Daughter Went Shameless for a Man Fine, Scrap Her, Train Another

I poured over a million into raising my daughter, and she landed a coveted spot at a top employer. Then, at the dinner we threw to celebrate, she wiped the dignity off my face with a single line.

I've got a succubus tattooed on my stomach. Feel free to report me, all of you. My future doesn't matter. Taking revenge on the toxic family that raised me, that's what matters.

As she spoke, she started pulling off her shirt, right there in front of everyone.

Her eyes burned with resentment as she accused me and my husband.

"So what if Hilary's got no money and no education? What's actually wrong with him? I want you two to know what it feels like to have something precious of yours destroyed!"

The whole room went dead silent. Every face was turned toward us, watching my husband and me become a joke.

But I was the one who raised my phone first. "Got it. Already sent to your boss."

Only my husband's money and connections kept it from blowing up any further.

And she took the mercy and spat on it. That very night she posted online:

"A succubus tattoo still wasn't enough to get me fired. My family has money and power. What do I have to do to get justice for my first love?"

People in the comments told her to report herself. Others told her to pull something even bigger.

She liked every one of them.

While I sat there aching, my husband came over, worn out.

"Forget it. There's nothing worth being angry about. A girl ready to die over some man, we'll just call raising her a loss."

"If the main account's ruined, she can open a new one. Big deal."

My daughter had stripped down to her underwear.

Under the spotlight, that painted tattoo hit me like an open hand across the face, and the room went dizzy around me.

More than three hundred people filled the hall. Even the servers carrying out dishes had frozen where they stood.

For a beat the whole place was dead quiet, and then it burst.

"Has the Swanson girl lost her mind?"

"Wow. One little strip, and the Swansons just threw away a lifetime of face."

"A daughter they spent millions raising. Well, she's finished now."

They talked while they looked at me.

Waiting to see what I, her own mother, would do after being knifed and shamed in public by my own child.

Some of the looks were subtle, some were open, but every single one carried a smirk.

The face my husband and I had earned over a lifetime was shredded in a single second.

Someone pulled out a phone to film it. I forced the surge of feeling back down, went up onto the stage, and draped a jacket over her.

I was furious, but my voice stayed soft. "Elena Swanson, stop this. Whatever you want to say, we'll say it at home."

Elena tore the jacket off, pointed at the tattoo on her stomach, and screamed at me like she had nothing left to lose.

"Ashamed of me? Good. That's exactly what I wanted."

"As long as it kills you both, I don't care if you put me up on some sleazy site to sell myself!"

"No. Even if you shipped me off to the red-light district and I lost a hundred pregnancies, I'd be happy!"

"From now on I'm not just getting a succubus. I'll get 'safe passage' inked across my lower back. I'll be lower than the cheapest hostess pouring drinks, and I'll do it just to kill you both!"

Foul, vicious words came pouring out of my daughter's mouth.

In that moment, the last trace of color drained clean from my face.

This dinner had been her idea in the first place. She'd made a point of telling me to invite lots of people, the more the better, the livelier the better.

So my husband and I invited everyone, both sides' relatives and friends, our bosses and our staff, everyone we had any dealings with.

In that instant, I wanted to die.

My husband finally couldn't watch anymore. He went up and struck her hard across the face.

"Elena, have you got no shame left at all!"

She held her cheek, the hatred in her eyes too thick to dissolve.

"If you've got the guts, beat me to death right now!"

"You killed my child, you drove away the man I love. I stopped wanting to live a long time ago!"

The moment those words landed, I watched the color leave the face of the most promising young man in my department.

He was the match I'd found for my daughter.

A graduate of a top school, one of the department's key people, and his mother and I were old classmates, so both families knew each other well. Married to him, she'd have been a ten-minute drive from home.

But now, all of it was ruined.

I couldn't even face his mother again.

My husband was shaking with rage, ready to hit her again, and I stopped him.

"It's already come to this. Beating her to death wouldn't change anything."

"She wants to get fired, doesn't she? I'll help her."

I took out my phone, aimed it at my daughter's bare upper body, and shot off more than a dozen pictures, snap after snap.

Then I sent every one of them to her direct supervisor.

