You Refused My Tuition, Now Beg Me to Save Your Life

01

My mother favored sons over daughters.

When my brother scraped a 60 on a test, she'd reward him with new sneakers.

When I came home with perfect scores, every single time, I couldn't even get a plate of braised pot roast.

The year of the SATs, I scored near-perfect and got into an Ivy League school.

I ran to tell her the good news, thrilled. She just looked at me with disgust and said, "What good is it for a money-drain like you to get into the Ivy League? You'll only end up married off to some other family anyway. If you want to go to school, figure it out yourself. This family won't put in a single cent!"

I thought she was joking.

It wasn't until the day I went to register for classes that I realized she meant it.

But that time, I didn't drop to my knees and beg her like before.

I took out student loans instead.

Years later, my mother lay gravely ill, paralyzed in bed, begging me to save her.

I calmly pushed my glasses up and said, "Mom, this money-drain got married. I have to think of my husband's family. Better go find your precious eldest son to save you."

The words were barely out when she started thrashing violently on the bed.

Her withered hand flailed toward me, a wheezing rasp leaking from her throat. "Nia... my good daughter... Mom was wrong... Mom was foolish before, you save Mom... save Mom, won't you..."

I stood a yard from the bed, looking at this woman who had once ground me into the dirt.

I felt nothing.

If she hadn't tracked down where I worked and come sobbing and shouting to camp outside my department door, I don't think I'd ever have seen her again in this life.

I glanced down at my watch. Ten past two in the afternoon.

Half an hour before I was due in the OR.

I couldn't be bothered to waste more time on her, so I said flatly, "Be specific. If you want me to save you, what exactly do you want me to do? Pay the money? Or use my connections to find a specialist for the surgery?"

She hadn't expected me to be so blunt.

She froze for a second, then a flicker of hope broke across her eyes.

"Nia! I knew you were still a good, dutiful girl! Here's what we'll do. You get your chief to do the surgery for me, and as for the cost, you front it first, and once your brother has money later he'll"

"Stop." I cut her off with a wave of my hand before she could finish.

"Getting our chief to operate, the surgery alone is at least two hundred thousand, plus post-op care and the ICU. It'll run to three hundred thousand at minimum. Legally, yes, I do have a duty to support you. I'll pay half. But the other half has to come from my brother."

The light on her face went out at once.

She mumbled under her breath, "Your brother... your brother really can't come up with the money right now... He just enrolled your nephew in a private elementary school last month, and he's in debt too. Nia, you make over twenty thousand a month now, your family's well off, three hundred thousand is nothing to you. Why are you so fixed on your brother..."

"I'm not fixed on him. I'm stating a fact." My face didn't change.

"This family hasn't spent one cent on me since I started college. Me standing here talking to you about this at all is already more than fair. I'd advise you not to push your luck."

The moment I finished, she started up again, whimpering on the bed.

She wailed at the top of her lungs, saying I had no conscience, that I'd grown my wings and forgotten where I came from.

It didn't take long to draw a crowd of patients' families, all craning to watch, pointing our way.

I'd long since gotten used to this routine of hers.

When she was young she loved making scenes like this at the mouth of the alley, guilt-tripping me.

Saying I was ungrateful. Saying I'd been raised for nothing.

Back then my face would burn, and I'd have given anything for a crack in the floor to crawl into.

But after all these years, she'd trained me until nothing could touch me.

I folded my arms and leaned against the wall, and I just watched her cry.

Only when she'd tired herself out did I speak, slow and unhurried. "I have half an hour before I'm in the OR. I don't have time to sit through your sob act. I'll say it one last time. I can cover half. The other half has to come from my brother. If he won't pay, then you can keep lying here wearing it out. Counting on me to pay the whole thing isn't going to happen, so give it up." And with that, I turned and left.

She slapped the bed and cursed me for being unfilial, but I didn't stop, walking toward my office without looking back.

Because I knew.

The price of giving in wouldn't be gratitude. It would be an abyss where she bled me dry for the rest of my life.

I had just gotten back to my office when the phone in my pocket started buzzing.

I pulled it out and saw it was my brother, Chester Whitney.

I hit decline without a second thought.

I had a surgery starting any minute now, and I did not want him messing with my head at a time like this.

But he wouldn't give up. Call after call, one right after another.

Finally he sent a long voice message threatening me: "Scarlett! Mom told me everything. You won't front the medical fees and you'd rather watch her die. Let me tell you, if you don't hand over that money today, I'll go straight to your hospital bosses and raise hell, so everyone can see exactly what kind of cold-blooded thing their Deputy Chief of Surgery really is!"

