On the afternoon of my college move-in day, my phone buzzed with a FaceTime call from my mother. Only, it wasn’t the mother I knew. It was her—eighteen years in the past. She was gently caressing her slightly rounded stomach, her eyes bright and filled with a luminous, teary hope. “Sweetheart,” she whispered, looking at the screen as if she could see right through time. “Your father took me to the clinic today. The doctor says everything looks perfect. Soon, the three of us will finally be together.” She looked at me, her eyes tracing my face with longing. “Tell me, sweetheart. In the future, do you follow in my footsteps and dance? Or did you inherit your father’s business mind?” A bitter, dry laugh caught in my throat. I slowly tilted the camera downward. The canary-yellow delivery vest felt stiff and smelled faintly of stale fries and cold grease. My name tag hung crookedly over my chest, a cheap piece of plastic declaring my state-assigned role. DoorDash Runner #9: Isabel. When I tilted the camera back up, meeting her bewildered, frozen gaze, my voice was as flat and cold as a stagnant pond. “I’m sorry, Mom. You didn’t guess right on either.” “I was just kicked out of the house. Ruby tore up my college acceptance letter.” “And eighteen years from now, you’re still lying in a hospital bed, waiting for me to scrape together enough cash to cover your medical bills.” My throat tightened, a sob threatening to break through. “Mom,” I choked out, “if you can hear me… please. Abort this pregnancy. Divorce him. Leave, and never look back.” 1 My mother forced a fragile, trembling smile. “Izzy, what kind of joke is that?” she chuckled softly, though her hand shook. “Your father and I are engaged. Why on earth would he marry Ruby?” She raised her hand, showing off the massive, glittering diamond ring on her finger. “Look. This is the family heirloom. He placed it on my finger himself.” “He told me that the day you are born, he’s going to give me the grand wedding of my dreams.” I had seen that ring. Countless times. Every time my mother’s depressive episodes took hold, she would clutch that ring, white-knuckled, until the storm in her mind passed. But the tragedy was that this ring—the one she cherished like her very soul—would eventually be ripped from her hand and slipped onto Ruby’s finger. And the marriage certificate she spent eighteen years begging for? It was signed the very day after I was born. While my mother was recovering in her hospital bed, my father and Ruby made a detour to City Hall on their way to visit her. They got married. When my mother found out and screamed herself hoarse, demanding to know why, his response was a dismissive, casual shrug. “Ruby is the adopted daughter,” he’d said. “Without this marriage, high society will always look down on her. To the world, you’re still my real partner, and our child is still the heir to the family fortune. It’s just a piece of paper, Margot. Why make such a fuss?” I didn’t argue with her. Instead, I flipped the camera, carrying a pastry box up the steps of the old family estate. I knocked on the heavy oak door. “Delivery for unit 4B. Delivery under the name Charles.” Through my earbuds, my mother let out a small, startled gasp, her voice laced with sudden joy. “That’s my mother’s old house! The estate she left me as a dowry! Charles promised me he’d take care of it… I can’t believe it’s still standing, looking exactly the same eighteen years later!” The door clicked open, and her joyful words died in her throat. My father stood there. For a fraction of a second, surprise flickered in his eyes. “Izzy? What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at your dorm registration?” A soft, petulant voice drifted from behind him. Ruby appeared, her lower lip trembling with practiced vulnerability. “Charles, don’t blame her. It’s my fault. This morning, Izzy called me a homewrecker and knocked over the cake you bought me. I only scolded her a little, but she got so angry she ran away to do… whatever this is.” A shadow of disgust crossed my father’s face. He didn’t even bother to ask for my side of the story. “Well, maybe some hard labor will cure her of that attitude,” he muttered coldly. “She’s starting to sound just like her hysterical mother. Bring the cake in and put it on the table.” I kept my head down and followed them inside. On the screen, the camera captured the room. The exquisite, hand-carved marble desk—the one my grandmother had passed down to my mother—had been painted a gaudy pink and converted into a plush bed for Ruby’s toy poodle. In my ear, my mother’s voice trembled with a ragged, weeping breath. “How… how could he? Charles promised me he would honor my mother’s memory… How could he let her treat my inheritance like garbage?” But I felt nothing. I was entirely numb. On their first wedding anniversary, during one of my mother’s severe depressive episodes, she had pushed Ruby in a fit of panic. Ruby fell, suffered a miscarriage, and was told she could never have children again. From that day on, my mother was labeled a criminal. And on every subsequent