Disclaimer: I own the characters and the idea of this one-shot, though I do not own the Joy Luck Club.
No one knew why my mother had died. My Mother's husband said she was so busy, she forgot to breathe, my grandparents that she had had so much on her mind, her head had exploded. The doctors could not find what was wrong with her: it was a miraculous appearance of the disease, and a sudden death. Me? I believe she died of despair.
You know how they say terrible thoughts can eat away at you? Or that if you bottle up your emotions, you might explode? It was like that. You see, the night before her sickness, she had told me something. That day I had only laughed like an annoying teen, but now I see it all.
**
It was not long ago, she had said. I had met your father for our nineteenth anniversary at a fancy restaurant; too fancy for us. When we sat down, I asked him how he could afford such a wonderful place; he only grunted, and I forgot about my question. The meal was wonderful! So good, I have no words to describe it. There were the appetizers: large shrimp with the thickest sauce you ever seen. The main was steak. It juiced pink over my plate and it felt as if the small pieced melted in my mouth. It was not until dessert, while we were eating the darkest, sweetest apple pie, that our waiter brought over the bill.
I almost choked on my pie as I took in the large number.
But—I asked him. –how are we going to pay for that?
Your father merely smiled and waved his credit card, saying he had received a bonus today. I was so glad for your father I did not realize the credit card he handed the waiter was not his, not that the waiter did not ask for his identification.
**
"Your father is a bad man," my mother had warned.
"Oh, mom…you are so paranoid," I laughed; I was only eighteen.
**
It was my ignorance that had sparked my mother's disease: it was my fault. If only I had believed her. If I had not laughed and had heeded her warning, I would not have followed in my Mother's husband's footsteps. My mother would be alive, and I would not be sitting alone, destined to rot in a cold cell at the jail house.