When Serena reached for her wallet over lunch break today, she noticed the credit card was back side up, revealing her CVC number for all to see. She flipped it back.
It wasn’t anything to fret over, yet she took time to wonder what led to this oversight? Also, her wallet sat in the middle of her handbag for all to take, rather than in its side pocket.
The bakery soon replaced this wondering. With Jacob sticking around longer, and his avid love for cycling, she wondered if he could be their delivery-man. The role fitted like a glove, but it was a huge ask, and working with loved ones was often a recipe for disaster.
In the end, she decided not to.
Today was a slow day, which gave her enough downtime to play with the hamsters. She fed them a few seeds, and watched as held it with both arms, nibbling on it with their tiny mouths. It never failed to make her smile. Gen named the one she fed ‘Sunflower’, after its favourite seed. Gen named the rest of them, too.
Cheryl came to watch, informing them that the company had paid them their salaries. Serena whipped her phone out to check, but only found one-fifth of it.
“Where’s the rest of it?” She nudged Cheryl. “I only got like one-fifth.”
“It should all be there. I got mine in full.” Cheryl said. Gen and Kelly supported this, too.
Serena viewed her transaction history, and her face went white. Last midnight, a transfer of nine hundred dollars was made to somewhere in India. It took four-fifths of her salary to recuperate this loss.
Yet there was nothing to recuperate the loss she would incur this month from the reduced salary. Fuck.
“Nevermind, I misread the account balance.” She lied and excused herself to the restroom to curse some more. Where the hell was her money?
She called customer support for help. No, she had not given her credit card details to anyone recently; she protected it with her life. No, no one else could’ve had access to her card; she refused to let anyone touch it, not even Wei Xiang. Yes, she remembered it clearly; she did not make this transfer.
The bank informed her they’d start an investigation on this matter, and advised her to freeze her card as a safety precaution. She did just that.
Underneath her credit card in the next slot was the polaroid. She soaked it in, and wondered how to break the bad news.
Then it hit her.
She summoned Alicia into her room that night, working to make herself sound sterner. It silenced the girl’s typical protests.
“I got my salary today.” She started, “But when I checked my balance, I was nine hundred dollars short.”
“Turn the air purifier on.”
“I’ll do it later. Pay attention! And look me in the eye, this is serious stuff. I checked my transaction’s history, and turns out there was a transfer of nine hundred dollars from my account to India. Do you know anything about that?”
She shook her head as if a lizard fell on it.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded, still trying to shake the lizard off.
“Because I’m gonna call the police to report this, and whoever who did this will go to jail. Understand?”
Alicia flinched, which told Serena all she needed to know. Silence stuck to them like glue, wads of it plugging their voice and holding them in place.
The girl ping-ponged between wanting to say something, then deciding against it, before regretting not speaking up sooner. Her head bobbed to and fro on this fence.
Serena waited. She refused to believe it from anyone but her. An eternity passed before Alicia mumbled something. From her lips, it seemed like she said, “I’m sorry.”
“Why!” Though she still refused to believe it, she cried as if she had already did. “Do you have any idea how bad this is? We’re gonna have nothing to eat for this month! Why would you do this?”
Another eternity passes. It took that long for a tear to roll down her face.
“Who did you transfer the money to? Why is it to India?”
“Dad is coming to Singapore tonight.”
Everything in Serena stopped. Blood, pulse, sweat, voice, as if she was frozen in time.
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“I found him, and he already told me the true story of what happened!”
Serena would never forget what Alicia said next.
“You are a drug dealer.”
Her entire life flashed before her eyes. Every face she’d ever seen stared back at her and said those five words at once from every place she’d ever been in.
He started the rumour amongst her class. Her classmates spread it to the entire school. Her teachers believed them, because a school was more credible than a single student; they will never admit they expelled her for this reason.
It made abandoning her, rejecting her, and cutting ties with her the easiest thing in the world. In fact, it was harder not to, and only Wei Xiang chose the harder option.
This turned Fate into her sworn nemesis. This turned her unemployable, poor, homeless, unmarried, lonely. This turned her daughter against her.