anniversary, Charles would bring Ruby to this very house, using the desk my grandmother loved to indulge their desires, leaving their marks all over it. Afterward, he would force my mother to kneel, weeping, and scrub the wood clean. He systematically broke her, piece by piece, forcing her to watch exactly how much he adored another woman. I placed the cake box down and spoke in a flat, customer-service drone. “Please remember to leave a five-star review on the app. Have a good day.” As I turned to leave, the ragged sobbing in my ear grew louder, shaking the tiny speaker. “Why would Charles do this? He loved me. When we were younger and those thugs cornered me, he took a knife for me. He nearly lost a kidney protecting me!” “Izzy, please tell me this is a joke. It’s a prank, right? It has to be!” I let out a hollow, bitter smile. So that was where his scar came from. He had saved her. No wonder that very scar later became his deepest source of resentment. My throat felt dry, choked with unshed tears. I didn’t know what to say. Footsteps echoed behind me. My father caught up to me in the hallway, pulling a thin stack of bills from his leather wallet. He thrust them toward me, his expression dark. “That’s enough of this little drama. If you need pocket money, just ask. Don’t play the martyr like your mother. It’s pathetic.” I reached out and took only the smallest bill—a ten-dollar bill—and offered him a polite, hollow nod. “Thank you for the tip. I’ll take the trash out on my way. Enjoy your evening.” His jaw clenched, irritation flaring in his eyes. “Did she teach you that passive-aggressive tone, too? Eighteen years, and her tricks are still as cheap as ever.” “I’m warning you one last time. As long as you don’t touch Ruby, I don’t care what you do. But if you dare hurt her again, I won’t hesitate to ruin you.” With that parting threat, he slammed the door. On my phone screen, my mother’s eyes were wide, red-rimmed with utter disbelief. “How… how did he become this monster?” “But if it’s true… if things really get this bad… why didn’t I take you and leave?” “I’m a principal ballerina! I have my own career, my own money! Why would I stay and endure this torture?” My silence slowly drained the last embers of hope from her face. The terrible truth began to dawn on her. “So… eighteen years from now… I don’t dance anymore, do I?” Before I could answer, my phone vibrated, interrupting our call with an incoming line. It was the hospital nurse, her voice clipped and impatient. “Isabel? Your mother’s medical bill is still short three hundred dollars. Today is the absolute deadline. How much longer before you get here?” My voice was barely a whisper. “I have the money. I’m on my way.” Hanging up, I looked back at the video call, staring deep into the eyes of the young mother on the screen. “Come,” I said softly. “Let me show you who you are in eighteen years.” I walked down the sterile hospital corridor and stopped outside room 302. I angled my phone camera through the small glass pane of the door. The woman inside sat in a wheelchair. She was so emaciated her hospital gown practically swallowed her. Her face was hollow, devoid of life. When the draft from the AC blew, the right pant leg of her pajamas fluttered, completely empty. In my ear, my mother’s voice was a terrified shiver. “Izzy… is that… me? Her right leg…” “It’s gone,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “Charles had someone break it.” My mother gasped, a sound of pure agony. “He knew… he knew dancing was my entire life. Why would he do that? What happened?” I smiled, the taste of salt on my lips. “Because Ruby claimed you put sewing needles in her ballet slippers. Charles didn’t even bother to check. He just took a lead pipe to your knee.” Silence stretched across the eighteen-year gap. It was absurd. On a single, unverified accusation, he had shattered her legs, and along with them, her dream of ever standing on a stage again. I pushed the heavy door open and entered the room. The moment the woman in the wheelchair saw me, her eyes clouded with sudden, manic rage. She grabbed a ceramic vase from the bedside table and hurled it at my head. I ducked, but the vase shattered against the doorframe, a stray shard slicing a clean line across my cheek. My mother—the eighteen-years-older version—began to scream at me, her voice cracked and hysterical. “Charles! You bastard! Aren’t you supposed to be in bed with that whore? Why are you here to mock me? Get out! Get out!” I calmly wiped the bead of blood from my cheek, speaking softly to the terrified young woman still on my phone screen. “I look too much like him. Whenever she has an episode, she mistakes me for my father.” “Now do you see? It’s not that you didn’t want to take me and leave. It’s that you were too sick. You couldn’t.” On the screen, my young mother bit her lip until it bled. “When… when did it start? The sickness?” I thought back. “The night you found out you were pregnant with me. You came home to surprise him and caught them together. The shock triggered your first psychotic break.” “After that, whenever Charles