I looked at those words and couldn't help laughing.

After all these years, mother and son were still exactly the same.

Shameless when they wanted something, cool as anything when they made their threats.

As if I owed them the whole world.

I didn't answer. I just switched the phone to silent, shoved it into my locker, and turned to head for the operating room.

Believe me, I would have loved to have it out with them.

But this surgery held the life of a fifteen-year-old boy.

I wasn't going to gamble with a patient's life.

If I wanted to fight it out with them, it could wait until after I'd finished the operation.

By the time the surgery was over, four hours had passed.

When I peeled off my scrubs and walked out, I felt like I might fall apart.

The moment I reached the nurses' station, the head nurse started shooting me looks, eyes flicking nonstop.

"Dr. Whitney, your brother's been waiting in your office for ages. Says it's urgent."

I nodded and kept walking toward my office.

I'd known all along that Chester would come.

Him not showing up would have been the strange thing.

What I hadn't expected was that a few years apart would leave Chester this unhinged.

I'd barely pushed the door open when he snatched the teacup off the desk and hurled it at me.

Luckily my reflexes were quick enough, and I twisted aside from it.

Otherwise a hit like that would have laid me up for two weeks.

The cup smashed against the door with a crash, shards of porcelain scattering all over the floor.

I gripped the door frame and closed my eyes, forcing down the fury boiling up inside me, and asked Chester, "Chester, have you lost your mind? Are you trying to kill me?"

He stood in front of my desk, eyes red, jabbing his finger at my face. "Scarlett, I think you're the one who's lost it! Mom's lying in bed, barely holding on, and you've still got it in you to do surgery? I'm asking youwhy didn't you pick up my calls!"

I slowly pulled the mask down off my face, showing him an expression so calm it was blank.

"First, I'm a doctor. Saving lives in surgery is my job. Second, I never said I wouldn't help. I only asked you to pay half. Third, whether or not I take your calls is my business, and I don't owe you an explanation."

My answer left Chester stunned for a second, and then he got even more worked up, stamping his feet. "That's your own mother! Since when do you split it, half for you and half for me? Now you're wearing a white coat, playing doctor, living the good life. Paying for Mom's surgery wouldn't dent your life one bit. I just drive for a ride-hailing service. Where am I supposed to get a hundred and fifty grand? You're trying to push me to my death!"

"Earning less isn't a reason to squeeze me." I walked to the water cooler and drew a cup of warm water, saying it without expression.

"From the time I got into the Ivy League at eighteen, this family never spent another cent on me. This good life of mine, I paid for it with everything I had. It didn't come from the Whitneys. You ate off this family, wore what this family bought, Mom covered your down payment, Mom helped raise your son. Asking you for a hundred and fifty grand is already letting you off easy. Take my advicedon't push it. Push me too far, and I won't put a single cent toward Mom's medical fees."

"You!" Chester couldn't get another word out for the longest time.

When the guilt-tripping got him nowhere, he switched straight to making a scene.

He dropped down onto the floor and started slapping his thighs and crying. "Come look, everybody! Scarlett, this heartless creatureher own mother's in the hospital needing surgery, and she's got the money but won't pay for treatment, forcing her big brother who drives a ride-hailing car to come up with a hundred and fifty grand. The dogs must've eaten her conscience!"

Chester had always had a big mouth on him.

With him wailing like that, within minutes the doorway of my office was packed with people gathering to watch.

Watching Chester carry on like this, so shameless nothing could touch him, I was speechless.

I honestly couldn't get my head around ithow a man pushing forty could roll around on the floor throwing a fit like some shrieking harpy without a flicker of shame.

I let out a long sigh, pulled the phone straight out of my pocket, and dialed 911.

"Hello, is this 911? This is Office 302 in the surgery building of Elmwood City General Hospital. Someone is causing a disturbance and disrupting the normal order of the hospital. Please send someone over."

03

The moment I finished speaking, the whole room went dead silent.

Even Chester, who'd been rolling around on the floor throwing his fit, froze, forgetting to cry.

He shot up off the floor and jabbed a finger at my face. "Scarlett! Are you insane? You actually called the cops on me? I'm your own brother!"

I set down my phone and swept a flat look over him. "Oh, now you remember you're my brother? You didn't think about that when you threw a cup at me. Didn't think about it when you were making a scene, either."