My phone was linked to the big screen in the room. Every head turned toward me at once, looking at me the way you'd look at a lunatic.

Elena clearly froze. She'd probably expected me to break down sobbing with regret, or to keel over on the spot from rage.

Ever since that hairstylist boyfriend of hers squeezed two hundred thousand out of me and vanished, she'd lost it more than once.

Slitting her wrist in the bathroom, posting hysterical accusations online.

Reposting every kind of thing about freedom in love, escaping your toxic family, "my parents will only be sorry once I'm dead."

Before, I'd told myself she'd just lost her head for a while, that I only had to steer her back onto the right path.

But now, I just felt tired.

I turned to Elena and handed her everything, the ID and the family records I'd been carrying on me all this time to keep her from sneaking off to get married.

"Mom and Dad were wrong. You're right. Everyone has the right to chase their own happiness."

"From now on, whatever you choose, we won't interfere again."

After I finished speaking, I left the dinner. I'd barely stepped out of the hotel when my vision went black and I collapsed on the curb.

When I came to, I was already in a hospital bed, and my husband was slumped beside me, fast asleep.

His phone was still lit up. I scrolled through it. The dinners he'd lined up to apologize and beg forgiveness on our daughter's behalf ran all the way to the end of the year.

The most recent thing was a video his brother had forwarded.

I tapped in.

"Elena's Great Reborn Edition," twenty thousand followers, pinned video posted at noon.

Title: Going Crazy Is the Only Way Out of a Toxic Family. Long Live the Madness!

It was the whole clip of her losing it at the dinner and stripping, and the top comment was a high-resolution shot of her ID and family records.

The comments were all cheering her on.

"Wish-fulfillment fiction come to life. Turns out losing it really does solve everything!"

"You go, girl. Now you finally get to run your own life!"

"People don't feel the needle until it's in their own skin. One dose of humiliation and boom, out came the ID and the family papers!"

My heart sank to the bottom. I was about to close it out.

Then a new video popped up.

Posted just now. Title: The Sky Went Dark After All.

This time she'd turned the camera straight on herself.

The background was the rooftop of our building. She was sitting on the railing, looking like she might drop off the edge any second.

"I honestly never thought it would blow up this big, and my parents still managed to smooth it all over for me."

"The CEO of a big company is an old contact of my mom's. My offer's still good. My future's bright. I'll never want for anything."

"But this isn't what I want at all! I just want to be with my Hilary. Even if it means living in a basement, eating instant noodles, giving birth in a bathroom, I could get through all of it!"

"I just want to be with the man I love. Why does that have to be so hard!"

She delivered that last line with such despair and grievance that, for a moment, everyone was feeling sorry for her.

"What a suffocating family. Hugs, girl."

"When are parents ever going to learn to respect their kids!"

"If nothing else works, go straight to your mom's workplace and blow up her career. See how smug she is then!"

"Yeah, isn't your dad a business owner? Report his company for tax evasion. While they're tied up dealing with it, just walk out and leave home for good!"

She liked those comments, then replied.

"Thank you, sweet followers, for all the advice. I'll seriously consider and act on every single one."

Reading that, my hands and feet went cold, and I could barely make out the words on the screen.

After a long while, a new comment popped up.

"What kind of freak show is this comment section? It's the twenty-first century and people still think a man matters more than a future? If you actually buy into this nonsense, you'll have plenty to cry about later!"

I opened her profile. Her pinned video was titled How It Ends When You Marry a Broke Nobody Anyway.

I stared at this absurd scene, not sure whether to cry or laugh.

When I first found out my daughter had a hairstylist boyfriend, my first instinct was to go see what kind of man he was.

I quietly tracked down Hilary Cobb and overheard him at a bar, bragging to his buddies.

"If Elena's family didn't have money, who'd put up with a princess like her? Throwing cash around every chance she gets, never once thinking about her man. Sometimes I really want to smack her one."

I stormed in, and Hilary didn't even flinch. He had the look of a man who thought he held all the cards.

"Elena's crazy in love with me. Even if you tell her about today, it won't do a thing."

"Give me two hundred thousand and I'll disappear from her life for good."

My thoughts drifted back to the present. I gave a tired twist of my lips. The cautionary example was right there in front of us, and yet Elena wouldn't hear a word of it.

