My mother was a liar. When I was eight years old, she told me she was going to the big city to work. She said she was going to save up for my college tuition and would come back once I graduated. "Chloe, sweetheart, you have to be a good girl for Grandma." I clutched the hem of her jacket, tears streaming down my face. "Mom, please don't go." She wiped my tears away. "Don't be silly. Mom will buy you sweet taffy and pretty floral dresses. Just be good, and I'll be back before you know it." Grandma stood at the doorway, wiping her eyes with her apron. But after my mother left, she never came back. There was no sweet taffy, and there were no pretty floral dresses. The only proof that she was still alive was the meager allowance wired to Grandma’s savings account every month. Grandma always said, "Your mother is having a hard time. She's suffering out there in the city to support us. Don't resent her." I didn't resent her. I just missed her so much. Ten years flew by. I was eighteen, a senior in high school. Grandma was getting old. Her back was bent like the old weeping willow at the edge of our driveway, and her steps were shaky. She would often sit on the porch, staring down the road that led out of our small town, her cloudy eyes filled with endless yearning. "Your mom... she should be coming home soon, right?" She would mutter to herself, sometimes asking me, sometimes asking the wind. I would lay down my study guides, walk over, and gently massage her shoulders. "Yeah. She'll be back soon." I whispered the reply, but my heart felt like it was pressed under a cold, waterlogged stone. Ten years. She hadn't returned even once. Her phone calls had grown fewer and farther between. It went from once a month, to once every three months, and finally, to just a brief call on my birthday every year. "Happy birthday, Chloe. Study hard." The background noise was always deafening—sometimes sounding like a noisy construction site, other times like a roaring factory assembly line. Her voice was always exhausted, raspy, and heavy with fatigue. She would hang up after just a few hurried sentences. I once asked her, "Mom, when are you coming home?" She would always give a vague answer. "Soon. Just after this busy season... Do you have enough money? Tell me if you need more..." Then came the notification sound of the bank transfer. She seemed to believe that money could make up for everything. Grandma's health got worse and worse. She coughed violently and could never sleep peacefully at night. I begged her to go to the hospital, but she always shook her head. "It’s just an old ache. Why waste money on that? Your mother works so hard for every dollar..." Every penny she saved went into buying my SAT prep books, fresh groceries, and a warm winter coat. Yet, she herself still wore the old clothes my mother had left behind ten years ago, patching them up over and over again. Under the dim light, I watched Grandma hunching over, using her rough, calloused hands to stitch a tear in my school hoodie. Her fingers looked as dry and cracked as tree bark. My heart ached terribly. I had torn that hoodie earlier that day while helping our neighbor, Mrs. Gable, unload heavy grocery crates. Mrs. Gable had slipped me two warm, homemade blueberry muffins and whispered, "Chloe, don't push yourself too hard. Your grandma... is relying on you." I knew. I knew better than anyone. I had been holding this house together for a long time. The money my mother sent was never enough. I spent my weekends working at the local diner, and my summers picking berries on the farm. My hands were covered in layers of calluses. But I never told my mother any of this. She already sounded so tired over the phone. Three months before my final exams, Grandma collapsed. She was coughing up blood. The local clinic doctor looked grim and told me to get her to the county hospital immediately. I was terrified and completely lost. For the first time in my life, I initiated a call to my mother. The phone rang for a long time before someone picked up. The background was loud, filled with the roar of heavy machinery. "Hello? Chloe?" My mother’s voice was breathless, as if she was running. "Mom... Grandma is coughing up blood..." I sobbed into the receiver. There was a sudden silence on the other end, followed by even heavier breathing. "Coughing up blood? Is it bad? Have you seen a doctor?" "The clinic doctor said we need to go to the county hospital... Mom, I'm so scared..." I couldn't hold it in anymore and burst into tears. My mother's voice instantly shot up, filled with a panic and sharpness I had never heard before. "Don't be scared! Chloe, listen to me! Get Grandma to the county hospital right now! I... I'll wire you the money immediately! Find the best doctor! Use the best medicine! If it's not enough, just tell me! We have to save her!" She spoke so fast she was almost incoherent. Before I could say anything else, she hung up. A few minutes later, my phone pinged. A massive wire transfer had arrived—far exceeding any amount she had sent in the past ten years.