The crowd at the door had watched me call 911 without hesitation, not a trace of guilt on my face, and started murmuring at once.

"That girl doesn't look cold-blooded to me. If anything, the brother's the one acting unreasonable. Maybe there's some misunderstanding here?"

"Yeah, I think so too. One look at that brother and you can tell he's no good."

"I know that doctor. She operated on my mother last week. She's a really good person, no way she'd abandon her own mom!"

Every word landed on Chester's face like a slap.

His color went from white to gray and back, but he still dug in, insisting, "Don't listen to her nonsense! She's exactly that cold-blooded! Our mom broke her back to put her through school, and what does she do? The second she makes it big, she cuts our mom off. Won't even pay the surgery bill. If that's not cold-blooded, what is it?"

"Hold on." I cut him off, my voice low but pitched just right so everyone at the door could hear it.

"You say Mom broke her back to put me through school? Then let me ask you: my senior year of high school, who paid my tuition? My college tuition and living costs, who covered those? If you can produce one shred of proof today that our mom gave me so much as a dollar toward college, I'll pay the whole surgery bill myself. But if you can't, when the cops get here, I'm adding a defamation charge on top of everything else!"

The moment I finished, Chester's face flushed a deep, ugly red.

His mouth hung open, and for a long time nothing came out.

Of course he had nothing.

From the day I turned eighteen, this family never gave me a dime for college tuition, never so much as a grain of rice.

I'll never forget the winter of my freshman year.

To save up tuition, I got a job at a restaurant.

My hands were covered in chilblains from the cold, and I called home to ask my mom for a hundred dollars to buy ointment.

Instead of an ounce of sympathy, she cursed me out. "You worthless girl. No money to treat it, then wait around and die. I never forced you to go to college. Quit bothering me with your garbage problems, you bad-luck brat!" Then she hung up on me with a hard click.

I didn't say any of that in front of the crowd. Too filthy, too degrading.

But Chester understood.

Sweat broke out across his forehead in an instant.

He was genuinely afraid I'd air all our mom's outrageous stunts in public.

He rushed to make excuses. "Mom didn't have any money back then either... You're her daughter, how can you nickel-and-dime her like this..."

"Mom had no money?" I laughed.

I pulled up the photo from my drawer, the one of the bankbook my mom used to hide under her pillow.

I'd stumbled across it the year before college and snapped a picture on impulse.

I held the photo up at the door so everyone could see the number and the date clearly.

"The year I got a near-perfect SAT score and my Ivy League acceptance, I owed eight thousand dollars in tuition. But my mom said the family couldn't afford two kids in college, called me a worthless girl who'd only end up benefiting some outsider, said I had no business going to college at all. If I wanted to study, I'd have to figure it out myself. She forced me to take out student loans. But on move-in day I found out the old house had been cleared for redevelopment ages ago, and the relocation compensation came to a hundred and eighty thousand dollars! Chester, you say Mom had no money then? Then let me ask you: whose broke family has a hundred and eighty grand sitting in their bankbook?"

The moment I finished, the crowd exploded.

Every pointing finger and whisper turned on Chester.

"So that's what really happened. I said Dr. Whitney didn't look like the ungrateful type."

"That's beyond playing favorites. The daughter gets into an Ivy League school and they won't even cover tuition?"

"If you ask me, Dr. Whitney's got a real conscience offering to pay half. If it were me and I had a mom that biased, forget half, I wouldn't put in a single cent!"

"Right, and how does this brother have the nerve to still come demanding money from his sister? What is wrong with the two of them?"

The crowd had Chester red in the face, but he still dug in. "Old folks can give their money to whoever they want. How's that playing favorites... And besides, no matter how wrong a mother is, she's still the one who gave birth to her, isn't she? Doesn't she owe our mom care in her old age?"

"I never said I wouldn't take care of Mom. Don't stand here changing the subject." I put my phone away, my voice cold as ice.

"The law says children share the duty of caring for a parent. I agree with that, which is exactly why I offered for us to split the surgery bill fifty-fifty. But you coming into my office today, smashing my things, and trying to trash my reputation, that you owe me an explanation for!"

The second Chester saw I was serious, he panicked.

What he'd pulled today wasn't huge, but it wasn't nothing either.

If I really pressed it and turned him in, he'd get a record.

And then how would his son ever land a government job.

He lunged over, begging. "Scarlett! I was wrong, I really was wrong. Don't let the cops take me away, okay? I... I'll go scrape the money together right now, all right?"