When I returned to the comment section, Elena had already left that person a one-star.

"Just stay out of it, lady, okay? Your life's a mess because you've got nothing going for you. The man I picked is different! Besides, I'm an only child. Even if things get hard down the road, all I have to do is cry a little in front of my parents and they'll cave. You think they'd really just watch me die?"

My eyes fixed on those words, and for a long time I couldn't come back to myself.

Not until my husband's broad hand settled over my shoulder. I looked up and met his eyes, and we saw the exact same heartbreak and exhaustion in each other.

After a long silence, my husband spoke.

"Forget it. There's nothing worth being angry about. A daughter who'd throw her life away over a man, we might as well have raised her for nothing."

"When the main account's wrecked, you just start a new one. It's not that big a deal."

First thing the next morning, my husband and I went to the city fertility and maternity clinic.

The doctor flipped through my test results and glanced up at me.

"Your age isn't in your favor. Natural conception isn't very likely. If you're really in a hurry, IVF is the only real option."

I sat in the chair and said nothing for a long time.

My husband let out a quiet sigh. "Let's think it over some more. Your body can't take much."

The words had barely left him when our daughter called.

Her voice was gentle in a way it rarely was. "Mom, Dad, come out for dinner tonight. Hilary and I got married."

A mouthful of blood seemed to lodge in my throat, and I couldn't get a word out.

I opened my phone. Elena's account had posted a new video.

The title was simple.

The Love of My Life.

In the photo she wore a cheap white dress, and Hilary Cobb wore a rented suit, the two of them standing outside the county clerk's office holding up their marriage certificate.

Elena leaned against his shoulder, smiling wider than the day she'd landed the civil-service fast-track position.

The caption was one line.

"After everything, it's still him I love."

The comments were all congratulations.

"You finally escaped, girl!"

"True love wins. No matter how rich your parents are, they can't stop you from running toward happiness."

"With looks like Hilary's, he really beats any of those safe office-job guys."

My husband was frowning at the screen beside me, waving a hand at me. "We're not going."

But she was still the daughter I'd raised with my own hands.

Even with my heart gone cold, I wanted to see just how far she'd take this.

"Send me the address."

Elena had booked a hot pot place.

The private room was small, a divided pot of red chili oil sitting on the table, the smell of chili and beef tallow shoving up my nose. My stomach turned over.

I only pressed a napkin to the corner of my mouth, and Elena's face had already darkened.

"Mom, what's that supposed to mean?"

She set her chopsticks down on the table.

"Hilary's my husband now. Can you not put on that face the second you walk in? Is it that he's poor, that this place isn't good enough for you, or that me marrying him is an embarrassment?"

Hilary Cobb sat beside her, hair slicked and shiny, some watch on his wrist you couldn't place the brand of.

He poured two cups of tea, smiling all politeness.

"Ma'am, don't be angry with Elena. She just cares too much what you two think."

I almost laughed out loud.

Coming from his mouth, that was really something.

The man who'd taken two hundred thousand and run was him.

And now he'd flipped himself into the one who'd been wronged most.

My husband didn't take his tea.

"Say what you came to say. Stop dancing around it."

Elena pouted, dragging it out for a long while, and finally spoke.

"You kept Hilary and me apart for three months. It hurt his shop's business. You owe him compensation."

My husband looked at her. "Compensation for what?"

"A car, obviously." Elena said it like it was the plainest thing in the world.

"A BMW's fine, doesn't have to be too pricey. It'd make it easier for Hilary to drive me around. And once I start at the office, you don't expect me to keep taking the subway, do you?"

I let out a cold laugh. "You two got married. Why on earth should we buy the car?"

"Because you're the ones who split us up first!"

Elena raised her voice.

"If you hadn't forced Hilary to leave, we'd have been married long ago. Why would it have dragged out this long? And besides, I'm your only daughter. If you're not leaving your money to me one day, who's left to leave it to?"

By the time she got there, there was even a trace of smugness on her face.

"Treat Hilary a little better now, and when I'm in a good mood later, I might take a little better care of you two in your old age."

"The company, the house, the savings. Give it early or give it late, isn't it all the same?"

The steam in the room made the air thick and hard to breathe.

