Buck, acting like a bootlicker, tried to soothe her while turning on me with anger.
“Beulah, are you even human right now? The child in my wife’s belly is a Gillberg. Don’t you have the same last name? Shouldn’t a family help one another?”
“Stop whining,” he said with finality. “You have two choices: quit your job and take care of Mom and your sister-in-law, or hand over 30,000 dollars so we can hire a nanny. You don’t get any other options!”
I snorted coldly. “Just because I have the same family name, you think you can dump responsibilities that aren’t mine onto me? Fine. Tomorrow, I’ll go change my last name! I don’t care about that damn family name, nor do I like it!”
Mom, clutching her chest as if she were about to have a heart attack, hurled a string of vicious curses at me and then hissed her threat.
“If you don’t hand over the money, I’ll ruin your job! That job of yours—didn’t you win it against twenty thousand other applicants? I don’t believe you don’t care about it!”
See? She always knew exactly how to grab me by the throat.
I gave a bitter little laugh.