I stood where I was and looked at the sorry sight of him, letting out a helpless sigh.

"Fine. I'll let you off this once. But if there's a next time, don't expect me to show you any mercy."

Seeing that I'd agreed, Chester sagged with relief.

He waved his hands over and over. "Okay, okay, thank you, Scarlett... Don't worry, there won't be a next time, I promise." And then he fled my office like his life depended on it.

04

The moment Chester left, the little crowd of onlookers scattered too.

I shut the door and looked at the broken shards of porcelain all over the floor,

and it left a tangle of feelings in me.

The truth was, I wasn't as cold-blooded as I made myself out to be.

It was just that over all these years, I'd learned to hide my soft heart away.

Otherwise they'd have picked me clean long ago, down to the bone.

Just then, my phone suddenly rang.

It was my mother-in-law.

I hit answer without a second thought.

A moment later her gentle voice came through: "Nia, sweetheart, off work yet? I made your favorite braised pot roast. What time will you be home?"

Warmth spread through me, and my voice softened. "Mom, I just finished up here. I'll be home soon."

"Good. Drive safe. I'm heading out in a bit, so if the food's gone cold, remember to have Des heat it up for you."

"Okay... thank you, Mom."

When I hung up, my eyes suddenly stung with tears.

Back when I married Desmond Henson, my mother didn't give me a single cent as a dowry.

She said a married daughter was water poured out, and I shouldn't count on Whitney money to help an outsider.

I'd expected Desmond's parents to look down on me, maybe even try to stop the marriage.

But once they heard what I'd been through, they said right then that they didn't want any dowry at all.

They even worried I might feel some kind of way about it, so they gave me an eight-hundred-thousand-dollar wedding gift on their own.

And in all our years married, my mother-in-law has treated me like her own daughter.

Sometimes I even wonder whether I'm her daughter or my own mother's.

But it's thanks to her and the rest of them.

They gave me the backbone to stand up to that mother and son.

Otherwise...

I'd probably still be living down in the Whitney mud, afraid to lift my head.

Afterward, I swept up the broken porcelain in the office, changed into my street clothes, and left for the day.

But the second I stepped off the elevator, I saw my brother crouched at the end of the hallway.

The calm I'd just gotten back sank right down again.

Seeing me come out, Chester scrambled to his feet.

He said, all fawning, "Nia, you're off? Look, I was wrong before, I shouldn't have flown off the handle, don't be mad at me over it... I already talked it out with your sister-in-law, she chewed me out, and I know I was in the wrong now. Mom's surgery money, I'm willing to pay for it... but... I really can't come up with a hundred and fifty thousand right now. Can you front it for me first? I swear... I'll pay you back a hundred percent this time."

I looked at him, and I couldn't name what I felt.

All these years, he'd always been like this.

As if I was born to pick up his tab.

"I can lend it to you." I looked at him.

"But you have to sign an IOU, with interest at the bank rate. Agree to that, and I'll lend you the money."

When he heard me ask for interest, the smile froze on Chester's face.

"Nia, we're brother and sister by blood, what's this about interest? Don't you think you're going a little too far..."

"Haven't you heard the saying? Even blood siblings keep the accounts straight." I gave him a flat, expressionless look.

"This money didn't fall out of the sky. I earned it one surgery at a time, standing on my feet. I pay interest even when I borrow from my in-laws, so why would I not charge you? Agree, and I'll go arrange Mom's surgery. Don't agree, then keep dragging it out. Whatever happens to Mom, the responsibility isn't on me anymore. It's on you, the son who couldn't come up with the money."

Chester saw I'd really set my mind on it this time, and knew no amount of playing pitiful would work.

On top of that, once Mom's life was saved, he could go on living off her pension every month.

So he gritted his teeth and said, "Fine! I agree! It's just interest, right? I'll pay it!"

I took out the IOU template I'd prepared ahead of time and held it out to him.

From the moment I learned my mother was in the hospital, I'd known those two would pull exactly this.

So I'd had Desmond draw up the template in advance, then printed it out at a print shop nearby.

Chester's finger was shaking as he pressed his red fingerprint onto it.

As if it wasn't borrowing a hundred and fifty thousand, but carving out half his life.

I put the IOU away and immediately transferred three hundred thousand to the hospital's payment account.

The moment he saw the screenshot, Chester finally let out a breath.

He looked like he wanted to say something more, but I just picked up my bag and walked off.

With a bloodsucker like that, I honestly had no idea what there was left to say.