My husband stared at her, his hands shaking badly.

He'd worked hard half his life, from a truck driver at the start to slowly building the company up, and in the worst of it he hadn't dared so much as get sick.

Elena had never once asked how any of that money had come to us.

She simply took it as hers by right.

The meal broke up on bad terms.

In the car, I looked at my husband, who'd gone gray in just these few days.

"Let's do the IVF. We can't throw away the rest of our lives for her."

That night, the property manager called me.

"Mrs. Swanson, we've found a buyer for your daughter's place on the East Side. The contract signing is tomorrow at ten thirty."

My mind stalled for a couple of seconds. Then I remembered how, five years ago, she'd complained she couldn't stand living in the college dorms.

My husband had bought her a place nearby, paid in full.

That home was the safety net we'd left for her, and now she was cutting it away herself.

"The house is hers. If she wants to sell it, let her."

After the call ended, another message flashed up on my phone, this one from the bank.

The retirement fund in Elena Swanson's name. An early-redemption request.

A few days later, the jewelry store called me.

She'd taken the pieces I'd given her over the years and sold them back.

The diamond necklace from her eighteenth birthday. The jade bangle I'd had specially made when she finished her master's. The pearl earrings I'd put together for her when she signed on at her job.

All of it, cashed out clean.

My husband asked whether we should freeze the accounts, get a lawyer involved.

I shook my head. "She has to taste it for herself. What life is really like with no money."

Elena's video channel kept getting busier.

She'd renamed the account "Elena's Married Life."

One day it was a buffet at a five-star hotel, the next it was Hilary Cobb driving her out of town in a rented luxury car.

On camera she wore a newly bought dress, held up a champagne glass, and smiled at Hilary.

"My husband says now that we're married, my only job is to be happy. He handles the money."

Someone in the comments asked, "Isn't your husband a hairstylist? How'd he suddenly get rich?"

Elena replied fast.

"Some men live off their degrees, some live off their talent. My husband is the second kind."

I scrolled down and saw that the blogger, the one who ran the "how it ends when you insist on marrying a broke guy" content, had left another comment.

"The dignity you're propping him up with by selling your house and your funds, that's not him having talent. A man who really loved you wouldn't be in such a hurry to empty out everything you have."

Elena wrote back a whole paragraph.

"You're just jealous that I have a good husband. One look at your page says it all. Dumped by your man, then losing your mind every day telling other people to get divorced. As ugly as you are, you've got the nerve to lecture me on how to live? Your husband didn't want you. You deserve it!"

Below, some people egged her on, and some called her too cruel.

Elena blocked everyone who criticized her and left only the comments praising how great her love was.

I set my phone face-down on the coffee table, picked up the syringe, and gave myself the shot in the belly, the motion practiced now.

Stimulation, egg retrieval, embryo culture, transfer.

Every step was harder than I'd expected.

But I would think back to the things Elena had posted, and grit my teeth and push through.

On the fourteenth day, the doctor said the transfer had worked.

I held the blood-test slip, my fingers trembling.

I didn't tell Elena.

She'd already chosen her life. There was no reason for mine to be reported to her.

Three months into the pregnancy, Hilary showed off a new watch in one of his videos.

Five months in, Elena sold off the second small apartment.

Seven months in, she started complaining that Hilary was coming home later and later.

"Men are busy when they're building a business. Don't read too much into it, ladies."

She smiled through the explanation to the camera, but under her eyes there was a bruised blue that no concealer could cover.

She was still defending that "true love."

Then, the day before I checked into the hospital to deliver, she posted a video in the middle of the night.

The screen was black.

All it caught was her lowered, muffled crying.

"Hilary said he was out picking up stock. He hasn't been home in three days. There's another woman in his phone... You tell me. If a man gets drunk and sleeps with someone else, does that count as cheating?"

But soon enough, she deleted it too.

The next day, I went into the delivery room and gave birth to a boy.

My husband held me and wept with joy.

I rested at the postpartum recovery center for a month. I'd just come home when I ran into Elena, her eyes swollen like rotten peaches.

The moment she saw me, she broke down sobbing.

"Mom, Hilary really did cheat on me."

"The other woman showed up at the door, pregnant. What am I supposed to do?"