wanted to spend the night with Ruby without being disturbed, he’d have you committed to the psychiatric ward for a few days.” Looking at her devastated face, I asked gently, “Do you want to talk to her?” She shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “No. There’s no point.” “Is there really nothing we can do? Are we completely helpless?” In the heavy, suffocating silence of the hospital room, I whispered the only truth left to us. “For us, yes. It’s too late. But for you… you still have a choice. Abort the baby. Pack your bags. Leave tonight, and never let him find you.” “Break it off cleanly, and never look back.” She fell silent. Suddenly, through the speaker, I heard a man’s voice calling out from eighteen years ago—my father’s voice, warm and full of false tenderness. “Margot? Who are you talking to? You’ve been on the phone forever.” The line went dead. I tucked my phone away and firmly but gently forced the woman in the wheelchair to take her medication. As the sedatives took hold, the manic red left her eyes. She looked at my bleeding cheek, her face crumpling with guilt. “Izzy… I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you again?” I shook my head. “It’s okay, Mom.” She reached into her thin hospital gown, pulling out a faded cloth pouch and stuffing it into my hands with desperate urgency. “This is all the money I’ve managed to hide over the years. Take it. Go to college. Don’t worry about me anymore!” Then, her eyes fell on my bright yellow delivery vest, and she froze. “Izzy… why are you wearing that? Weren’t you supposed to register at the dorms today?” My heart ached, but I forced a reassuring smile and lied. “My classes don’t start for another two weeks, Mom. I’m just doing some food delivery to earn extra pocket money.” I pushed the pouch back into her hands. “I have money. And you’re my mother. Even if I leave, I’m taking you with me.” Tears welled in her eyes. “You’re such a good girl, sweetheart. I’m so sorry I ruined your life.” “If there is a next life, promise me you’ll be born to a better mother. Don’t choose someone like me.” I frowned, cutting her off gently. “Mom, stop talking like that. I’m going to the cafeteria to get us some dinner. Stay here and be good, okay?” She nodded, looking small in her bed. But as I walked back down the hall with a tray of food, I ran straight into Ruby. She was resting her hand on her flat stomach, a smug, venomous smile on her lips. “Izzy. I have wonderful news. You’re going to have a little brother.” “Charles hasn’t stopped trying for eighteen years, and all those fertility treatments finally paid off.” I stared at her coldly. “Congratulations. Now get out of my way, I need to feed my mother.” Ruby covered her mouth, letting out a soft, mocking laugh. “Oh, I don’t think you need to worry about that anymore.” My chest tightened. She let out a cruel, airy giggle. “Your mother is in the ICU right now. I don’t think she has much of an appetite.” The plastic tray slipped from my hands, shattering on the tile floor. I bolted toward the emergency wing. Just as I arrived, the double doors swung open, and the doctor stepped out, removing his surgical mask. He offered me a grim, apologetic bow. “Isabel… I’m so sorry. The blunt force trauma to her skull was too severe. We did everything we could.” My world shattered into a thousand silent pieces. In a blind, suffocating rage, I lunged forward, grabbing Ruby by her collar and screaming, “What did you do to her?!” She didn’t even flinch. She just smiled, her voice dripping with artificial innocence. “I only told her the truth, Izzy. I told her that I tore up your college acceptance letter and took all your money. I told her you had to drop out of school to pay her bills. She got so hysterical she threw herself headfirst against the concrete wall.” My fingers trembled, every fiber of my being wanting to strangle the life out of her. “Isabel! Stop it right now!” A heavy hand ripped me away. My father stood there, shielding Ruby, his eyes blazing with fury. “Is is how Margot raised you? To assault your elders? To have absolutely no respect?” “If I had known you’d turn out like this, I would have never let her give birth to you.” His words were a jagged blade, twisting into the last remaining pieces of my heart. This face—the face my mother had loved more than her own life—was utterly monstrous. I let out a wet, hollow laugh, tears burning my eyes. “Dad… she killed her…” “Oh, Charles, my stomach… it hurts so much. I think I’m losing the baby!” Ruby gasped, collapsing into his arms. Panic seized my father. He scooped her up in his arms, running down the hall without looking back, leaving me alone with my mother’s ghost. A nurse stepped up beside me, placing a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Isabel… right before your mother lost consciousness, she asked me to give you a message.” “She said she didn’t want to be a burden to you anymore. She hid a life insurance policy in the second drawer of her bedside table. She wants you to take the payout and go to college.” I wheeled my mother’s sheet-covered body