I froze. A tiny, dark doubt began to creep into my mind. What kind of job could allow her to pull out so much cash in an instant? But Grandma's condition didn't give me time to think. I asked Mrs. Gable to watch the house, hired a local driver, and rushed Grandma to the county hospital that very night. Tests, admission, medical bills. The money my mother sent flowed out like water. The doctor said it was severe physical exhaustion, a critical lung infection, and other complications. She needed long-term care and rest. I stayed by Grandma's bedside, looking at her thin, pale face. Holding her hand, I whispered over and over, "Grandma, you're going to get better. Mom sent the money. We're using the best medicine..." Grandma opened her hazy eyes weakly, her voice barely a whisper. "Don't... don't tell your mother... don't make her worry... She has it so hard..." My tears fell onto the back of her hand. Even at a time like this, the only person she cared about was the daughter who hadn't returned in ten years. Grandma's condition fluctuated, and she ended up staying in the hospital for over a month. My mother wired money several more times, each amount larger than the last. Whenever I called to update her on Grandma's health, she would answer in a rush. The background was always a chaotic mess of noise. She would ask a few quick questions, tell me to "use the best medicine" and "don't save on expenses," and then hang up. She didn't even ask how my studies were going. It was as if she believed money could solve everything. A week before my final exams, Grandma's condition finally stabilized, and she was cleared to recover at home. I brought her back, settled her in, and then locked myself in my room, studying like crazy. I had to get into college. I had to get out of this town. I had to... find my mother myself and get some answers. The day of my final exams, the weather was beautiful. Walking out of the exam room, I felt like I had just survived a brutal battle. When I got home, Grandma was in high spirits and had made me a bowl of pasta. "My Chloe is definitely going to pass," she smiled, her wrinkles blooming like warm autumn flowers. As I ate the pasta, my heart felt both sweet and incredibly heavy. When it came time to submit my college choices, I didn't hesitate. Every single college I applied to was in the city my mother’s money orders came from—New York. Based on the blurry address on the wire receipts, that massive, unfamiliar metropolis was my only lead. When the acceptance letters came, I got a full scholarship offer from a top university in New York. Grandma laughed and cried at the same time, clutching my hands. "Good, good... You'll finally get to see your mother... Tell her not to work so hard. Tell her we are doing just fine at home..." I hugged the acceptance letter, a storm of emotions raging inside me. The night before I left for New York, I was packing my bags. Grandma fumbled around and pulled out a thick cloth pouch. She unwrapped it layer by layer to reveal a stack of crumpled bills—mostly fives, ones, and a handful of quarters. "Take this. The city is expensive... Don't starve yourself..." She shoved the money into my hand. It was warm with the heat of her palm. I knew this was money she had saved dollar by dollar, quarter by quarter. It felt a thousand times heavier than the massive transfers my mother had sent. My nose stung. I tried to push it back. "Grandma, I have money. Mom sent plenty..." "That's your mother’s hard-earned money. It’s different... This is from me..." she insisted, her thin, frail hand surprisingly strong. In the end, I took the pouch, but I secretly slid it back under her pillow before I left. The next day, I boarded the Greyhound bus to New York. I watched the farmlands, small towns, and mountains fade away outside the window. I was moving further from the only home I knew, and closer to the mother who lived in a web of lies. I was excited, but I was also terrified. Excited to see her. Terrified that she wouldn’t be the mother I had imagined. New York was massive and overwhelming. The towering skyscrapers and endless traffic made my head spin. Following the blurry address on the wire receipts, I eventually found an old, gritty industrial area. The address pointed to a run-down walk-up apartment building. The stairwell was dark, cluttered with trash, and smelled heavily of mold. I knocked on the rusted iron door. My heart was pounding against my ribs. The door creaked open.