At the precise moment when the light within Alicia’s eyes went out, Serena saw that look. The pupil drowning the iris in its inky blackness until no light remained.
Those eyes used to be something different ever since they first opened. It glimmered under the hospital lights, and took its first view of the world; her. It didn’t understand who, why or what she was; it only knew she was safe. She was home. So, the baby closed those eyes as Serena held her, knowing it was safe in her arms to drift back to sleep.
“Congratulations, it’s a girl.” A nurse told her, offering her tissues to wipe her tears, “What will you name her?”
Serena waited until those eyes opened again to decide. “Xin Yi, and her English name will be Alicia.”
Her dear Alicia.
It came out of nowhere, and it came from everywhere. She didn’t mean to, and she definitely did. She swiped her hand across Alicia’s face, slapping that look out of her. Those were not her daughter’s eyes.
She never wanted Alicia to look at her again.
“You slapped me! You’re my Mom!”
Infants did not understood the concept of emotions, and what to feel under what circumstances. Hence, when they injured themselves, they looked to their mother for guidance. If their mother laughed, they did. If their mother cried, they did.
Alicia looked at her mother and cried.
“Who told you that fucking nonsense? Who is this fucking idiot posing as him?”
“He’s not posing! I verified his identity! He is real!”
“Give me your phone. Now.”
“No!”
Slapping didn’t work, so Serena tried pinching the ear. She dragged Alicia to her room and threw her on the bed.
“Where is it?”
Alicia said nothing. Fine by her.
She grabbed the first thing on her desk and threw it on the floor. It was a pencil, and it snapped in two. Next, a calculator. Shards of electronics ricocheted off the floor the way porcelain plates would; a violent death. Next, a pen. A book. Another pencil. A desk shelf…
Then she found it, hidden under her homework. After she tore said homework to shreds, she took that disgusting screen and threw it out the window.
Alicia shrieked and tried pulling her away. Fine by her, she was just leaving. She dragged the girl to the couch and pinned her there.
“Who told you I was a drug dealer?”
Alicia threw a tantrum, beating her own head again. Not on her watch. Serena held her hands back and leaned in closer.
“Who!”
Alicia continued screaming and thrashing (or at least tried to) about. Not a word went in. Serena slapped her again, harder this time. It got her to stop.
“Who told you that nonsense?” She asked over and over, getting louder each time.
“You did.” Alicia said at last. “You said you didn’t do those things anymore! That means you did it before, and you didn’t tell me! You liar!”
She slapped her again. “You dare call me a liar? When you stole your phone back without telling me, and now you’re stealing my money! Where did you learn all this shit from, huh? It must be that Kat, right? You must’ve learnt all these horrible things from her! And I told you, I told you to stay away from her, but no! You invite her over and cook her instant noodles! You call her every day and waste your entire June holidays playing games with her and now look at your grades! You really want to fail O’Levels, don’t you? You really hate going to uni, don’t you? You just want to exit secondary school with nothing and just start working immediately! Uneducated, unqualified for any proper job, with no future! You really like working in a pet store, don’t you?”
She swallowed the gallons of saliva frothing in her mouth, and before Alicia even dared to cut an insolent word in, she continued.
“I gave up my life for you! I threw away med school for you! I could’ve started a clinic like Wei Xiang, or worked in a hospital! I could’ve got married, and then decide to have kids! That way, I’ll know it isn’t you! Maybe life wouldn’t be so hard anymore! But I threw it away, and all I get is you calling me a drug dealer and a liar? Wipe that disgusting smile off your face.” She said that, despite knowing Alicia wasn’t smiling. “You think you can get anywhere without me? You think you can last a single day without me? Huh? Giving you a house to live in, a bed to sleep on, clothes to wear, wonton noodles to eat!”
Alicia whimpered like an injured puppy.
“I should have never had you! And you should learn to respect the fucking woman who gave birth to you!”
She Wasn’t Done. She stormed out to the laundry rack and took a clothes hanger. Then, just as Alicia tried to run, she corner her back to the couch and beat her.
Again, and again, and again…
Old Serena went too soft on her; new Serena will not.