“She can’t talk, Mother!” I shouted. “Then she doesn’t get cake!” Linda snapped.
“I’m not cleaning up crumbs from a… a broken thing. She can have a cracker if she’s hungry.”
Something inside me snapped. It wasn’t a loud break.
It was a quiet, terrifying severance of the last thread holding me to this family. I reached across the table and grabbed the knife handle. “Give me the knife.
I will cut it for her.”
My mother’s eyes flashed with a sudden, manic rage. She was losing control, and Linda hated losing control. “I said NO!”
SMACK!
The sound was like a gunshot in the small room. My mother had backhanded me across the face. Her ring caught my cheekbone, scratching the skin.
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