethan’s side.
It was the first birthday cake I’d ever had. For
my birthdays, there was only a boiled egg.
I asked Mom, “Do you really want to divorce
Dad?”
She scooped some frosting onto my plate. “No. As long as he gives me his paycheck, I
don’t care if he drops dead in a ditch
somewhere.”
L
She hesitated, then asked, “Jenny, do you
resent your father?”
I shook my head. “It wouldn’t do any good.”
I took another bite of frosting. It was so
sweet.
Even if Dad hadn’t bought it for me, I got to
eat it.
When I went to college and got a job, I’d buy
Mom cakes like this all the time.
But when I got to high school, I realized getting into college wasn’t going to be easy.
The school was full of brilliant students. Kids
like me were a dime a dozen.
On the first placement test, I ranked in the three hundreds out of five hundred students.
I hid behind the bushes in the schoolyard and
cried.
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I went back to class, my eyes swollen, and
kept studying.
I didn’t waste a single minute. I even reviewed
vocabulary before bed.
Classes started at 6:30 a.m., but I was
already there at 6, reading English aloud.
When others arrived, I switched to silent
reading, memorizing classical Chinese texts.
Until I encountered math, I believed hard work
could conquer anything.
But no matter how much I studied math, no
matter how many practice problems I solved, I
barely passed.
I spent more time on math than on English
and Chinese combined.
On the final exam, I failed math again.
The crushing disappointment engulfed me.
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Long after everyone else had left, I sat there,
numb.