A woman with messy hair, wearing a cheap bathrobe and holding a half-burnt cigarette, poked her head out. She looked at me with annoyance. "Who are you looking for?" I stared at her, frozen. It wasn't my mother. My heart sank. "Is Sarah living here?" I asked, using my mother's name. The woman sized me up, her eyes filled with suspicion and judgment. "Sarah? She moved out ages ago! Left without paying months of rent! What are you to her?" She ran away? Left unpaid rent? My brain went completely numb. "Do... do you know where she went?" "How should I know?" The woman blew a cloud of smoke and scoffed. "She didn't look like she had any money anyway. Working multiple jobs just to act rich. I heard she was trying to put a daughter through college or something." I couldn't hear a single word after that. "Multiple jobs," "acting rich," "putting a daughter through college"... Those words pierced my ears like sharp needles. What kind of life was my mother actually living? Wasn't she constantly sending us huge sums of money? How could she have fled from unpaid rent? Where on earth was she? Standing on that unfamiliar street, watching the crowd rush past, I felt utterly lost and helpless for the first time in my life. My mother was gone. In a city of millions, I had lost my only lead. I had no choice but to report to my university first. I started my college life just like any other freshman. Except, there was a heavy boulder weighing down on my chest every single day. I used all my spare time to work. Tutoring, handing out flyers, waiting tables at restaurants. I wanted to earn my own living. I couldn't take my mother’s money anymore. Not that she had sent any more transfers anyway. I even began to question how she had made those massive sums of money in the first place. But I was too afraid to dig deeper into that thought. Occasionally, I would call Grandma. She would always ask, "Did you see your mother? How is she? Did she gain some weight, or is she skinnier?" Holding the phone, my throat would tighten, and I could only lie. "Yes... I saw her. She's great... Just very busy with work... She’ll come back with me during the holidays..." The moment I hung up, my tears would fall uncontrollably. "Mom, where are you?" Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. I gradually adjusted to city life and made some new friends. But I never stopped looking for her. I visited job centers, asked employment agencies, and even kept an eye on missing person flyers on the streets. Nothing. She had vanished like a drop of water in the ocean. One weekend during the spring semester, I was working at a high-end restaurant in Manhattan. It was an expensive place, filled with wealthy, well-dressed people. I was carrying a heavy tray, carefully navigating through the tables. And then, I saw her. She was sitting by the window. She wore an elegant emerald green velvet dress, her hair pinned up beautifully, her makeup flawless. She was laughing softly, talking to a distinguished-looking middle-aged man in a tailored suit. The profile of her face was so gentle, so painfully familiar. It felt like a lightning strike. The tray in my hands nearly crashed to the floor. "Mom?" "Is that my mother?" The mother in my memory wore washed-out clothes, had dry, rough skin, and carried an air of permanent exhaustion. The mother who hadn't come home in ten years because she was supposedly "suffering to make ends meet"? How could this be... She looked so elegant, so poised, as if she had belonged to this wealthy world her entire life. The man sitting with her looked rich and influential. The intimacy between them didn't look like a casual friendship. A horrible, poisonous thought crawled into my mind. She had lied to Grandma.
She had lied to me. She had lied to everyone. She wasn't working hard or suffering at all. She was... with a rich man? Living a life of luxury? Is that why she hadn't come home for ten years? Is that why she neglected us, throwing money at us just to keep us quiet? Those massive wire transfers... were they all from this man? No wonder... No wonder she could suddenly send so much cash... A wave of intense anger and the agonizing sting of betrayal washed over me. Blood rushed to my head, and my vision went dark. I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper. I couldn't go over there. I couldn't tear open this ugly truth in a place like this. Stiffening my back, I turned around and practically fled to the kitchen. "What's wrong? You look pale," the manager asked with concern. I shook my head, my voice trembling. "I'm... I'm fine. Just felt a bit dizzy." I asked to leave early. Stepping out of the restaurant, the afternoon sun was blindingly bright, but I felt freezing cold. I walked down the street like a ghost, my mind in complete chaos. The image of her in that emerald green velvet dress and the memory of her walking away in her ragged clothes ten years ago clashed violently in my head, suffocating me. "Mom." "My dear mother." "So this is the 'faraway place' you worked so hard in. This is your 'suffering.'" "Then what about Grandma and me?" "What were we to you?" "Just some shameful baggage you left in the countryside?" "Did you send money just to ease your guilty conscience?" Tears blurred my vision. I squatted on the busy sidewalk, buried my face in my knees, and sobbed silently. I didn't confront her right away. Instead, like a pathetic detective, I started tracking her. I found out the places she frequented: that restaurant, an upscale art gallery, a high-end yoga studio. And... that man’s house, a beautiful, multi-million-dollar brownstone in the heart of the city. She was living a wonderful life. A thousand times, ten thousand times better than mine. She would hold his arm, walking in and out of luxury establishments with a graceful smile on her face. She looked so happy. It was blindingly painful to watch. Every time I followed her, it felt like a slow execution of my heart. My longing for her slowly distorted into hatred and resentment. "Why?" "Why did you abandon us?" "Why did you lie to us?" If you were living such a great life, why didn't you visit Grandma even once? Grandma missed you so much! If you had so much money, why did you always act so exhausted over the phone? Was it guilt? Or shame? Or did you think we weren't worthy of being part of your glamorous new life? Countless questions swirled in my head, tightening like a noose until I could barely breathe. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. One evening, I watched her get out of the man’s car and walk alone into a nearby park. Taking a deep breath, I followed her. The park was quiet, the setting sun casting long shadows on the grass. She sat down on a bench, watching some children playing in the distance. In the twilight, her face looked soft, but also... incredibly lonely. I stepped closer, my heart beating so hard it felt like it would burst out of my chest. I stopped right in front of her. Sensing someone's presence, she looked up. The moment her eyes met mine, her expression froze. Surprise, panic, disbelief, and a trace of... sheer terror? She stood up abruptly, her lips trembling. "Ch... Chloe? Why are you here?"
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