toward the morgue, sobbing uncontrollably. Suddenly, my phone rang. On the screen, the eighteen-year-old version of my mother was pale, her face stripped of all color, but her jaw was set with fierce determination. “Izzy, you were right. Charles told me he had to work late tonight.” “I was planning to surprise him with some homemade soup. That must have been how I caught them in your timeline.” “I threw the soup out. I’m at the airport. My flight to Austin, Texas leaves in thirty minutes.” I wiped my tears, a broken, hysterical laugh escaping my throat. “That’s wonderful, Mom! You’re free! You’re finally free!” But as she looked at me, she noticed the white sheet draped over the gurney behind me. Her eyes widened in horror. “Izzy… what is that?” I told her the truth. I told her everything. Her voice shook with a terrible, violent grief. “Sweetheart, don’t worry. I swear to you, I will never let that happen again.” Suddenly, the gurney was blocked. A sharp, stinging slap cracked across my face, sending me stumbling. I looked up to see my father, his face contorted in absolute rage. “Isabel, did your mother tell you to poison the cake? Is that why Ruby is having an allergic reaction?” “Ruby is hemorrhaging. Call your mother right now. We need her for a blood transfusion.” I cupped my burning cheek, staring at him. With all the strength I had left, I pushed the gurney directly into his chest. “Here,” I whispered, my voice dripping with venom. “Here she is. Take her.” My father’s scowl deepened, his teeth grinding together. “Do you think I’m an idiot? Your mother was just spotted out with another man, and now you’re playing dead?” He pulled out his phone, shoving a social media post in my face. On the screen, a photo from today showed my mother smiling radiantly, snuggled into the arms of a handsome man. The caption read: Snuck out of the psych ward. Finally realized what real happiness feels like. In my earbud, my mother’s voice was sharp with panic. “My body is right there! How could I post that? That’s Ruby’s doing. She must have used AI to fake that photo!” “Izzy, pull back the sheet! Show him! Show him my body!” I let out a tired, cynical laugh. It was always the same tricks. Ruby had used them for eighteen years. Whenever my mother went to therapy, Ruby rumored she was sleeping with her therapist. When my mother got into a car accident, Ruby claimed she was too busy staring at a handsome pedestrian to watch the road. And Charles believed every single lie. He was the one who personally signed the papers to put her on the electroshock table. “You like men so much? Let’s see if a few hundred volts can cure your cravings,” he had sneered. My mother had screamed all night. And I had sat outside the steel door, listening to every single volt tear through her brain. My chest burned with the memory of that agonizing pain. Charles stood before me, laughing coldly. “What’s the matter? Forgot to coordinate your stories? Or did Margot forget to give you your script?” In my ear, my young mother was crying out. “Izzy, pull the sheet down! No matter how much he hates me, he won’t be able to deny the truth when he sees me!” She was still so young. She still held onto a shred of naive hope that there was a shred of humanity left in him. I sighed and pulled the white sheet down. Charles froze. Every muscle in his body turned to stone. “Margot?” His hand trembled, his fingers reaching out to touch her cold, grey cheek. Suddenly, a hand yanked at his sleeve. Ruby was sitting in a wheelchair, pushed by a nurse. Her face was pale, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Charles… the nurse told me a few days ago that Margot ordered a hyper-realistic silicone doll of her own corpse. I didn’t believe it, but she actually did it… just to get out of saving me.” “Even if she hates me, she didn’t have to curse herself like this…” “Charles, let her go. My baby and I don’t need her blood. I’d rather buy a coffin and bury us both.” Ruby sobbed, trying to turn the wheelchair away, but Charles grabbed her. His eyes turned incredibly cold as he looked back at me. “I didn’t think your mother could stoop this low. If she won’t give her blood, then you will.” “She claims to love you so much. Let’s see how long she can hide while her daughter bleeds for us.” He grabbed my arm, dragging me toward the clinic room. In my ear, my young mother’s screams were deafening. “No! Charles, don’t touch my daughter! Let her go!” But he didn’t hear her. He pinned me to the chair, and the cold needle slid into my vein. He took my blood and rushed back to Ruby. I collapsed onto the cold, tiled floor, draining of strength. In my ear, my mother was weeping, her heart breaking over the static of eighteen years. A generic airport announcement crackled in the background of her call. “Final boarding call for Flight 442 to Austin. All remaining passengers please proceed to gate 12 immediately.” As my vision began to fade into black, a small, genuine smile touched my lips. “Congratulations, Mom,” I whispered. “You’re finally free.”
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